Well, this is quite possibly the strangest thing I’ve read in awhile.

Called back by her dying mother to return to her childhood home, Vera Crowder heads home after more than ten years apart from the house her father was arrested in for serial killings.

Once she arrives, however, it’s clear there will be no somber reunion with her mother, Daphne. She is incredibly close to death, and Vera is merely here to pack the boxes. The more she takes apart, though, the more she finds that things in the Crowder House are not as they seem. Something is causing a chill in the back of her neck…

The first half of this was honestly one of the scariest things I’ve read in a long, long time. I totally got the creeps, sitting in my car, yelling lots of expletives with every passing page. What I loved so much about it in the first half is that there was clearly something horrible happening, and yet we weren’t naming it or putting a face to it; the terrifying reality of whatever it could be left to the reader’s imagination. I had several guesses…but let me tell you, I was not correct.

But, in the second half, when things are unveiled – also creepy as hell. It takes an especially twisted mind to conjure up something with enough horrifying detail that you can picture it in your mind and you are disturbed. Gailey whole-heartedly achieves that when we learn the true nature of the haunting at Crowder House.

This book is not what I expected it to be, and I bet you like a hundred bucks it won’t be what you expect either. Nothing is as it seems, and Gailey’s imagination ran wilder with this story, characters, and setting than my mind ever could on its own. And I loved it. It was deeply original, creepy af, and still left me haunted to the very end. Like what even?!

I’m not going to remark too much on the characters in this novel, particularly because not a soul is who you think they are. The one character I consistently did not like, and even at the end couldn’t discern the point of, was the “parasitic artist” James Duvall – son of the author who originally wrote about the Crowder family. He’s mostly just a giant pain the entire time, though he does appear to have some small role in the story…you’ll see what I mean. Regardless? Not a fan.

So yeah – big huge fan of this one. Thought it was super weird and super creepy and exactly the vibe we’re looking for right now. Highly recommend!

Have a great weekend!