The 52 Book Club 2022 Challenge Prompt: 42. An indie read

Other Possible Prompts: 17. A book picked based on its spine, 23. Author with an X, Y, or Z in their name

This is my very first Darcy Coates novel and I have to say, I’m more impressed than I thought I would be! I’ve been reluctant to pick up Coates in the past because the cover art looked rather amateurish, or it just didn’t have the hype around it to make me think it was a good novel…and while this didn’t blow me away, it was a fun read and I will definitely pick up some more.

After the previous family residing at Marwick House leaves their home in the middle of the night to gunshots and never returns, Jo decides that the house next door really must be haunted. Months later, young and hopeful Anna moves in, fleeing a bad past and determined to make a go of it in spite of the home’s history. Despite Jo’s reluctance to be near Marwick House, she becomes fast friends with Anna and spends more and more time inside the Marwick residence…and it quickly becomes clear something isn’t right with it.

Through creepy encounters, mediums, and history lessons from their neighbors, Jo and Anna unearth the disturbing history of the Marwick House and the ghost that resides within it.

There really is nothing special about this book exactly, but I love that it reads like a good horror movie. Blumhouse could buy up a Coates’ novel and just hand them to their directors, honestly. As a fan of horror in both its literary and film forms, I was totally down for this. If this is what Coates’ other novels are like, I can see the draw and the appeal. I’ve seen plenty of them in bookstores, I just didn’t realize they were actually good…I like the cover art of this one okay, but I don’t recall caring for the others, so I never picked them up. I’ve just never been very interested in reading one, but I was at Book Warehouse recently and it was only five dollars, soooo…worth a shot!

I also wasn’t terribly attached to the characters, which I suppose is a good thing for a horror book. You never know who won’t make it to the end alive. However, I could visually imagine them, as well as the setting of the story, very easily. I think that was more important for the atmospheric horror that Coates was creating. The story never leaves the neighborhood, and so you have this feeling of being trapped in the presence of the house and its inhabitant, just like the characters, who tend be so blank-slate that you can step in and be part of the story very easily. The characters were flat but I think in this case, that’s totally fine. The history of the haunting and the ghost herself were very well fleshed out and didn’t detract from my enjoyment.

I don’t have tons to say about this one. It’s an easy 230 pages, and if I had actually had time to read this week, I could’ve finished it in an afternoon. It’s very quick. I definitely think I will try another Darcy Coates based on this book; the premise of this one wasn’t even my favorite so I think there’s potential to enjoy another one more. Any recommendations from people who have read more?

Have an awesome weekend!