★★★★★ 3
A great read that leaves some loose threads
Format: Hardcover
I knew next to nothing about this book going into it other than that it was a horror novel and that my book club selected it. That’s neither a point in favor of or against the book itself, but it does become relevant in a moment because my lack of background shaped how I approached it to a certain extent.
But before we get to that, the basic premise here is that this young couple has moved into a new house. One day while only one of them is home, there’s a knock at the door. This family is there and they say they used to live in the house and want to look around. In the real world, most of us would find that a slightly awkward situation but not an entirely unheard of one. In a horror novel, you know it’s going to set things in motion that probably won’t end well for at least someone involved, and that is indeed the case. But, contrary to immediate expectations, this doesn’t shift into a home invasion story. Instead, it treats us to a bit of slow burn horror as this visiting family seem slightly “wrong” for reasons neither the reader nor characters can put their fingers on, and things ultimately lead in rather unexpected directions, though I won’t spoil too much there.
One of the interesting things I noticed quickly is that little interlude chapters throughout the book were punctuated with bits of Morse Code, which I dutifully translated as I read and which slowly began to hint at more of what was going on behind the scenes. That was a nice touch, I thought, but the novel eventually ran even further with that idea, treating us to more substantial codes and ciphers that became increasingly difficult to decrypt or translate.
Some eventually became so frustrating that I took to the Internet for aid, whereupon I discovered that to solve some of them, you actually need clues from an alternate reality game which coincided with the book’s publication, but which the novel itself never directly alluded to, so that felt like a bit of a cheat to me, though I was eventually able to gather the information needed to solve the puzzles. Ultimately, I did not find those solutions necessary to understanding or enjoying the book, so it’s not too big a deal.
The book itself was engrossing and exciting throughout but left the reader feeling like we’d only just gotten the tiniest taste of a much larger mythology, and I found myself wanting quite a bit more by the end of it, and I mean that in both a good way and a bad way. It’s good because it means I found the book so good I wanted more, but it’s bad because I found the ending left far too many loose threads for my own taste.
But if you like a book ambitious enough to risk feeling a bit convoluted and yet with a clear sense that the author always knew exactly what he was doing, I think you’ll like this one. Though it’s far from AS complex, I think it will appeal strongly to fans of House of Leaves. Both thematically and in terms of structure, I noticed certain parallels between those works.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2025
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