Welcome to Litsy!

This queer horror novel is the first authorized return to Shirley Jackson‘s iconic queer horror The Haunting of Hill House from 1959. Same setting, new characters. I had high expectations and they were pretty much met (I wanted a bit less action pre-house and a little more buildup to the climax). But Hand does an amazing job creating a spooky atmosphere and I found the borderline unlikable characters and their relationships fascinating.

Alternately creepy as fuck horror and fun 2000s sapphic romance. I loved the integration of Irish folklore and the slice of life details from Dublin university life and the student theatre society. I found both modes equally compelling and was thrilled when they came together. The book's setup is a young woman finds a corpse on a dark road at midnight, thus begins her night of horrors that stretches into her children's lives decades later.

This was fucking weird and dark! Quite short, just like a little snapshot of some people who call each other friends but seem to hate each other staying in a haunted Heian mansion in Japan and things going very wrong very quick. Very meta in terms of its use of the horror genre. Sharp writing, particularly the creepy, gross, and/or macabre metaphors, like when Khaw describes someone's words hanging out of their mouth like a body on a noose.