It Will Just Be Us

De: Jo Kaplan

Narrado por: Amanda Dolan

Sam Wakefield's ancestral home, a decaying mansion built on the edge of a swamp, isn't a place for children. Its labyrinthine halls, built by her mad ancestors, are filled with echoes of the past: ghosts and memories knotted together as one. In the presence of phantoms, it's all Sam can do to disentangle past from present in her daily life.

But when her pregnant sister Elizabeth moves in after a fight with her husband, something in the house shifts. Already navigating her tumultuous relationship with Elizabeth, Sam is even more unsettled by the appearance of a new ghost: a faceless boy who commits disturbing acts - threatening animals, terrorizing other children, and following Sam into the depths of the house wielding a knife. When it becomes clear the boy is connected to a locked, forgotten room, one that is never entered, Sam realizes this ghost is not like the others. This boy brings doom...

As Elizabeth's due date approaches, Sam must unravel the mysteries of Wakefield before her sister brings new life into a house marked by death. But as the faceless boy grows stronger, Sam will learn that some doors should stay closed - and some secrets are safer locked away forever.

©2020 Jo Kaplan (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

A chilling twist on the haunted house story

I love haunted house stories. I'm currently writing one myself, so it was great to pick up a well-written novel that did so many unique things with the horror sub-genre. I didn't feel like it stuck the landing as powerfully as I hoped, but otherwise I loved it.

Repackaged Stories You are Familiar Witu

*SPOILERS*

Since "time in memorial" I could not suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy this book. The performance was good and got me through and my hopes and dreams that never came to fruition. This book felt like a fanfic hodgepodge of "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" "The Bad Seed" "The Haunting of Hill House" and then at the end there was "The Shining". And no horror novel is complete without the magical black person. The protagonist lives through scenes straight out "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" including collecting and placing talismans, being ostracized by the town, even the cafe reveling in their fear scene- except only sometimes? She does not fully commit to her paranoia and isolation as she goes away to college and gets her terminal degree and becomes a professor. Sure characters can have contradictory traits but I just did not believe it. I did not believe her reasons for moving back home, I did not believe her reality of having a collegiate job and no colleagues or friends and being in such isolation. Even Jack in the Shining had friends and talked to people. And what I really really did not believe was the weather at the end. This book takes place in the 21st century when even people who live in the middle of no where with no internet have back up generators. AND the idea that someone cannot drive a car in snow during an emergency is absurd. And dont even get me started on the origin story of slavery and the swamp witch...