Title: House of Ash and Bone
Author: Joel A. Sutherland
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Horror
Publisher: Tundra Books
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback arc
Release Date: September 5, 2023
Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
The Haunted meets House of Salt and Sorrows in this young adult debut horror by acclaimed Canadian master of the macabre Joel A. Sutherland.
Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger is a talented writer with special abilities she doesn’t fully understand. Over the years she has developed methods to cope with the voices she hears in her head, but the old house her family has inherited in Vermont makes Josephine question what’s real and what’s not more than anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s filled with shadows, and whispers, and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Josephine then catches her first glimpse of a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, an impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them — then consume them — in order to rise from the grave and live again . . .
Review:
Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger has always had to find methods to cope with the voices she can hear in her head. She wears headphones to block out the thoughts of her parents and sisters. When her father suddenly inherits a mansion in Vermont, the family goes there for a weeklong vacation after Christmas. The house is filled with everything her family needs and loves. However, Josephine catches sight of a shadow woman with a creepy smile and hollow pits for eyes. No one else can see the woman and her family keeps forgetting the strange things that happen in the house. The woman needs to trap Josephine’s family in the house to feed herself, unless Josephine can defeat her first.
It’s been years since I read a book that was so scary I couldn’t read it before sleeping at night, but this was one of those books. It was creepy and disturbing. Sometimes a good horror book can fizzle out at the end and not have a complete ending. This story had a satisfying ending that also left the possibility for a sequel.
House of Ash and Bone is a creepy YA horror!
Thank you Tundra Books and Penguin Teen Canada for providing a copy of this book!
Content warnings: body horror, death
Have you read House of Ash and Bone? What did you think of it?
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