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readysteadynovel 's review for:
The Cold House
by A.G. Slatter
There is a chill that seeps from the very first page of The Cold House, a gothic folk horror that is as much about grief and betrayal as it is about shadows and hauntings. Slatter’s prose winds like ivy around crumbling stone, lush and evocative, creating an atmosphere thick with secrets, lies, and the weight of generations.
What struck me most was the portrayal of grief - raw, layered with guilt, denial, and the impossible contradictions of love and loss. It is, without exaggeration, the most realistic rendering of grief I have ever encountered on the page, and it will resonate deeply with anyone who has ever had to carry the silence of mourning - especially when that silence is complicated by deception.
Woven into this is a feminist reimagining of the familiar tale: the isolated house, the author retreating into solitude, the whisper of the supernatural. Instead of well worn tropes, we find something empowered, something that interrogates legacy and the burdens we inherit from family, bloodlines, and the past.
This is not just a ghost story - it is a story of love and responsibility, of what truths we choose to bury and which ones we dare to unearth, of what we owe the dead, the living, and most of all ourselves. Haunting and gripping, The Cold House lingers like a chill in the bones on a frosty winter's night.
My thanks to Titan Books for the arc
What struck me most was the portrayal of grief - raw, layered with guilt, denial, and the impossible contradictions of love and loss. It is, without exaggeration, the most realistic rendering of grief I have ever encountered on the page, and it will resonate deeply with anyone who has ever had to carry the silence of mourning - especially when that silence is complicated by deception.
Woven into this is a feminist reimagining of the familiar tale: the isolated house, the author retreating into solitude, the whisper of the supernatural. Instead of well worn tropes, we find something empowered, something that interrogates legacy and the burdens we inherit from family, bloodlines, and the past.
This is not just a ghost story - it is a story of love and responsibility, of what truths we choose to bury and which ones we dare to unearth, of what we owe the dead, the living, and most of all ourselves. Haunting and gripping, The Cold House lingers like a chill in the bones on a frosty winter's night.
My thanks to Titan Books for the arc