The Haunting of Gillespie House

This author is great for quick, spooky reads. I woke at 1am this morning and couldn't go back to sleep so why not grab a horror story and enjoy the darkness of the morning...

Overall rating: 4.75/5Writing: 5/5, Her writing style and prose are always solid.Plot: 5/5, very satisfying build up and pay offCharacters: 4/5, I feel like our MC who is basically the only character we interact with could have had more depth. I feel like you get to know more about the original people in the house than her.
Would I reread?: Yup, definitely

Narrators: single narrator, Elle? I think we hear her name like once
POV: 1st person, single
Genre: Horror, Adult, Cozy Horror or Feel Good Horror, First-person POVs
Pace: Fast-Paced, It grabs you pretty quickly with minimal stupid choicesTone: Tense, emotionalStoryline: Character-driven, Character explorationThemes: Cults, protecting family, haunted houseWriting style: Contemporary and light, succinct, well plottedBook Appeal: For those wanting cozy horror, wanting a good tension but a happy ending for our MCType: StandaloneContent Warnings: death (off-page not graphic), betrayal, child abuse (light and off-page), missing children Was the Blurb/Genre Accurate: YesAdditional Comments:I love Darcy Coates. There has been only one out of about 7 novels that I didn't like, which was House Next Door. Everything else of hers has been 5 star reads for me. This was a home run. You get the tension, you get connected to characters you feel for, you get scary stuff! I'm deducting .25 stars because the MC is someone we know nothing about. We really don't know why she took this gig, or what her life history is like. I would have liked a bit of background info weaved into the story. But ultimately the story is more about the earlier inhabitants so maybe that's fine.

This is only my second Darcy Coates but I think I really love her stuff. One, they are super easy to read, and she keeps the action going. No dull moments here. Second, the book always goes somewhere I could never have predicted. Honestly, when I go to buy a book to take with me on vacation, she just went to the top of the list. I'm pretty sure I said this in my review of [b:The Folcroft Ghosts 33840674 The Folcroft Ghosts Darcy Coates https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1484182050l/33840674.SY75.jpg 54774741] but I think Coates's short fiction is ON POINT. She wrote one called Sub Basement I think about, at work, almost every day. Here we have:Bed and BreakfastCrawlspace Lights Out and every SINGLE one of them is a winner. One even does Doctor Who proud. If I haaaaaad to pick a fave it would be Bed and Breakfast. Shudder!

I know I've said it in another review or two but I have a messed up relationship with Coates' The Haunting of..... books. Why? Because I'll love the atmosphere of the story itself...but hate the main character. And these stories don't have that many characters.
I'll say I won't read her books again...But here we are. HERE WE ARE.

This one didn't even have the atmosphere I love going for it. I wasn't drawn in by an other worldly vibe. It was bleh. That's all I have folks. It should've been a quick read...less than 200 pages..but I put the book down twice.

Side note....if you're house sitting a strangers house and you find a locked door as you check out the house...would you break open that door some nights later? Even though at no point was that door mysteriously unlocked. No, no you wouldn't. Would it also not be the first door you broke in said home? No because who does that? Nobody. Nobody does that.

The Haunting of Gillespie House is about a girl, Elle, who is house sitting for the Gillespie family while they go to a retreat. Soon after her arrival, weird things start happening. There is scratching in the walls, a door keeps slamming on its own, and there's a locked room with fluttering curtains. Elle starts having really vivid dreams about the house's history and she sets out to discover the mystery surrounding the Gillespie House.

I have to say that this is one of my favorite Darcy Coates novels. It was a quick read & it kept me interested until the end. I think the author did an amazing job at creepiness in this book, there were a few times that really got to me when I was reading.

I absolutely loved Elle, she had a quirky personality and once weird things started happening she didn't try to rationalize them too much, she caught on quite quickly that there was something else in the house with her. We don't know much about her past, which is great because we're here for the ghost story not her backstory.

Once the mystery surrounding the house and it's occupants were uncovered, the book had quite the happy ending. It was just really well written and it's everything that I look for in a good ghost story.

Bonus: there is a short story called Crawlspace at the end of this novel that creeped me the fuck out! This short story is the reason that the Haunting of Gillespie House was even written. So be sure to check that out too!

Well this one had me on the edge of my seat more. Give me this style of scary read than the hack and slash in your face type of gory stories. If the house had have been mine, I would have been peeved over the main character's actions but she is why we have the story in the first place. I enjoyed it.

I also enjoyed the short story at the end as well. Except, I couldn't tell the gender of the main character but lent towards it being a possible teenage or slightly younger boy.

I listened to the audiobook of this and I'm not sure if that made me more aware of some of the book's downfalls - e.g. repetition of descriptive phrases - as they're being read out loud to you.

The idea is sound and could easily have been a longer book, however it didn't build any tension for me. I was hoping for a horror story that would give me chills, or at least make me tense to see what happens next, but Gillespie House didn't do that for me.