The House by the Cemetery – John Everson

Rumor has it that the abandoned house by the cemetery is haunted by the ghost of a witch. But rumors won’t stop carpenter Mike Kostner from rehabbing the place as a haunted house attraction. Soon he’ll learn that fresh wood and nails can’t keep decades of rumors down.

There are noises in the walls, and fresh blood on the floor: secrets that would be better not to discover. And behind the rumors is a real ghost who will do whatever it takes to ensure the house reopens. She needs people to fill her house on Halloween. There’s a dark, horrible ritual to fulfill. Because while the witch may have been dead… she doesn’t intend to stay that way.

My thanks to Flame Tree Press for my review copy and to Anne Cater at Random Things Blog Tours for the chance to join this tour.

 

Just in time for Halloween we have a new release ideally suited for reading durint the dark autumnal evenings. John Everson’s The House by the Cemetery brings a great mix of chills, witches, ritualistic kills and at the heart of it all a house reputed to be haunted.

The scene is set perfectly from the prologue when we see a group of kids exploring the haunted house under cover of night – their trip is a dare and the house seems to be a haunted property marketed as a visitor attraction. However, it is night and the kids are in a place they are not meant to be so we can be sure all will not end well and a mystery is quickly established.

What I particularly enjoyed about The House by the Cemetery was that the author grabbed my interest in the prologue then takes a small step back to build up the chills and the creepy events. It is very effective and avoids the less subtle ‘schlock horror’ where every second chapter is a bloodbath. Constant build and increasing peculiarities gave the impression of a growing menace.

Our lead character, Mike, is renovating the haunted house – making it ready for paying visitors who will part with their bucks for a scare on 31 October. The longer Mike spends in the house the more he becomes aware of the odd and unpleasant incidents which are happening. Yet he presses on with his work, removing dead animals one morning and chatting with the young woman who comes to the house to chat with him and share some beers. You want to shout at your book to make Mike get the Hell away from the creepy property but he needs the cash and keeps coming back…can it end well for him?

John Everson has a very readable writing style and I poured over The House by the Cemetery. “One more chapter” is the best internal debate to have when I am reading late at night and it was  very much in evidence here.

Get yourself some Halloween reading and order a copy of The House by the Cemetery. Chills aplenty.

 

The House by the Cemetery is published by Flame Tree Press on 18 October and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Cemetery-Fiction-Without-Frontiers-ebook/dp/B07J2MQ5N8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539029287&sr=1-1&keywords=house+by+the+cemetery