419 pages
English language
Published Nov. 13, 2022 by Penguin Publishing Group.
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.
But some houses don’t want to be sold, …
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.
But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…
Ok it's been some time now since I finished this. Uhm.... I thought the beginning was pretty slow, then halfway through it got scary in a way that I liked, and then later... it was just the characters getting hurt more and more and I disengaged emotionally.
Good clean fun. The main characters are mildly insufferable and there are a few beats where they make egregiously silly choices that happens to suit the plot, but the slow escalation of horror mixed with plausible family conflict is a solid mix.
This is probably the scariest book I've read so far in my current journey into horror fiction. I'd good and I'm sure I'll be back for some more G. Hendrix at some point.
