KNONK

ghost story

Haverscroft

S A Harris

29 Jan 2026

finished

This one was available through BorrowBox, which is an e-book library that often has long waiting times for popular books, so you end up reading just whatever looks interesting while you're waiting.
Haverscroft is a haunted house tale about a woman who is recovering from a mental health crisis and is dragged out to the sticks by her unforgivable jerk of a husband to a large country house-and-estate with their two adorable children. He promptly disappears back to the city for work, leaving her and the kids in the obviously haunted house.
A key question in any haunted house tale is this: why don't they just move out? Some variations on the theme handle this better than others. The reason here is, "This house gives me the creeps, but I have to prove to my husband (and his mother) that I'm not crazy anymore, so I'll just close the door to the ghost's room and hope we'll be ok." That works... up to a point.
The point where it stops working? One night, the chimney which has been producing creepy knocking noises the whole time falls down tearing a massive hole in the roof. Does she leave? No, they put up a tarp.

Hey, crazy lady! You have a perfectly rational reason here to leave the house for literally anywhere else. You cannot heat the place. God knows when the next bit of roof is going to collapse in. Your children aren't safe. Tell your asshole husband he is crazy if he expects you to stay in that rickety, depressing old deathtrap. Why are you there?

LEAVE!

Everything after that is a bunch of nonsense I didn't like it.
Recommended if you like:

The Haunting of Alma Fielding

08 Jan 2026

finished

Exhaustively (exhaustingly) detailed review of a paranormal investigation from interbellum London. Weird book, it draws you in with all these seemingly supernatural happenings, and all the while you're like, "But she's faking, right? This is clearly fake?!" I guess I won't spoil it. It's from a real life report of an actual haunting.

Recommended if you like:

  1. Interbellum London,
  2. Spooky stuff,
  3. Real life ghost stories.