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Nothing in the Basement
Richard and Sandra are good people: comfortably overweight, generally honest. There's nothing in the basement. They have great jobs and adorable dogs. Sandra nearly drowns in the bathtub. The sewage backs up. There's nothing in the basement.
- GenresHorror
200 pages, Paperback
Published August 26, 2025
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Romie Stott
11 books17 followersRomie Stott is an editor at the Hugo, Ignyte, and British Fantasy Award-winning magazine Strange Horizons. Her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Analog, Arc, The Deadlands, Tractor Beam, Atlas Obscura, The Toast, and On Spec.
As a narrative filmmaker (working mainly as Romie Faienza), Romie has been a guest artist at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), the Dallas Museum of Art, and the National Gallery (London). She is the writer/director of the feature film Hayseeds & Scalawags, and is the book writer of the musicals “First, Contact” and The Lady Takes the Mic. She is half of the electronica duo Stopwalk.
As a narrative filmmaker (working mainly as Romie Faienza), Romie has been a guest artist at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), the Dallas Museum of Art, and the National Gallery (London). She is the writer/director of the feature film Hayseeds & Scalawags, and is the book writer of the musicals “First, Contact” and The Lady Takes the Mic. She is half of the electronica duo Stopwalk.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 24, 2025
This is a brilliant horror novel. It winds its spell around you as subtly as the thing (that isn’t in the basement) takes hold of the sharply observed characters. If haunted houses are metaphors for family strife, this one is about the dawning horror that the life you’ve built for yourself is no longer the one you want.
August 29, 2025
Nothing in the Basement is subtle, delicious horror, until it suddenly stops being subtle and smashes you in the face, as good horror books do. Robert and Sandra Brown are normal, good people, "comfortably overweight, generally honest." Their mild friction and average life are fine until they are not, when the nothing under their house slowly but relentlessly begins attacking the home above.
The opening feels particularly reminiscent of Shirley Jackson - not only because of the house description, but even in some of her phrasing ("an unseen apron of blackness" particularly caught me). There's a familiarity that instantly shepherds in the experienced horror reader, and the scene is quickly painted. Still, the differences raise themselves soon enough. Words are at a premium here; Stott is far more to the point as a writer than Jackson, with a brisk British/Texan/sci-fi influenced clarity that reads easily. This makes it all the easier to fly through the story face-first into each newly horrific situation.
I think most readers would agree that no horror novel is fun if everyone is an idiot, or even just not paying attention. The best stories have interesting people making credible decisions, and somehow everything going wrong believably anyhow. In this, the book succeeds. You can understand the Browns' staid disbelief that the house could actually be trying to hurt them, because of course that doesn't happen in real life. The sparse writing only adds to the documentary sense of it.
On that note, the married couple's disagreements can feel so acidly real they are almost physically painful to read at times: that awful sense of every word being misheard left my skin crawling almost as much as the actual death and mayhem. In a story where disaster quickly snowballs into an almost hallucinatory, wild ending, the conversations between the married couple feel more like an open window into a neighbor's house, as seductive as they are disturbing.
If you enjoy horror, in short, pick it up. It's a fast read at under two hundred pages, but one that will stay with you.
The opening feels particularly reminiscent of Shirley Jackson - not only because of the house description, but even in some of her phrasing ("an unseen apron of blackness" particularly caught me). There's a familiarity that instantly shepherds in the experienced horror reader, and the scene is quickly painted. Still, the differences raise themselves soon enough. Words are at a premium here; Stott is far more to the point as a writer than Jackson, with a brisk British/Texan/sci-fi influenced clarity that reads easily. This makes it all the easier to fly through the story face-first into each newly horrific situation.
I think most readers would agree that no horror novel is fun if everyone is an idiot, or even just not paying attention. The best stories have interesting people making credible decisions, and somehow everything going wrong believably anyhow. In this, the book succeeds. You can understand the Browns' staid disbelief that the house could actually be trying to hurt them, because of course that doesn't happen in real life. The sparse writing only adds to the documentary sense of it.
On that note, the married couple's disagreements can feel so acidly real they are almost physically painful to read at times: that awful sense of every word being misheard left my skin crawling almost as much as the actual death and mayhem. In a story where disaster quickly snowballs into an almost hallucinatory, wild ending, the conversations between the married couple feel more like an open window into a neighbor's house, as seductive as they are disturbing.
If you enjoy horror, in short, pick it up. It's a fast read at under two hundred pages, but one that will stay with you.
November 27, 2025
“The nothing frightened the dogs because it helped no one and belonged to no one.”
Nothing in the Basement is the exact kind of horror novel I love. Perfectly encapsulated dread, a *literal* sinking feeling in this case, with poignant writing and relationship dynamics that are so realistic they almost hurt to read. In under 200 pages, this book flew by, and found a very intriguing balance between making me not want to put it down and making me so uncomfortable at times I just really wanted to take a break.
The two main characters of Nothing in the Basement, a married couple named Sandra and Robert, are perfectly ordinary, content people that are happily in love and enjoying their new home, until they’re not. The realistic horror of investing in a home (and in a person!) just to have the basement fill with sewage and the yard collapse in on itself and your partner is making you reconsider everything… it is truly nightmarish in the realistic, physical way, the supernatural way that the house feels haunted, and metaphorically. I love a story that makes you wonder if it’s all real.
I’d like to add some serious emphasis on the dialogue, the arguments that Sandra and Robert have! SO terribly, uncomfortably accurate it will make your skin crawl. It might be because I see myself more in Sandra than Robert, but I wanted to divorce him too! I was so tired of him in the best way. Perfectly written characters.
Absolutely read this book if you enjoy a fast-paced, uncomfortable, haunting horror story that knocks the wind out of you. Again, it’s less than 200 pages. And it’s on Kindle Unlimited! Thank you to my friend Chad for the recommendation! I feel like I should add that I received a free copy from the author, I really wanted to read this one in exchange for an honest review. It sounded very up my alley and it was! Thank you, Romie Stott!
Nothing in the Basement is the exact kind of horror novel I love. Perfectly encapsulated dread, a *literal* sinking feeling in this case, with poignant writing and relationship dynamics that are so realistic they almost hurt to read. In under 200 pages, this book flew by, and found a very intriguing balance between making me not want to put it down and making me so uncomfortable at times I just really wanted to take a break.
The two main characters of Nothing in the Basement, a married couple named Sandra and Robert, are perfectly ordinary, content people that are happily in love and enjoying their new home, until they’re not. The realistic horror of investing in a home (and in a person!) just to have the basement fill with sewage and the yard collapse in on itself and your partner is making you reconsider everything… it is truly nightmarish in the realistic, physical way, the supernatural way that the house feels haunted, and metaphorically. I love a story that makes you wonder if it’s all real.
I’d like to add some serious emphasis on the dialogue, the arguments that Sandra and Robert have! SO terribly, uncomfortably accurate it will make your skin crawl. It might be because I see myself more in Sandra than Robert, but I wanted to divorce him too! I was so tired of him in the best way. Perfectly written characters.
Absolutely read this book if you enjoy a fast-paced, uncomfortable, haunting horror story that knocks the wind out of you. Again, it’s less than 200 pages. And it’s on Kindle Unlimited! Thank you to my friend Chad for the recommendation! I feel like I should add that I received a free copy from the author, I really wanted to read this one in exchange for an honest review. It sounded very up my alley and it was! Thank you, Romie Stott!
August 12, 2025
A cosmic horror suspense that turns our fingertips to the next page, waiting for the nothing in the basement to arrive. With a dash of Color Out of Space hysteria we soon find out, or was it really just nothing. Stott dances with cosmic fever and shows her Strange Horizons.
December 13, 2025
Creeping banality in a haunted house with an implied but never fully realized spectral influence. Excellent writing and pacing.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews