152. The Manse – Lisa W. Cantrell

I read the sequel first and this was better. The Merrillville, NC, Jaycees have been using the Beaufort mansion, known as the Manse, for their annual Halloween haunted house/gruesome horror attraction to frighten children to death while the elderly Beaufort sisters who own it are in assisted living. It’s a haunted house with some additional set ups that nobody ordered or approved.

Also, there are some relationships and friendships that are fraught with tension roaming around the mansion and distracting people, old love that was kind of controlling and abusive between Zack and Samantha, the potential for Samantha to move on with her life with the Jaycee’s and the Beaufort sisters’ lawyer Ted, and also L.J. aka Dood, who is friends with Samantha, clearly doesn’t care too much for Zack, and listens to his gut about the wrongness of the old house.

There’s no real explanation for the evils the house brings out, which wasn’t as disappointing for me because this switches perspectives a lot and that was distracting. Plus I didn’t exactly like the other two books I’ve read by Cantrell, so, my expectations weren’t for coherence and also there’s just Dood to count on for the researcher type role and he’s more action oriented, so you know he’s not about the microfilm. Plus there are many contemporary missing people throughout the story that the house eats, essentially, so, it’s a happening now kind of deal. Now as in the late 1980s, that is.

You know who always listened to his gut about scary houses? Salem.