The House That Horror Built

Single mom Harry Adams has always loved horror movies, so when she’s offered a job cleaning for revered horror director Javier Castillo, she leaps at the chance. His forbidding Chicago mansion, Bright Horses, is filled from top to bottom with terrifying props and costumes, as well as glittering awards from his decades-long career making films that thrilled audiences and dominated the box office—until family tragedy and scandal forced him to vanish from the industry.

Javier values discretion, so Harry tries to clean the house immaculately and keep her head down—she needs the money from this job to support her son. But then she starts hearing noises from behind a locked door. Noises that sound remarkably like a human voice calling for help, though Javier lives alone and never has visitors. Harry knows that not asking questions is a vital part of keeping her job, but she soon finds that the house—and her enigmatic boss—have secrets she can’t ignore…

I was hoping to get more out of this book, and you could kind of figure out where the story was leading and yes, it was true, but it was wrapped up too quickly. And no, the house was not built of horror, or the money from horror, it had already been built and he just moved in.

There was also an inconsistency in the storyline. On page 18 of my edition, the author made the point of talking about Harry, who’s cleaning the house of the horror director, has to wear a mask, gloves and slippers while in the house and cleaning it. She hates the feel of the gloves and can’t wait to take them off when she leaves. But, on page 190, when she’s cleaning the bedroom after his visitor “jumped” to her death out the window, she wonders why the police haven’t contacted her to eliminate her fingerprints.

What fingerprints? You wear gloves, you don’t leave fingerprints in the house. And the death was the same night as her first dinner with the director and his two guests, but she didn’t go into the bedroom, so, why would her fingerprints be in the bedroom? They wouldn’t.

And what did Harry do for a job, and clothes, and a place to stay at the end? She had no money, was scraping by, could barely afford to raise her son and send him to school, had been kicked out of her apartment and had nowhere to live. She also didn’t bother tracking down her son’s father to get money for the care of his son. Apparently, she was too good for it. Except her son should come first.

The book ended. Not so much on a cliffhanger, but what Harry was going to do for a job, a home, and money, I would have liked to know.

I gave this book 7/10. Not as horror as I thought it would be.

Near The Bone

Mattie can’t remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they’re not alone after all.

There’s something in the woods that wasn’t there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws.

When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.

And interesting story about a paedophile stealing an eight-year-old girl and keeping her for his wife after murdering her mother who he was dating, three college students who don’t do as they’re told and two end up dead, and a young woman who is slowly remembering who she really is. Oh, and there’s a yeti, big foot, sasquatch type cryptid living on the mountain with its baby. Which is why it’s killing all the animals and the humans. It does allow Mattie and CP, one of the college students who has lost a hand, to leave though.

The only thing I hated about this was the abusive cunt of a paedophile, why she accepted her fate and took his beatings, and the stupidity of the college students. Because stupid gets you killed. And I’m not big on reading books where men beat women. That was a turn off and I was like, kill the cunt already! But it was an interesting cryptid story.

I gave this 7/10.

The Ghost Tree

Lauren and Miranda have been best friends forever. Every day one would say, “Meet me by the old ghost-tree” and they would have adventures together. But now Miranda only likes boys, and Lauren’s father was found in the woods with his heart torn out, and no one was ever caught. So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging human remains through the woods, she knows she can’t just do nothing.

Ooohhh, this book. Long and sad. It turns out, the town of Smiths Hollow was cursed by witches, many a year ago. And all teen girls of the townsfolk would die at some point. One girl a year, as punishment for the death of the daughter and granddaughter of the town’s witches.

But no one remembers the girls. No one remembers they’re missing.

Until…

Until two out-of-town girls are found dead, dismembered in someone’s backyard.

And then they all start remembering…one by one…until, Lauren, a fourteen year-old girl, finally stops the beast and the curse, losing her best friend in the melee.

I gave this 8/10 because of death, and lots of it, even though the story mentions Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden (more than once), Jackie Collins (more than once), and Stephen King.

The Place Where They Buried Your Heart

On an otherwise ordinary street in Chicago, there is a house. An abandoned house where, once upon a time, terrible things happened. The children who live on this block are told by their parents to stay away from that house. But of course, children don’t listen. Children think it’s fun to be scared, to dare each other to go inside.

Jessie Campanelli did what many older sisters do and dared her little brother Paul. But unlike all the other kids who went inside that abandoned house, Paul didn’t return. His two friends, Jake and Richie, said that the house ate Paul. Of course, adults didn’t believe that. Adults never believe what kids say. They thought someone kidnapped Paul, or otherwise hurt him. They thought Paul had disappeared in a way that was ordinary, explainable.

The disappearance of her little brother broke Jessie’s family apart in ways that would never be repaired. Jessie grew up, had a child of her own, kept living on the same street where the house that ate her brother sat, crouched and waiting. And darkness seemed to spread out from that house, a darkness that was alive—alive and hungry.

HOLY SHIT BALLS!!!!

I think this is her best book out of all them that I’ve read in the last two months. It stuck with me for hours after, even through the night, and I had to go back and re-read passages. I did that with Ghost Tree as well. I’m definitely considering buying it.

Full of twists and turns, gripping your heart, making you cry (death of children), before ripping it out by the veins. A horror story that digs into your soul, makes you tremble, and then makes you wish all of the dead were alive again.

Especially Paul.

Naw. Poor Paul. I wish he had stayed alive at the end just for the sake of the heartbreak and heartache being made a little better.

I gave it 8.75/10. I couldn’t give it a 9, even though I automatically first wrote that. It’s just not quite there, and then there’s death that knocks a few points off.

Good Girls Don’t Die

Celia wakes up in a house that isn’t hers. She doesn’t recognize her husband or the little girl who claims to be her daughter. She tries to remember who she was before, because she is certain that this life—the little family-run restaurant she owns, the gossipy small town she lives in—is not her own.

Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip—but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. The cabin looks recently assembled and there are no animals or other life anywhere in the forest. Nothing about the place seems right. Then, in the middle of the night, someone bangs on the cabin door…

Maggie, along with twelve other women, wakes up in a shipping container with the number three stamped on the back of her T-shirt. If she wants to see her daughter Paige again, Maggie must complete The Maze—a deadly high-stakes obstacle course.

Three women. Three stories. Only one way out…

I only read the first two stories because I knew where they were going. The ending. Turns out, these women were kidnapped by a psycho billionaire tech shithead and taken to his private island for fun and games. They weren’t meant to survive because women aren’t as strong or fit as men. But this little pip-squeak was so utterly ignorant of women, I guess he’d be called an incel these days, he’d completely forgotten the fact that women get angry at misogynistic cunts.

Four women, from three scenarios, made it out of the game and took his sorry arse along for the ride on their way to freedom. But, like all of Christina’s books, there is never a neatly wrapped ending.

I gave this book 6/10

And that wraps up my three posts about Christina Henry’s books. If you love YA horror, or fairy tale retellings, give them a try. Just not Alice!