Incidents Around the House

By: Josh Malerman

Narrated by: Delanie Nicole Gill

‘This book is the monster that lives inside your closet’
– Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddy and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: ‘Can I go inside your heart?’

When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.

Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.

But Other Mommy needs an answer.

'A gleeful, mean, old-school scare machine . . . You just have to turn the first page to set it off'
- Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Horror Movie

©2024 Josh Malerman (P)2024 Macmillan Publishers International Limited

Critic reviews

Deeply discomfiting, imaginatively ripe, yet ruthlessly efficient . . . Simply put – and I do not say this lightly – Incidents Around the House is the most purely effective horror novel I have ever read (Esquire, Best Horror Books of 2024)

A masterwork of unadorned existential terror (Zoje Stage, USA Today bestselling author of Baby Teeth)

Josh Malerman is such an insidious architect. I call all of his haunted houses home, and this just might be his most devilish design yet (Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters)

This haunting exploration of the perils of childhood is a story that will stay with you for a long time to come (Gwendolyn Kiste, Lambda Literary and Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Reluctant Immortals and The Rust Maidens)

This book does worse than stay with you – it stalks you. Page-turning and nerve-burning – don’t read it after dark (Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Queen of Teeth and A Light Most Hateful)

Incidents Around the House effortlessly draws the reader in for a deeply unsettling and genuinely frightening read. It’s a masterclass in scares (Brian Keene, bestselling author of End of the Road)

Hereditary meets Skinamarink: one of my favorite books of the year (Sarah Langan, author of A Better World)

Terrifying, beguiling, bewitching, awesomely constructed and a masterpiece of voice and dread (Nat Cassidy, author of Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings)

So gripping in terror, I couldn’t put it down. This is everything I'm looking for in a horror story (Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads)

This book has actual jump scares! Trust me: daytime only in a room with no closets (Sadie Hartmann, author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered)