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.

I’ve been on a little bit of a horror movie binge lately, so the timing worked out great for me to get the opportunity to work with Flame Tree Press, a new independent publisher of horror/sci-fi/fantasy (and other) novels!

The House by the Cemetery was a lot of fun to read…sort of a self-referential/meta take on a haunted house story. The book is divided almost in half. In the first half, we spend most of our time with Mike Kostner, a carpenter who has been hired (by a close friend) to rehab an abandoned house. The Bachelor’s Grove house is legendary, rumored to be both the site of some dark & grisly shit, and currently haunted. Mike’s friend Perry has purchased the house, and wants to turn it into a haunted house attraction, for Halloween.

There are definitely some creepy moments in the early stages of the book, especially when Mike is alone in the house, exploring some of its secrets. At times, it felt slightly repetitive here, with some detailed descriptions of the work Mike was doing day after day. It never felt draggy, but it seemed like this part of the book could’ve been trimmed down a bit. Two girls, Katie & Emery, show up at the house one day…and just keep coming back, almost taking on assistant roles for Mike. Their presence is quite off-kilter, and it’s clear early on there is a lot more to discover about these two characters & their relationship to the house.

The second half of the book skips ahead slightly, to the near-completion of the haunted house. We meet a lot of different characters in this book…a surprising amount of characters, really, given that the book is only around 250 pages. Of the secondary characters, I really enjoyed Jillie & Ted’s storyline the most. They’re a pair of ghost hunters determined to derail the Bachelor’s Grove project by any means necessary. They know what lurks inside that house, and that it’s better left undisturbed.

But naturally, things get very disturbed. And disturbing. There’s witchcraft & blood magic, and buckets & buckets of blood. The House by the Cemetery has some seriously gory passages!

The book also functions as almost a love letter to horror movies, as the folks responsible for staging the house & performing inside it are (for the most part) horror movie junkies, determined to give each room a vibe similar to a beloved horror film. I mean there’s even a character who calls himself Argento ffs.

This was a fun read! John Everson provides more than enough splatter & a handful of delightfully fucked up moments. I only wish I could have read this around Halloween, when it was released!!

Big thanks to Flame Tree Press for sending me a copy!!