The House ~ A Review

The House, the debut full-length novel by Eden Darry, is an exciting and polished paranormal thriller. I am very impressed with Ms. Darry’s writing.

This is a dual thriller. You have the psychopath who attacks one of the main characters (Sadie) at the beginning of the book and is obsessed with raping and killing her throughout the story. Then the paranormal, possible haunted house enters the plot when the family moves out of their London home into an old house in the countryside. Ms. Darry did an excellent job weaving these two different types of thrillers into one tale.

I am also impressed at the way the author created the tension and mood of the story. The very beginning starts with a normal family going through an ordinary day. Then the jolt of the attack on Sadie signals a beginning of the mood change. As you keep reading, you will notice how each act adds to that change both in the mood of the story and to the characters themselves.

This is not a romance, but you do have an established married couple with two children, and their relationship is an integral part of the plot. I loved how well the characters are developed in the book, and how the author shows the changes they go through as the story develops.  I can’t give you more information here without revealing too much of the plot, but I feel that Ms. Darry did a brilliant job with the character development throughout the novel, both with the main characters and the secondary ones.

This is an excellent first novel by Ms. Darry, and I look forward to reading more from her. The cover was as attention-grabbing as the writing, and really made the book stand out. Get a copy for yourself here…but you might not want to read it after dark.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.