Welcome To The Dark House is the first book in the Dark House series written by Laurie Faria Stolarz. The series starts with a group of essay contest winners who are awarded an all-expense-paid trip to the Dark House, a house modeled after a horror movie prop.

The main characters sent in an essay to the Nightmare Elf describing their worst fears. The winners are driven to the Nightmare park to be filmed facing their worst nightmares for a new movie. The characters soon realize that something is not quite what it seems when the other winners go missing and the park doors won’t open. Ivy Jensen, the only character who doesn’t go missing, escapes the park and hunts down the police. The police find no trace of anyone and the book series continues in Return To The Dark House. 

I read this book back in 8th grade, and I lent the book to a friend who then lost it. I am still upset that they lost it, and I have been looking for a copy of that book since then. My prayers were answered when my sister found the book series and gifted it to me for Christmas.

Welcome To The Dark House is fast-paced, and the characters have their own unique personalities and quirks. One of the characters would rip chunks of her hair out when she got upset, another character was a horror fanatic, who lived for anything scary. 

I liked how the characters would interact with each other, and they stayed true to their personality even when things started to get scary. I couldn’t put the book down the whole time I was reading it. I wish the book had a bit more background to the characters, because some of the backstories were a little lacking. Overall, I would rate this book 4.5 stars out of 5.