A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
Horror/Dark Fantasy
3/28/2023 by Tor Nightfire
ARC
As much as I love this author’s fantasy romances, I simply adore her horror stories. This is a tale of a woman, an archeologist, specializing in old bugs, who goes home on a break from work and notices something odd going on with her mom and the house she lives in.
The weirdness starts immediately, almost as soon as Sam steps out of her car and onto the property in rural North Carolina. There are vultures perched outside… in fact there are vultures everywhere. And her warm, slightly sarcastic mother seems to have changed. The house is also undergoing a change, the vibrant walls are back to the plain ecru, the painting above the fireplace has been replaced with an old, racist relic, and the house itself feels heavy and weird. And the roses? What the hell is going on with the roses?
This story kind of plods along, slowly revealing the horror that Sam’s mother has been living with. From the plethora of vultures to the weird dreams Sam is having, and the introduction of a family history she only begins to learn about as she rambles around the house, this author lays out the players in this mystery piece by piece until the big climax and resolution.
The dialogue is at times lighthearted and fun, even as I was on the edge of my seat I actually laughed a few times at certain snappy comebacks, and the characters are well-drawn. In each of her stories, the characters are so relatable and easy to connect with, which makes their predicaments that much more fraught with tension. I think fans of this genre or author will immediately fall into this story and not come up until the last word on the last page.
This is another great read by T. Kingfisher. Highly recommend.
Grade- A-
The Spite House by Johnny Compton
Horror/Paranormal/Dark Fantasy
2/7/2023 by Tor Nightfire
ARC
A father on the run with his two daughters, looking for work and stability for his girls. A mysterious job offer, made by an eclectic old woman who wants to know the secrets of an old spite house on her land.
Eric Ross and his two daughters, eighteen-year-old Dess and seven-year-old Stacey, are making their way across the country, evading authorities and staying under the radar. When Eric spies a job offer for a caretaker of a house with known paranormal activity, he only sees dollar signs and the ability to secure a future for his family. But when they arrive in Degener, Texas, and meet the owner of the property he starts to question the wisdom of bringing his daughters to such a frightening place.
I’m a sucker for a creepy cover and title. Johnny Compton is a new to me author, but I didn’t hesitate to click that request button after reading the blurb and seeing this cover. I’ve read plenty of haunted house-based horror novels, but not one where the house in question was a spite house. There are quite a few POV shifts as the story progresses from introducing Eric and his daughters, then moving to the owner of the spite house and her family’s history, and eventually onto the previous occupants of Masson House.
There are a lot of plot threads to untangle and tie up by the end. There is a tragic, dark history to the house that Eric experiences firsthand through dreams of the original owner. But he has his own reasons for seeking information about its past and how that intersects with his own family history and what sent him, Dess, and Stacey on the run.
All in all, a creepy, scary good time. I look forward to checking out this author’s backlist.
Grade- B
Leave a Reply