The Haunting of Hill House
You might have seen the Netflix mini-series The Haunting of Hill House. Or the 1999 film The Haunting. Maybe you even saw the 1963 film with the same name.
This is all great stuff. I have seen and enjoyed all of this. But my brothers and sisters in horror, have you ever read the source material? Have you read the original novel, published in 1959?
This is the first haunted house story. It’s the one that all others take from.
We start with the chilling, iconic description of Hill House, which sets the mood for the whole book. The writing is lyrical, beautiful. It draws you in, lulling you into a false sense of security. Eleanore stops in a small town on her way to Hill House, enchanted by a small child in a restaurant.
“Insist upon your cup of stars,” she thinks, and it’s a metaphor for her insisting upon her own joys after a lifetime of serving her family. We’re drawn into this bid for freedom right away. We want Eleanore to be happy. To find her cup of stars.
One thing that’s very different in the novel is that Dr. Montague never lied to the participants. Theo and Eleanore are well aware they’re walking into a haunted house and that their job is to record the haunting. I think that’s an important distinction. Eleanore especially knew what she was doing.
We soon meet our full cast of characters. Including the doctor and Eleanore, we have Theo and Luke. Theo is a bit of a party girl, and Luke is a member of the family who owns the house. Everyone seems to be getting along quite well, especially Eleanore and Theo. I understand that there have always been some suggestions that there was a love affair between the two. And I can say, you can feel the affection they have for each other right away.
It is in fact that affection that is twisted as the story continues. As the house starts to mess with them, Eleanore’s thoughts of Theo begin to change. Where at first she loved that Theo wanted to be the center of attention, she later thinks that Theo would do anything to get everyone’s attention.
The haunting starts slowly. And it, well it stays slow, to be honest. Doors will not stay open in Hill House, no matter what you do. At one point all of Theo’s clothes are covered in blood that later vanishes. At night there’s a horrible pounding on the doors. But during the day our crew seems fine.
This is something that strikes me. While the nights are horrifying, everyone seems okay during the day. No one seems worried, except for Eleanore. This leads me to a question that I have.
This is a question that I am left with, even after reading the whole novel. After thinking about it for quite some time, and after rewatching much of the Hill House content.
What proof do we have that Hill House is even haunted? Is it possible that all of the banging and blood was just in Eleanore’s imagination? What if the only thing that happened here was that Eleanore slowly went mad until she reached her final, tragic end? Is this a haunting in the traditional sense? Or was the only thing haunting Hill House Eleanore herself?
The difference between the novel and the movies can feel like the difference between an actual supernatural event and the movie based on it. What was a rattling of doorknobs and windows becomes blood spilling out to fill a master bedroom. This is frustrating to a fan, but it’s easy to explain.
Film is a medium that novels don’t always translate to. In a story like Haunting of Hill House, the terror comes from doors that won’t stay open. From cold spots that can be felt but not registered on equipment. From a housekeeper that won’t stay on the grounds at night, but refuses to explain why. The terror is in watching a young woman, finally free of her oppressive family, slowly descending into madness.
It would make for a boring movie, even with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson. But it made for a singularly chilling novel.
(4 / 5)
Imagine this. You’re home alone, waiting for your partner to return, when you hear a knock on your door. You answer it to see a family of five, bundled up against the cold. The father, a kindly older gentleman, explains that he used to live in this house as a boy. And he would love to show it to his family.
Do not let them in.
The story
Released in June 2024, We Used To Live Here is author Marcus Kliewer’s debut novel. It tells the story of Eve, who just purchased a beautiful house with her partner, Charlie. Their plan is to flip the house and sell it.
One night, while waiting for Charlie to come home, Eve is surprised by a knock at the door. It’s a man named Thomas Faust and his family.
Thomas explains that he grew up in the house and hasn’t been in the area in years. Would Eve let them in so that he can show the home to his children?
Against her better judgment, Eve lets them in. She regrets this almost at once when Thomas’s daughter vanishes somewhere into the house.
What worked
I always appreciate a book that allows you to play along with the mystery. And this book does that better than just about any other I’ve seen.
Pay close attention to the chapters, to the words that aren’t there. To everything about this novel.
This is mostly down to Kliewer. This is ultimately his work of art. But the production value is also fantastic. I don’t want to ruin the multiple mysteries, so I’ll just say this. There are clues in this book that require some specific artistic choices in the page layouts in this book. And I loved that.
If you’d like to experience another horror book review, check out this one.
We Used To Live Here is also the kind of story that makes you question everything right along with the main character, Eve. Eve is a great main character. But she might be an unreliable narrator. She might be experiencing every single horror described, exactly as it’s described. Or, she might be having a psychotic breakdown. Through most of the book, we can’t be sure. And that is so much fun.
Finally, the weather plays a large part in this story. There are several stories in which the weather or the land itself could be considered a character. Even an antagonist. This is certainly one. The winter storm is the thing that traps the family in the house with Eve. It also makes escaping the home difficult. Reading this book during the winter was especially impactful. Most of us know what it feels like to be shut in by a storm. I’ve personally lived through some of those storms that are just referred to by their year, as though they were impactful enough to claim the whole 365 days for themself. And that was with people I liked. Imagine what it would feel like with strangers. It’s a staggering thought and one that we explore in depth in this book.
- Get Out meets Parasite in this eerily haunting debut and Reddit hit—soon to be a Netflix original movie starring Blake Lively—about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit
- As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood
- As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door
Last update on 2025-03-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
In the end, We Used To Live Here is a fantastic book. It’s the sort of story that sneaks into your brain and puts down roots. And if this is just the first book we’re getting from Kliewer, I can’t wait to see what else he comes up with.
(5 / 5)
Published in January 2025, Virginia Feito’s second book, Victorian Psycho, is… hard to categorize. Much like Feito’s first book, Mrs March (which I also highly recommend), Feito has created a main character that is paranoid, violent and utterly charming. Victorian Psycho might be any classic Victorian novel about a governess. Miss Notty, entering her new place of employment and getting to know the Pound family and their two children, Andrew and Drusilla. That is if you ignore the psychopathic thoughts that keep entering Miss Notty’s head.
- SOON TO BE A FEATURE FILM FROM A24 STARRING MARGARET QUALLEY AND THOMASIN MCKENZIE”This book will be the bloody belle of the 2025 literary ball
- ” (Oprah Daily)Most Anticipated Books of 2025: Vulture, Oprah Daily, Polygon, Reader’s Digest, Lit Hub, CrimeReads, The Stacks, LibraryReads, PasteBest Books of the Month: Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Goodreads, Gizmodo, Book Riot, The A
- V
Last update on 2025-03-03 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
The Plot.
When we begin Victorian Psycho, we meet Winifred Knotty, a young woman travelling to Ensor House through the English Grim Wolds in what feels like the Victorian era (the year is never actually pinpointed.) The reader is provided with a countdown of ‘three months till Christmas’ and simply told that “in three months everyone in this house will be dead.”
Miss Notty is to be the new Governess to the two Pound children. As she settles into her new position, she appears to be good at her job. She ensures that the children are fed, tucks them in at night, tells bedtime stories and provides them with intellectual conversation. She only jokes about eating children and really has no idea where that missing maid has disappeared to.
Highlights.
Victorian Psycho is written as a chaotic interior monologue, punctuated with intermittent dialogue as Miss Notty interacts with other characters, or eavesdrops on them from the hallway. The reader is completely immersed in this confused, violent mind, despite this, it is impossible not to like Miss Notty. I think it might be due to her witty intelligence and her keen ability to dismantle the other character’s social pretenses. Whatever it is, Feito has done a marvelous job of characterization on Miss Notty.
As an extra highlight I need to mention the way Feito has named her characters using a very Dickensian method of using words that describe their personalities. To name a few; Miss Notty, whose mind seems to be in knots, Mr. And Mrs. Fancy, who are very posh and the name that took the cake for me was the baby, called William Ebenezer Poncy Fancey, but don’t worry, you won’t have to read that name too often as he does not last long in Miss. Notty’s care.
Drawbacks.
There is a lot of confusion in Victorian Psycho, which is in keeping with our point of view main character. However, at some points in the story the confusion was so thick that I had to stop reading and try to untangle the events I had just read. If you are a reader who enjoys a clear and concise plot and action, this one is probably not for you. While you are in Notty’s head suffice it to say you have to roll with the unconnected tangents and strange metaphors, if you’re not willing to do this it would be best to jump ship.
The Final Take.
This is a perfectly perverse take on a Victorian gothic. Full to the brim with brutal horror and visceral imagery, balanced out with tongue in cheek sarcasm. Victorian Psycho flips the script on the traditional ‘women running away from houses’ theme of the gothic. Instead, we have a woman coming in and, well… you’ll have to read the book to see.
(5 / 5)
As a disclaimer, this is a review of The House of My Mother from a critical perspective. I will not be discussing my opinions of the legal case against Ruby Franke and Jody Hildebrandt. I will be discussing the merits of the book as a work of true crime alone.
In 2015, Ruby Franke started a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers. In August of 2023, Franke and her business associate Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested for, and later plead guilty to, charges of aggravated child abuse. And in January of this year, Shari Franke told her story in The House of My Mother.
The story
The House of My Mother is the true story of Shari Franke, the oldest child of one of the most famous family vlogger families.
As a child, Shari came to the conclusion that her mother didn’t like her. Soon, she began to fear her mother’s anger.
Things got significantly worse when Ruby started their family vlog. All of the families most intimate moments were splashed across the internet for anyone to watch. This became a living nightmare for Shari.
Of course, that was only the start of the family nightmare. Because Ruby was about to meet someone who would reinforce all of the darkest parts of herself.
Eventually Shari manages to escape her home. But her younger siblings were still in her mother’s clutches. She had to save them, and her father, from the monster her mother had become.
What worked
Through the book, Shari only ever mentions the name of one of her siblings, Chad. This is because Chad is the only of her siblings that is an adult at the time of the publication.
There are children involved in this story. Children who’s lives and privacy have already been damaged. Shari didn’t want to do that to them again, and neither do I.
It probably won’t surprise you that this book is full of upsetting details. But not in the way you might imagine.
Nowhere in this book will you find gory details about the abuse the Franke kids suffered. And I consider that a good thing. Those sort of details are all fun and games when we’re talking fiction. When it’s real kids who are really living with the damage, it’s not a good time.
What you’ll find instead is a slew of more emotionally devastating moments. One that stuck with me is when Ruby’s mother gives her a pair of silk pajamas as a gift after Ruby gave birth to one of her babies. Shari asks Ruby if she’d bring her silk pajamas when she had a baby. Ruby responds that yes, when Shari becomes a mother they can be friends.
What a lovely way to make a little girl feel like she’s not worth anything unless she reproduces. And, if she does decide to have children, who is going to bring her silk pajamas?
- From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing
- Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival
- Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2
Last update on 2025-03-02 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
In the end, this isn’t a story about ghosts or demons. It’s not about a serial killer waiting on a playground or in the attic of an unsuspecting family. Instead, this is a story about things that really keep us up at night. It’s the story of a woman so obsessed with perfection that she drove away her eldest daughter. The story of a young woman who’s forced to watch from afar as her beloved brothers and sisters are terrorized and abandoned. These are the sorts of things that really keep us up at night. These are the real nightmares.
More than that, though, The House of My Mother is a story of survival. It’s about a family that was ripped apart and somehow managed to stitch itself back together again. It’s about a brave young woman who managed to keep herself safe and sane in the face of a nightmare. If you haven’t read it yet, I can’t recommend it enough.
For more like this, check out my review of Shiny Happy People.
(5 / 5)
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