Ghost House
Sara Connell
Muse Literary (2022)
ISBN: 978-1958714034
Reviewed by Kathy Stickles for Reader Views (03/2023)
Ghost House is a collection of short stories by author Sara Connell and each of these stories is truly excellent. They are full of horror, hauntings, very dark humor, and surprising endings. What more could a reader want? I highly recommend the book if you enjoy this kind of story. Each of the stories offers the reader something different and all of them are spellbinding in the telling.
In Ghost House, each story is about women who are attempting to deal with their everyday lives and events. Ms. Connell takes that so much further by showing the reader a new side of these lives as she combines the normal with the horrible fears and realities that lurk underneath the surface. A perfect example is the first story in the collection. In this story, the lead character Caitlin agrees to move into a new house with her husband that they are told is haunted. The hope is to fix up the house and sell it later for more money. As her husband enjoys fixing everything up and the background of having a ghost in the house, Caitlin becomes more fearful and neurotic over the ghost while trying to balance her career and love for her husband against this new terror. This is really the one story in the collection that reminds of a “traditional” ghost story but it is definitely not the only story I enjoyed. Each one is different and very well done.
Ms. Connell not only tells her reader excellent and captivating stories with each of the tales, she also gives us extremely diverse and interesting main characters in each of these women. While each of them is very different, they all have the one common trait, trying to survive in the normal day-to-day life that they live. The other thing that was so very impressive was the descriptive writing. As each story unfolds, it is easy for the reader to feel that they are really there in the middle of it, living the normal as well as the terror that is brought into each of the women’s lives. The writing has just the right amount of everything.
I was impressed with everything about this book and that is really saying something for me, as horror is not a genre that I normally find myself enjoying. I think what made me so involved in these stories was the fact that I never expected a collection of horror stories to have such amazing and well-rounded feminist lead characters and it really made it worth reading for me. I would recommend Ghost House to everyone. It is worth the time to read it and the terror that you will experience while doing so. Sara Connell has given us an excellent example of perfect short stories. 5 Stars!!
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