The Country House

by Alexis Saints

"He had returned to the country house for a reason, which meant he had to face the scary possibility of being right."To walk back into one's childhood home is always a strange feling, and Connor is starting to find where everything is covered by the thick glaze of honeyed memories, present and past are intertwined together. And the summer in the country house has never been more tender.

82 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 20, 2023

About the author

Alexis Saints (25 Agosto 1995) nasce a Taranto, in Italia. Inizia a scrivere già da una giovane età, prendendo parte con successo a diversi concorsi e laboratori di scrittura. Nel 2019, si laurea alla facoltà di Lingue, Civiltà e Scienze del Linguaggio presso l'Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia, e inizia un'attività parallela come traduttrice e interprete. Il suo primo romanzo pubblicato, "Fernik" è il primo di una trilogia fantasy ambientata in Italia, "Storie d'Asèria".

Reviews

[MiMi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alexis Saints’ The Country House is a haunting and beautifully written short story. As the story unfolds, Saints pulls readers into an atmosphere thick with nostalgia, tension, and quiet dread. Saints excels at crafting a mood of creeping unease. The idea of returning to a childhood home which is the familiar with the interplay of nostalgia and threat gives the setting a potent double-edge, turning a simple country house into something alive with secrets.

Despite its brevity, The Country House manages to build an immersive world and emotional weight through tone and suggestion rather than exposition. The writing is evocative and restrained, letting the reader’s imagination fill in the shadows. Some may wish for a longer or more detailed resolution, but the ambiguity is part of what makes the story so memorable.

A compact yet powerful read, The Country House captures how easily the past can shift beneath us and how memory can both comfort and betray.

[Moonie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The creepy atmosphere created in this book kept my eyes glued to the pages until the very end. I've deeply loved the story and how it was narrated, each character is really fascinating and interesting, you keep thinking about it even when you've finished reading it. Highly recommend!

[Laronza Wiley-moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was part of a stuff your Kindle event, and I decided to give it a try. This book was not for me. It felt like it was the first draft of something that once fleshed out could be a great story.

[Annmarie Byrne · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a quick read, but it felt like it was an idea that was drafted for a bigger story. Ideas put to paper before the story got expanded on and connceted together.

[CristoC · Rating 4 out of 5]

I kinda wish this was a full book