The monitor keeps its rhythm. The ventilator keeps moving. Around Matthew Rix, the operating room carries on as though nothing has happened. So why is he struggling to trust his own eyes?
As its October 25, 2026 release approaches, Excruciating by David M. Ward invites readers into a medical horror mystery built around an unnerving possibility. The person trained to watch for danger may be the only one who seems to notice it. With the debut novel available for preorder, the countdown begins with a question that a reassuring monitor cannot answer.
Matthew is a nurse anesthetist. His working life depends on observation, measured decisions, and the ability to remain focused while another person is unconscious. A patient’s breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure give him information he understands. He knows the equipment beside him. He knows what those readings should mean. That familiarity makes his sudden uncertainty harder to dismiss.
In an early operating room scene, the usual details remain stubbornly ordinary. Colored waves and numbers move across the screen. The anesthesia ventilator continues its cycle. Staff conversation retains its casual tone. Nothing in the equipment announces the fear taking hold of Matthew. The machinery offers its familiar reassurance while his attention stays fixed on something he cannot explain.
The people around him do not share his reaction. Their composure should help. Instead, it leaves him with a private problem inside a room full of witnesses. He must continue doing his job while trying to understand why his experience no longer matches theirs. Explaining himself would mean finding words for something he can barely accept.
Matthew tries a simple test. He pinches the flesh between his thumb and index finger. It hurts. He is awake. The moment is brief, but its consequence is disturbing: waking up cannot provide the escape he wants. The monitor keeps beeping, and the room gives him no clear explanation for what he has seen.
That scene offers a glimpse of the tension awaiting readers in Excruciating. An ordinary procedure can become frightening without everyone recognizing the same threat. Matthew’s professional knowledge remains present, but the evidence around him refuses to settle his fear. Readers are brought close enough to feel his doubt, then left wondering which detail deserves their trust.
Elsewhere in the novel’s opening chapters, darkness carries another unanswered question. A nightmare returns Matthew to a road and the uneasy sense of a presence beyond what he can see. Red and blue lights cut across the road. The thought is chilling in its simplicity: “Something is watching me from the dark.” There is no comforting face attached to that feeling, only the awareness that looking harder may offer little relief.
The nightmare and the operating room leave different kinds of unease. In darkness, Matthew cannot see enough to feel certain. At work, he has equipment, colleagues, and clinical information around him, yet certainty still slips away. The reader follows a man who wants an explanation, while each familiar source of reassurance becomes less useful than it should be.
Matthew also brings personal suffering into this setting. Grief and his troubled relationship with medication complicate the confidence he once depended on. The possibility that his own condition is affecting his perception hangs over these unsettling moments. Recognizing that possibility does not make the experience disappear. It gives him another reason to hesitate before saying what he believes he saw.
This hesitation adds pressure to a profession that demands attention. Patients rely on him during moments they will not remember. His colleagues expect competence. He cannot simply step outside the room whenever his fear becomes difficult to contain. The demands of the case continue, forcing private uncertainty to coexist with responsibilities that remain immediate and real.
For anyone who has ever watched a loved one disappear behind hospital doors, the setting needs little explanation. You wait outside, trusting the people who remain inside. Excruciating turns that familiar dependence toward the clinician who must keep watching. What if his own observations become impossible to share? The patient cannot help him interpret the room. His colleagues see no reason for alarm. Matthew is left with the task of making sense of his fear while the procedure continues around him.
Ward brings professional familiarity to that environment. A retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, he has more than two decades of operating room and trauma care experience. Excruciating is his debut novel. His background gives the clinical setting a foundation in work he knows, with its equipment, routines, and responsibility for vulnerable patients.
The details matter because they allow the unsettling moments to emerge from a recognizable working day. A familiar song continues. The screen remains readable. Conversation goes on. For Matthew, the room’s ordinary behavior makes his isolation more difficult to bear. A reader can picture the scene clearly while remaining uncertain about what, exactly, should be believed.
That is a compelling invitation for readers who enjoy psychological suspense alongside medical horror. The tension asks them to stay with a character whose fear is immediate and whose explanations remain unstable. Following Matthew means noticing his attempts to regain control, then questioning whether those attempts bring him any closer to understanding what is happening.
With October 25 drawing nearer, this glimpse gives readers a reason to keep Excruciating on their reading lists. It offers a hospital setting where the smallest mismatch can become difficult to ignore. A steady sound, a routine exchange, or a glance toward the patient may carry more tension than Matthew is prepared to acknowledge.
The approach of release day also leaves room to ask a more personal question. Would you speak up if everyone around you seemed certain that nothing was wrong? Matthew’s hesitation makes that dilemma uncomfortable. His fear may be private, but the patient in his care makes the consequences of his judgment impossible to ignore.
Readers who encountered our earlier preorder feature can return to it for the release details and an introduction to Ward’s debut. This closer glimpse turns attention toward the experience of being inside Matthew’s uncertainty. There is still time to reserve a copy before October 25, 2026, and approach the opening chapters with the questions intact.
At America Publishers Author Spotlight, we are marking the approaching release with a reminder for horror and thriller readers to look closer. Matthew has familiar readings in front of him and a fear that refuses to settle. When those two things disagree, which one would you trust?
Preorder Excruciating by David M. Ward on Amazon before October 25, 2026, and enter the operating room with Matthew Rix.
Amazon Preorder: Reserve Excruciating before release day
Earlier Feature: Excruciating | Preorder Announcement
Official Author Website: David M. Ward
Author Information: About David M. Ward
Book Information: Excruciating | Official Book Page
Preorder and Release Schedule
| Period / Date | Release Update |
| Before October 25, 2026 | Amazon preorder available |
| October 25, 2026 | Scheduled book release |
