Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
This book was creepy and the perfect Halloween read!
It reads like a middle-grade and sucks you right in with its short chapters and overall creepiness. I seriously was intrigued from the very beginning and was honestly creeped out more than once!
I definitely want to read more about this author!
It reads like a middle-grade and sucks you right in with its short chapters and overall creepiness. I seriously was intrigued from the very beginning and was honestly creeped out more than once!
I definitely want to read more about this author!
“All I want is to know whether I’m going to be murdered in my bed tonight. Is that too much to ask?”
YIKES! I did not expect to love this as much as I did! I don’t typically go for horror novels, so thanks to Once Upon a Book Club for getting me out of my comfort zone.
The Ashburn House has been inhabited by the same woman, Edith, for almost one hundred years. When she passes, the House is left to a relative who did not even know Edith existed. Adrienne moves in, and if the writing on the walls isn’t strange enough, even stranger things will happen...
This book was seriously scary. At one point, I was cringing and screaming out loud. It was like a terrifying horror flick come to life. A must read for spooky month! This was my first Darcy Coates read and I’ve already preordered her next release.
YIKES! I did not expect to love this as much as I did! I don’t typically go for horror novels, so thanks to Once Upon a Book Club for getting me out of my comfort zone.
The Ashburn House has been inhabited by the same woman, Edith, for almost one hundred years. When she passes, the House is left to a relative who did not even know Edith existed. Adrienne moves in, and if the writing on the walls isn’t strange enough, even stranger things will happen...
This book was seriously scary. At one point, I was cringing and screaming out loud. It was like a terrifying horror flick come to life. A must read for spooky month! This was my first Darcy Coates read and I’ve already preordered her next release.
This entire goodreads account is about to become a Darcy Coates fan club.
What, like, ya’ll THE MOST satisfying end to a perfectly spooky haunted house read. My creepy house in the woods thirst has finally been quenched.
Highly highly highly recommend this book for October to get you in that spooky mood - also recommend playing a spooky music playlist in the background and lighting a fall leaves candle. Actually you NEED to light a candle for the last 5 chapters cause ✨vibes✨
What, like, ya’ll THE MOST satisfying end to a perfectly spooky haunted house read. My creepy house in the woods thirst has finally been quenched.
Highly highly highly recommend this book for October to get you in that spooky mood - also recommend playing a spooky music playlist in the background and lighting a fall leaves candle. Actually you NEED to light a candle for the last 5 chapters cause ✨vibes✨
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This second horror book I read for Halloween 2019. The first [b:Horrorstör|13129925|Horrorstör|Grady Hendrix|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414314217l/13129925._SX50_.jpg|18306052], also left me unimpressed. Maybe horror books are like horror movies? Fans are uncritical and the quality bar is extremely low?
The backbone of the story is competent (damning with faint praise?) and, while some reviewers hated it, I actually thought she did a decent job of subverting expectations with the "ghost". One problem with horror is that when you re-used well-established monsters they aren't scary. Everyone knows what they are, what they do, what their weaknesses are, etc, etc. When you can apply a label to something it automatically loses some of its power. Coates does a decent job of creating a monster. There's a good scene late in the book where the protagonist is running through her options and realizes she has no idea what the monster's limits are. Is it afraid of sunlight? Sleeps during the day? Never leaves the forest? This isn't something with widely understood "rules", which I kinda liked.
But that's about the only thing saving this book from being 1-star. There are no characters with any real depth. Since this is a horror story, I'm not even going to complain about some of stupid things the protagonist does (she doesn't even use Google Maps to see where the house is before moving there!?). Instead I'm going to focus on two things that really got to me.
Early in the book there are several scenes where the protagonist does something that just seems....do people actually ever do that? Not even in a "characters in horror stories do stupid things to move the story forward" way but more in a "I don't think normal humans behave like this" way. Does the author have social anxiety and just think that's normal and everyone is like that? I don't get it.
Here's the worst one in the book. Adrienne moved into the house the previous afternoon. The next morning a car pulls into the driveway and stops at the house. This is her first thought
WTF. None of them pleasant? Who thinks this way?!? It turns out to be four women from the village, about the same age as her, just here to welcome her to town. (Obviously. Duh.) They knock on her door and she seriously considers pretending she's not home. Who does that? Is she suffering from a massive undiagnosed case of social anxiety that she never told us about?
Luckily that kind of thing tapers out after the first half of the book. But the book's biggest writing flaw remains to the end. The author's completely nonsensical use of time. Nothing about time in this book makes any sense. The author is has a shtick about sunset and she's in such a rush to advance the timing to sunset that she repeatedly ignores reality. I took probably a dozen notes about things where the timing makes no sense.
Take the events of the third day. Jayne knocks on her door at sunrise ("The sun had risen but not by much.") They have a 5 minute conversation. Then there's 10-15 minutes of searching in the forest. Jayne drives back to town (a 20 minute drive). A short while later (what? an hour max?) a police shows up and briefly interviews her. And then BAM! "Adrienne rested her back against the door and closed her eyes. It was early afternoon, based on the shadows, and she felt exhausted." Early afternoon! She woke up at sunrise. Let's be generous and call that 8am. All those events took 2 hours maximum. Where did the other 4 hours go? Then she makes a cup on instant noodles and suddenly it is 3pm! She walks a few minutes into the forest and suddenly the sun is setting. Even though we know from later in the book the sun doesn't set until at least 6pm. ("It was a little after four, which meant she had a few hours until sundown.")
This weird abuse of time happens over and over again. It takes Adrienne an entire hour to hang up four mirrors (one of which simply sits on the mantel). It takes Adrienne an entire hour to go through her house and make sure no one has broken in. Adrienne is constantly being caught outside at sunset, despite her being painfully aware of how bad that is. She's walking home -- which takes 15 minutes -- and no only does the sun set but it becomes pitch dark and a full moon is the only light. She find a note from her dead great-aunt but doesn't read the second page.
Seriously: this is a character with literally no money ($20 at the start), no friends, no phone, no internet. And over the course of five or six days she....does what exactly?!? She herself recognizes how ridiculous this is:
You think she'd be desperately working, looking for work, checking her bank account, cleaning the house she just moved into....something. Instead the author essentially skips all that time every day to get us back to sunset so the horror story part of the book can make its next move.
The backbone of the story is competent (damning with faint praise?) and, while some reviewers hated it, I actually thought she did a decent job of subverting expectations with the "ghost". One problem with horror is that when you re-used well-established monsters they aren't scary. Everyone knows what they are, what they do, what their weaknesses are, etc, etc. When you can apply a label to something it automatically loses some of its power. Coates does a decent job of creating a monster. There's a good scene late in the book where the protagonist is running through her options and realizes she has no idea what the monster's limits are. Is it afraid of sunlight? Sleeps during the day? Never leaves the forest? This isn't something with widely understood "rules", which I kinda liked.
But that's about the only thing saving this book from being 1-star. There are no characters with any real depth. Since this is a horror story, I'm not even going to complain about some of stupid things the protagonist does (she doesn't even use Google Maps to see where the house is before moving there!?). Instead I'm going to focus on two things that really got to me.
Early in the book there are several scenes where the protagonist does something that just seems....do people actually ever do that? Not even in a "characters in horror stories do stupid things to move the story forward" way but more in a "I don't think normal humans behave like this" way. Does the author have social anxiety and just think that's normal and everyone is like that? I don't get it.
Here's the worst one in the book. Adrienne moved into the house the previous afternoon. The next morning a car pulls into the driveway and stops at the house. This is her first thought
A lot of possibilities ran through her mind, none of them pleasant. She pictured one of Edith’s friends or relatives becoming enraged that the house had been left to a stranger rather than them. Or someone who thought she didn’t deserve the property and had come to vandalise it in retaliation. Or thieves, knowing she would be alone and sensing easy prey…
WTF. None of them pleasant? Who thinks this way?!? It turns out to be four women from the village, about the same age as her, just here to welcome her to town. (Obviously. Duh.) They knock on her door and she seriously considers pretending she's not home. Who does that? Is she suffering from a massive undiagnosed case of social anxiety that she never told us about?
Adrienne kept still, frozen in indecision. Let them in or turn them away? Risk humiliation or face isolation?
“Hello?” The woman one who’d told Sarah she could stay in the car spoke loudly enough that it would be heard throughout the building. “Sorry for dropping by uninvited, but we wanted to welcome you to Ipson.”
Adrienne crossed her arms over her chest and kept quiet. Her heart thumped against her ribs like a trapped bird as her mind continued to play tug of war over whether or not to answer.
Luckily that kind of thing tapers out after the first half of the book. But the book's biggest writing flaw remains to the end. The author's completely nonsensical use of time. Nothing about time in this book makes any sense. The author is has a shtick about sunset and she's in such a rush to advance the timing to sunset that she repeatedly ignores reality. I took probably a dozen notes about things where the timing makes no sense.
Take the events of the third day. Jayne knocks on her door at sunrise ("The sun had risen but not by much.") They have a 5 minute conversation. Then there's 10-15 minutes of searching in the forest. Jayne drives back to town (a 20 minute drive). A short while later (what? an hour max?) a police shows up and briefly interviews her. And then BAM! "Adrienne rested her back against the door and closed her eyes. It was early afternoon, based on the shadows, and she felt exhausted." Early afternoon! She woke up at sunrise. Let's be generous and call that 8am. All those events took 2 hours maximum. Where did the other 4 hours go? Then she makes a cup on instant noodles and suddenly it is 3pm! She walks a few minutes into the forest and suddenly the sun is setting. Even though we know from later in the book the sun doesn't set until at least 6pm. ("It was a little after four, which meant she had a few hours until sundown.")
This weird abuse of time happens over and over again. It takes Adrienne an entire hour to hang up four mirrors (one of which simply sits on the mantel). It takes Adrienne an entire hour to go through her house and make sure no one has broken in. Adrienne is constantly being caught outside at sunset, despite her being painfully aware of how bad that is. She's walking home -- which takes 15 minutes -- and no only does the sun set but it becomes pitch dark and a full moon is the only light. She find a note from her dead great-aunt but doesn't read the second page.
There was a second page, but Adrienne felt too sick to read it.
Seriously: this is a character with literally no money ($20 at the start), no friends, no phone, no internet. And over the course of five or six days she....does what exactly?!? She herself recognizes how ridiculous this is:
It was her fourth day in Ashburn, and she was starting to feel guilty about how little she’d accomplished.
You think she'd be desperately working, looking for work, checking her bank account, cleaning the house she just moved into....something. Instead the author essentially skips all that time every day to get us back to sunset so the horror story part of the book can make its next move.
hopeful
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
pretty slow-paced but still kept my interest enough to keep reading. doesn't really pick up until the very end though, so most of the book is mainly atmospheric horror elements with not a whole lot going on until everything is revealed in the last few chapters. bit more of a lighter horror/mystery read. overall, i did like the story, but felt it was a little too slow for me!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Animal cruelty
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The story was just okay for me. There where however, a few inconsistencies. First indication that this may not be the best edited book - the spelling of tyres, boot for trunk of car and then says - carting across the state - ummm, no states in Britain and here in the US we say trunk and use tires on our vehicles. Pace is very, very slow; made even more so by the minutiae of daily tasks spelled out in detail. A good idea just needs better writing/editing, most importantly to include some scary parts.
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated