A Spoopy Love Affair With Books

The most unusual haunted house book I've ever come across, and I loved it for that alone. The narration is split between five separate characters, and the book develops slowly, taking its time with the characters, letting them grow with a slow burn discovery of their pasts and their relationships with their families.

Weird shit is going down. The prologue makes this very clear. Maybe a bit too clear, in that only going back after did I realize that the crazy stuff in the prologue doesn't have much to do with events in the book, other than the worlds breaking down. It was an excuse for Little to go a little nuts, and he does it so well. But it was a bit confusing, and my brain even sort of blocked it out, because it seemed so disparate from the rest of the novel.

The five different characters come from five different places, have never met, had different tragedies in their families,but they all had one thing in common: The House. And a butler named some variation of Billings as well as a little girl they all assumed was Billings' daughter.

Daniel is the first character you're introduced to, and, to me, the most sympathetic. I loved Laurie, and if there was any complaint I had with the book, it's how she appears less and less until she's nearly nonexistent towards the end. Stormy starts to usurp her part, and I liked Stormy and his snarky attitude, but a little goes a long way. Norton I started to despise, and the vision Stormy has of him at the end after

makes me wonder, with two staying in the House at the end, if they are going to fulfill those two roles, the role of meddler, as the girl and Billings are called, representatives of both higher and much, much lower powers.

And that's the great thing about this book. Nothing's spoon fed; there are definitely answers, but there's room enough to speculate, and to see larger and scarier pictures.

A unique book, and one I thoroughly enjoyed!