Review: Was there a haunted house cliche missed by this book? I think not.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 27, 2014
So Addison Lockhart's mom passes away and Addison inherits a very grand house in the country that she didn't even know existed but is where her mother grew up.  When she arrives at the house she find that it comes with  locked rooms, a hunky contractor willing to work on it, a ghost haunting it unable to move on because of unfinished business and...Wait a minute.  Do these elements feel familiar? Is there any cliché for haunted house stories that this book has missed?  I don't think so. The longer I read, the more it felt like every plotline I've ever seen used in a haunted house story was here in this book.  The grandmother that she didn't know she had reappears.  The blood stained dress found in the house.  I found it so cliché that I had a hard time enjoying it.There are many types of horror stories that I have no interest in but haunted house stories are one type I really enjoy.  This looked like a slam dunk for me.  Unfortunately, it felt like a retread of many other haunted house stories and a shallow one at that.  I didn't feel like there was much depth to the story or to the characters.  The one thing that I always need in my stories is atmosphere and that was sadly lacking here.  It wasn't creepy and it didn't make me feel haunted.  When we had “an eerie stillness” and “a deadly quiet” in the same paragraph, I felt like the author was just trying too hard. I would be willing to give this author another try because I know she has written other things that have been well received, but this one did left me very flat.