The Enemy Held Near

By: Armand Rosamilia, Jay Wilburn

Narrated by: Jack Wallen Jr.

Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Foster and Ruthie Turner tried to save each other, their marriage, and their family. Every house is haunted with the past of the people who live there. When one tries to stay and the other tries to leave, everyone will face the dire consequences of both those choices.

Armand Rosamilia and Jay Wilburn have crafted an emotional haunted house story that cuts deep and true to the realities of trying to make family work. The Enemy Held Near is a haunting which mirrors the struggle of a relationship coming apart. Everyone carries with them the ghosts of their past. Every family carries the baggage of history which always goes deeper than anyone can imagine. Foster and Ruthie must find a way to survive the home they have built for themselves even if they can't do so together. We are all haunted.

©2015 Armand Rosamilia/Jay Wilburn (P)2016 DevilDog Press

Best Ghost story I have read in Years

Would you listen to The Enemy Held Near again? Why?

Yes it is that good, Both the Story and the Narration is out of this world.

What other book might you compare The Enemy Held Near to and why?

None because I hate when people do that. Each book is a labor of love, blood, time, and sweat. to compare it to someone else's work is just plain rude, and it takes away from the Author's hard work .

What does Jack Wallen, Jr. bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He has an amazing grasp of the English language. He speaks clearly and pronounciates very well. His vocal range is amazing.

Any additional comments?

The Enemy held near By Jay Wilburn and Armand Rosamilia was THE best ghost story I have had the pleasure of reading in a very long, long time.
It is a story about the Turner family Foster, his wife Ruthie daughters Maggie & Heather as well as his family’s home, a homage to the generations that have gone before, and still influence the dynamics of daily family life.
Things were ok for a while, yet Ruthie never felt like she belonged there and the manifestations and interferences has left Ruthie wanting to take her family and flee that wretched house and the souls that meddled in the livings affairs. And flee she would with or without Foster.
Foster and his older girls Heather could see the spirits that dwelled in and around the property, they could interact with them if they so pleased. At times the spirits could temporarily control the living to find a means to their wishes and the outcome the Family of past generations required. Some people were easily controlled, while others would need to be inebriated or otherwise impaired to be processed. The unfortunate victims did not have to be family and nor were all the spirits confined to the house and yard. A few of the victims are as followed. Melinda Goshen Social Worker from Child Services Dept. The foster father of the safe house Frank who was looking after The Walter kids. Xabda her real name was Sylvia Parker and she was one of Ruthie’s nosy
,pill popping, alcohol drinking neighbors in the trailer park. That becomes a bigger part of the story.
One of the more prominent and outgoing ghost is Uncle Duke. Uncle Duke raised Foster after his parents were killed. Sounds like he was a pretty stringent disciplinarian. You go through most of the book wondering if he is a malevolent spirit or if he is trying to protect Foster and his family from the wrath of the others, so he is just trying to head off conflict and help them to keep with the family’s rules.
Armand Rosamilia and Jay Wilburn masterfully orchestrated this collaboration. It reads like an updated “Outter Limits story” with more twist and turns than the beloved show could have ever dreamt of doing . The story line was voluptuous the characters were fascinating and the events were realistic. We have a family struggling with daily life and the supernatural, they love each other and would give their lives for their kids, yet one feels he has to stay and the other can’t stand the thought of staying in that house one more second. No one is right or wrong here. “For every action there is a equal or greater reaction.” Those were the words that played through my mind while reading this book. There is no wrong or right answer, there is only the struggle and action with a consequence, It comes down to what can you live with? Leave or stay you will die eventually the how is the tricky part. Or forsake and denounce your love for the ones you love to hopefully protect them.
Bravo Guy’s! This is an epic story. I urge anyone who likes to peek on the dark side to read it. After reading the book, I had to think of what I wanted to say about it. It was that good!

Compelling Story

If you could sum up The Enemy Held Near in three words, what would they be?

Modern ghost story

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Enemy Held Near?

When the wife "meets" the family

What about Jack Wallen, Jr.’s performance did you like?

Easy to identify each character

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Who do YOU hold near?

Any additional comments?

Is the house haunted? Can an apparition kill? Can the misery of your past force you to see what, and who, is not really there? And what is it about Uncle Duke’s cigar??
The Enemy Held Near is a compelling modern ghost story that follows the Turners, a fatally flawed family as they fight against their world – the real, and the not so real.
Co-authored by Armand Rosamilia and Jay Wilburn, the novel was fun, and scary, and thought-provoking. When reading a co-authored book, I often try to guess who wrote which part, but in The Enemy Held Near, I found it almost impossible to distinguish the authors from each other. A testament, I think, to the professionalism of both Rosamilia and Wilburn.
The narrator’s soft-spoken narration added to the creep factor of the listen, and I’ll look forward to more from both the authors and the narrator.

An enjoyable haunted house story

This is a read for review.

This is the first audiobook I have listened to that is narrated by Jack Wallen Jr. I really enjoyed his narrator style and he has a very easy voice to listen to.

I read loads of Armand's work and thoroughly enjoy it and I have also enjoyed his collaborations with other authors like Shocker with Frank J Edler (such a funny disgusting read). This is the first time I have read anything by Jay Wilburn.

So this is a haunted house story with the family of the ghosts living there. The Turner family house has many generations living there and as most haunted house stories it all starts well but Ruthie who married into the family has always felt out of place to the point of leaving her husband Foster and trying to take her daughters resulting in child services being involved. There are lots of twists and turns and the main spirit is Uncle Duke, is he a nasty guy or does he protect the family from the other ghosts? There is death along the way and old history clarified read the book/listen to the audiobook to found out if anyone survives.