Das hungrige Haus

by Max Doty, Marie-Luise Bezzenberger (Translator)

Sie hat lange nach ihrem Traumhaus gesucht. Doch das Haus wartet schon viel länger. Und es hat Hunger …

Das neue Haus soll für Claire und ihre Familie ein Neuanfang werden. Sie tauschen San Francisco gegen die Vorstadtidylle, nach der sich Claire seit ihrer turbulenten Kindheit sehnt. Doch noch während sie Kisten auspacken und Bilder aufhängen, bemerkt Claire, dass etwas nicht stimmt. Schockiert erkennt Das Haus hat Hunger. Es vertilgt alles, was nicht Umzugskartons, Schnittblumen, das Lieblingsspielzeug ihrer Tochter – oder ein totes Tier. Und was das Haus verschlingt, verschwindet nicht nur Bis auf Claire und Tom kann sich auch niemand daran erinnern, dass es je existiert hat. Die beiden versuchen, den seltsamen Vorgängen auf den Gund zu gehen und die Geheimnisse des Hauses zu lüften. Doch die sind tödlicher, als Claire ahnt ...

Genres: Horror, Thriller, Paranormal, Haunted House, Fiction, Adult, Audiobook

433 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 18, 2026

About the author

Max Doty is a veteran game-writer who served as the Head of Content for Choices: Stories You Play and Surviving High School for which he also wrote two spin-off novels. His screenplay “Almost Kings” won Netflix’s inaugural “Find Your Voice” award and was made into a feature film.

Max regularly contributes to reddit’s NoSleep forum as scarymaxx, where his works often appear at the top of the charts.

He holds a BA and an MA from Stanford University as well as an MFA from Arizona State University.

His debut horror novel The House that Eats the Dead will be published by Tor Nightfire in the UK and by Bantam in the US in August 2026.

Reviews

[Ricarda]

I'm a sucker for a sentient house story and this one did indeed check all my boxes. Because even though this is a horror novel with the house eating dead things and emitting a creepy vibe in general, it was actually kind of wholesome to me. Plenty of people died, but still. It all starts when Claire and Tom buy a new house and move in with their two children. It's expensive and not exactly their dream home, but it's huge and located in a safe neighborhood. But the safe and quiet life is not meant to be, because the house just has one too many quirks. The temperature is strange throughout, there are plenty of unknown scratching noises, food goes bad very quickly and random things keep disappearing. And by disappearing I mean that they are erased from the memory of everyone except for Claire and Tom, the new owners of the house. Of course they are freaked out and try to sell the house again almost immediately after they moved in, but they soon realize that it's very handy to own a house that makes dead things disappear without a trace. The house was very dear to me. It was just a hungry little guy, gobbling up whatever it could find without ever hurting anyone. It was hilarious to me when Claire started to train it like a dog and I wish the story would have fully embraced the wackadoodleness of it all. Instead the tone was kind of all-over-the-place. We went from fun to tragedy in an instant and these huge emotional moments never really hit the way that they were supposed to. Life-altering tragedies would happen and then they were fast-forwarded and everyone moved on immediately. I was so upset about the animal death for instance, but Claire as the main character felt quite emotionless in moments like this one to me. But maybe that's what happens when you live in a reality-altering house that's the solution to all your problems. Things got quite tense in the end and I was closely watching the family unravel bit by bit. Or should I say bite by bite? All the characters lost themselves with every object and memory that the house was eating, and it was interesting to see what would be left of them in the end. I was thoroughly entertained while reading this book and I would definitely recommend it if you're looking for a fast-paced, unusual horror thriller.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine / Bantam for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

[The Pastel Bookshelf]

4.5⭐️

[Holly Hearts Books]

The dog died. I knew it was going to happen but it pissed me off so happy 1 star.

[Mya Joan Emma]

I really enjoyed The House That Eats the Dead by Max Doty. It’s the kind of eerie, imaginative horror story that pulls you in quickly and keeps you curious about what might be hiding inside that unsettling house. I loved the strange, creeping atmosphere and the feeling that the house itself had a sinister personality.

I especially liked how the story slowly reveals its mysteries. The tension builds in a way that made it hard for me to stop reading, and I kept wanting to know what disturbing thing might happen next. The imagery is vivid and eerie, making the house feel like a living, breathing place filled with dark history.

I do wish a few parts had gone a little deeper, especially with some of the characters, but I still found the story incredibly entertaining and unique. I finished it feeling impressed by how imaginative and unsettling the concept was.

If you enjoy inventive haunted house stories with a creepy vibe and plenty of intrigue, I definitely recommend giving this one a try. It’s a fun, chilling read!

[Lady MacDeath 🌒🌕🌘]

This book was bizarre, creepy, addictive, and a helluva lot of fun.

Claire, Tom, and their two kids, Derek and Grace, move into a house, which has basically “chosen” them. A big, beautiful house, which has simply fallen into their laps, with a price tag, too good to be true. Things soon start disappearing…food brought that day, is getting gobbled up, and any drink or food left on a glass or plate, or fallen crumbs on the floor immediately start to disappear before their very eyes…it’s as though the house is hungry!!! Things eventually take a sinister turn, and the family start to change, becoming shadows of their former selves.

I really enjoyed this and would have finished it a lot sooner, but life gets busy and got in the way. I love the relationship between the “house” and Claire, who tries to train the house to suit her needs, and eventually forms a close bond. It all sounds crazy written down, but you will understand more, when you start reading it. It’s an unusual haunted house story, because the house really wants to look after it’s family, and receive the same in return. This is quite a difficult book to review, compared to others, but I loved the house, though I wouldn’t have gone as far as Claire and Tom to satisfy its hunger!!

4 ⭐️

Thanks to Max Doty, Bantam, and NetGalley, for providing me with this free ARC, with which I leave a voluntary review.

Available: 18 August 2026

[Crystal]

Not particularly scary for horror. An interesting read. I still have questions that I wish had been answered. Like what the heck the symbols were in the walls? Why was the house sentient in the first place? Annnnd (this happens close to the beginning so I don't consider it a spoiler) was it really necessary to kill the dog and have the house eat it? Poor doggo.

[Matt]

Claire and her family leave their urban condo life in San Francisco for a quieter life in the suburbs when they find a steal (of course, in the Bay Area, a “steal” still comes with a $4.5 million price tag) on a large, older home that seems perfect.
Everyone will have more space with a yard for her daughter to play in and a basement that her teenage son can use as a game room.

Shortly after moving in, the family realizes that things seem off.
Food and boxes disappear, food that was just prepared tastes spoiled, and the house is always immaculately clean, without a crumb or speck of dust anywhere.

I will admit that I don’t read a ton of horror, but this really didn’t feel like horror to me.
There were no gory details or scenes that may make one consider going to sleep with the lights on.
In fact, a couple of scenes kind of reminded me of the Netflix series The Santa Clarita Diet (if you’ve seen that show, you know that despite being categorized as horror, it isn’t scary at all).
So if horror isn’t typically your thing, don’t let that deter you from this one.

This book almost feels like it should be in its own category.
Not quite horror in the traditional sense, and despite a suspenseful ending, I wouldn’t call it a thriller either.
What I would call it is a very unique and fun read!
There was no part of this book where I was getting bored, or felt like things slowed down.
The pace was perfect from beginning to end.

It was interesting to see the personality and human qualities in something that is typically known to be an inanimate object.

The book also poses an ethical dilemma:
If you could kill someone, and with absolute certainty know that your house would destroy the evidence and erase the memory from everyone else’s minds (i.e., you’d definitely get away with it), would it alter your moral compass?
And would you use it for personal gain, as a way to help others, or neither?

I thoroughly enjoyed this and hope that Max Doty continues to write books like this!

Thanks to Ballentine Books for providing me with an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Pub Date: August 18, 2026

[Em]

THTETD is the most original approach to haunted house themed horror genre novels that I have ever read. I am so impressed with this author. The book is a perfect blend of mystery, mayhem, and magically crafted horror that is subtle yet so potent that even now I can still hear the sounds of mastication, grinding, slurping...a monstrous feeding. The prose itself is so confident and self assured that it sucks readers right in. I loved the voice of the main protagonist, an artistic housewife and mother of two who once upon a time had been known as Chaos Claire. She is believably written and extremely likable. Most of the humor/comic relief comes through her perspective. I wish I had a bit more time to write a review that could do this novel justice--I simply cannot recommend it enough. The author has pulled off something completely unique here, and a lesser talent could not have done so. The premise--that the house consumes, sucks away, and tidies anything that isn't living--could so easily have been too riddled with sentiment and pathetic fallacy to have worked. Instead, the author carefully tempered his diction such that it is almost scientific in places, and the tones he employed balance smoothly. At no point, did I have the rest of the storyline figured out. The plot remained constantly surprising and engaging. And the imagery is so vivid that I will probably see it return again and again in my nightmares. This is simply a wonderfully well written book.

Trigger Warning: If you have recently lost a dog, you may want to put reading this one on hold for a few.

[Nikki Lee (Nikkileethrillseeker)]

Let me preface this by saying this was nothing like I expected at all. I mean, I read the synopsis a long time ago, but I didn’t remember once I picked it up. I thought it would be a traditional haunted house story. Nope!

A family of four has finally gotten out of San Francisco and headed for the suburbs. The house is a huge Victorian home. 4,000 ft.2. It’s over 100 years old. They all love it!

What they weren’t prepared for was its insatiable hunger. The Victorian has swallowed some deep dark secrets and they’re about to find out.

You will fall in love with this family. Each member has their own quirks and personalities. His character development is incredible! I felt drawn to everyone, with the exception of one character. @thrillerbrews and I couldn’t stop discussing our own theories.

Ultimately, the story asks one very important question. If you could choose to have traumatic memories removed….. an example… your father dies. But, the memory of him dies also…. Would you do it?

The House That Eats The Dead is truly about family and the memories we create with them. And just how savage you will go to protect the ones you love.

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Bantam and NetGalley for the gifted copies.

Amazing buddy read with Thrillerbrews

[Rebecca]

thanks to Bantam & NetGalley for access to this ARC

***unfortunately my time with the arc ran out so I'll have to return to this one later***

[Stay]

“Can we at least open some wine?” he asked. “Well, yeah,” I said. “I’m not a monster.”

This book fell into my lap at a weird moment. I’m currently in the process of buying a property and now this is all I can think about. Maybe it’s haunted or likes to eat flesh. There’s no way to really tell until you move in…

I’m a little surprised something like this hasn’t been released before, so I was shocked when I started reading this and the most bizarre scenarios kept popping up. Parts were very creepy, while other parts were totally bizarre and it made this a really good read. You never knew what was around the corner, all you knew was that it was going to be good and maybe a little weird. Weird is always better in my book.

[Gareth Is Haunted]

An Original, Slow-Burn Nightmare That Trades Cheap Jumpscares for Real Dread.

Instead of relying on the standard ghostly apparitions or restless spirits, the narrative introduces a far more unsettling concept: what if the physical house itself is the entity doing the haunting?

What really anchors this book is the character work. The narrative succeeds because each member of the family is so exceptionally well-drawn; you genuinely care about their survival when the world around them begins to unravel.
While the prose feels a bit mundane in certain stretches, the grounded, unpretentious writing ultimately works in the book's favour. Instead of trying to constantly woo the reader with over-the-top, spectacular horror, Doty relies on a realistic tone that makes the escalating nightmare far easier to connect with—and much harder to put down.

[Shae Bentley]

4.5⭐️ - Oh, this was fun! I’m ALWAYS here for an unconventional haunted house story and The House That Eats the Dead had such a strange and fascinating premise. A house that literally eats things?? I was immediately intrigued. 😆 I loved watching Claire slowly figure out what the house was capable of and how its behaviour worked, because the more she discovered, the weirder and more disturbing things became. It starts off a little slower-paced and gradually gets darker and darker, and I was completely hooked once things started to escalate!

The house itself was easily my favourite part of the story. It feels like a character in its own right and I loved that it kinda behaved like a pet dog?! 😂 There are some genuinely disturbing moments, plenty of creepy imagery and a few things that made me very uncomfortable in the best possible way.

This also had a much more emotional side than I was expecting, particularly around grief and child loss. Those parts really got to me and made the story hit much harder than I anticipated.

I listened to the audiobook and thought the audio was fantastic. It really suited the atmosphere of the story and made all the creepy and unsettling moments even better. This was a really fun, weird and original take on haunted-house horror and definitely one I’d recommend!

Thank you so much to Libro.fm and Pan Macmillan UK for the ALC.

[Steven]

Thanks to Netgalley and Bantam for the pre-release copy of The House That Eats the Dead by Max Doty. Below is my honest review.

I love haunted house stories, and this is definitely haunted house adjacent. After the family moves in, the weirdest things start to happen and every member of the family begins to change.

I really enjoyed watching Claire grow to understand the house and its hunger. I felt like the pacing was on point, and I felt that the revelations along the way made total sense.

There were some really sad parts, especially due to the house's influence over the world after it eats.

I had to knock off a half a star because, well, Max Doty, you know what you did (hint: there is a dog in this book.)

All in all, a fantastic story. This is the second thing I've read this year that started as a reddit serial, the other being We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer, which was also top notch. Publishers take note, there are some badass writers on reddit and you guys should be stalking subreddits like "nosleep" and finding these gems.

Highly recommended for horror fans and haunted house (or haunted house adjacent!) stories. Four and a half stars, rounded down.

[Liana Gold]

A dream home with insatiable hunger.
As you can probably tell by my recent reads, I'm in my era of domestic horror.


Many thanks to NetGalley, Ballentine and the author, Max Doty for an early ARC.

Publication date: August 18, 2026

[Dr CG]

Bloody brilliant, but mostly bloody :)

The House That Eats the Dead was such a fun and unique take on the haunted house story because this wasn’t your typical haunted house—the house was actually alive.

At first, things around the house started going missing, mostly food and other organic things that would eventually expire. Weird, but not exactly terrifying. Then the family dog died, and when they brought its body into the house, it simply disappeared. What made that even creepier was that afterward, the kids didn’t remember the dog had ever existed, while the adults still did. It became clear that the house didn’t just enjoy consuming organic things…it somehow erased their history along with them.

And, of course, it didn’t stop with the dog.

Once the bodies started piling up, the family got themselves in way deeper than they ever intended, and that was where things really took off for me. There was plenty of family drama mixed in with the suspense and horror, but my favorite part was that the house itself really felt like the main character. It had its own appetites, rules, and personality, and I loved slowly learning more about what it was capable of.

This was creepy, strange, dark, and honestly just so fun. I’ve read plenty of haunted house stories, but I’d never read one quite like this.

Thank you to the author and publisher, and to #Netgalley for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review! I loved it!

[Aleena]

This was a lot of fun!

I’m always a sucker for unconventional haunted house horror, like The September House, and this one absolutely hit the spot. The premise is so unique and intriguing, and I completely ate this one up.

I didn’t care all that much about the human characters (maybe except Derek, because he’s a cool dude and a good son), but I loved following Claire as she slowly figures out the house and, essentially, “trains” it.

And honestly, who wouldn’t want a spotless house that behaves sort of like a dog?

Overall, a solid 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for me!

[Lea]

4 ⭐️ First off thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this eARC of the book. I didn't realize this had already been released by the time I got it. So it was right up my alley...what's not to love about a house that eats things...literally. Set in the burbs of San Francisco area a family moves into a house and things start disappearing and the kids have no recollection of it ever existing. The only people who remember are the mom and dad. There is some disturbing imagery and devastating moments so maybe check your trigger warnings. There's paranormal activity/haunted house situations, murder, pet death, child death, loss, grief, memory loss, eerie vibes, and more. Yeah I would recommend this especially with spooky season starting. This released 8/18/26.

[Ashley Sawyer]

《4.5⭐️ rounded up to 5⭐️》

The whole concept of a house that literally eats anything that was once alive is creepy enough, but watching Claire slowly realize what her new home is capable of made this such a fun and unsettling read. What starts as a fresh beginning for Claire and her family quickly turns into something much darker as flowers disappear, eggs are found hollow, and things begin vanishing without a trace.

I really enjoyed watching Claire’s relationship with the house develop, especially as she starts to realize its hunger can actually be useful. But of course, nothing this strange comes without a price, and the more the house wants, the more unsettling everything becomes!

Weird, atmospheric, disturbing, and definitely not the kind of haunted house story I was expecting! If you like horror with bizarre premises and a house that is basically its own character, this one is worth checking out!

Thank you to NetGalley, Max Doty and Ballantine for this eARC!

[Rene Allen-Alonge]

This book was very unique and I have never read something quite like this before. This book is a little spooky without being full on horror. This book would be great if someone wanted to try a little horror without being scared out of their mind. It was intriguing without being gross or terribly scary. It felt like a fever dream sometimes in the best possible way. I would definitely recommend.

[Justinstaysreading]

Ohhh myyyyyy gawdd. The title and description of the book made me instantly request this novel. It was multi layered, and such a dark story. I absolutely love all of the morality questions this book poses such as “if you could erase the pain to save someone and yet they forget the memories, is it worth it? I had shivers down my body and this reminded me of the september house by carissa orlando. I couldnt stop reading this batshit story.

I was floored by the end and truly felt so seen by chaos claire.

This was spectacular, 5 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC, out next week!

[BookishKB]

🩸🕯️ The House That Eats the Dead by Max Doty 🕯️🩸

📖 Bookish Thoughts
I’ll be sharing my full review closer to publication date.

✨What to Expect
• Haunted house
• Suburban horror
• Family unraveling
• Psychological tension
• Morally gray MCs
• Disappearing memories
_ _ _ _
📅 Pub Date: August 18, 2026
📝 Thank you to Ballantine and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

[vlm]

This was such a strange and creepy book, and I mean that in the best possible way. The House That Eats the Dead takes the idea of a haunted house and gives it a seriously disturbing twist. This isn't a house with a ghost wandering around. The house itself is hungry.

I loved the increasingly bizarre things Claire discovers after moving in. At first, the strange occurrences are easy to dismiss, but as the truth about the house becomes clearer, the story gets darker and more unsettling. The idea that the house can devour anything that was once alive and somehow erase it from everyone's memory is genuinely creepy.

What I found especially interesting was Claire's relationship with the house. Once she realizes she can use its abilities, things become much more complicated. Her choices make you wonder how far someone might go once they have access to something that could give them power, even when they know that power comes with a terrible cost.

This is definitely not a typical haunted-house horror story. It is dark, weird, occasionally outrageous, and filled with a growing sense of dread. I never quite knew where the story was going, which kept me reading.

If you enjoy horror that takes a familiar idea and turns it into something completely unexpected, this is one to check out.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC for review. All opinions are my own.

[˚⋅NataliLit ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ|Reading Horror Lit⛧‧˚]

Recommending this as a connoisseur of the haunted house subgenre (I've read over 30 of them by now).

I'll start with a con, as it's chronologically at the beginning of the book. There are 2, for me (and they are very much based on preference).

The haunted house is a 4-5 million mansion an upper-class man (a high-paying lawyer) buys. That's it, that's my irk lol. I am just tired that in this economy we are still buying mansions in fiction. The plot would not change a lot if it was a flat.

The second one is that before the action truly starts, we are witnessing this picture-perfect family for about 10 percent of the book. There are small cracks, but it took me a leap of faith to get to the interesting stuff after reading about the existential crisis of a woman who has a loving husband, 2 children, a dog, and is now contemplating whether all her luxurious life was make-believe on her part. Sorry, too poor to empathize fully.

Now to the good part! The rest of the book.

The power of the house is explored cautiously, the way people in the real world would probably do it. It reveals its secrets slowly and you never know if you are truly safe within the walls. As usual for such a closed location, we are exploring a lot not through direct action, but through emotions and dynamics inside the family.

The thing about the haunting in this house is that you can say it's modern literature. A century ago the house was unexplained=scary=evil. Here the house is a subverted monster: while living inside, characters start to form different bonds with it, depending on their traits.

The heroine tries to befriend and compromise, her husband sees it as a tool to be used to his advantage, the teenage son is too clever to succumb to the illusion that the house is not expecting a payback, and the little girl creates a game with rules that seem reasonable for a 7-year-old.

That's the best part of well-written horror: it holds up a mirror to look at the monster.

[BansheeBibliophile]

The concept for this book was super creative and I wanted to love it SO much...

I made it to about 50 percent and I gave up and looked up spoilers to see how it ended. It pretty much went the way I expected, which might not necessarily mean it is predictable but I felt like the path
was fairly clear.

When I did a little more research, I learned two things that made the book make much more sense:

- The author has primarily written YA

- This book was initially conceptualized on the r/no sleep board on Reddit

If you aren't familiar, r/nosleep is an online community that shares original horror stories that are intended to be written in the first person as though they were true stories. Some people may relate this to the 2010s trend of creepypasta - a genre of internet horror fiction.

I could actually see the bones of this story being wildly successful as an online thread but I don't think it had enough to sustain an entire novel.

On the plus side, I really appreciate that the author didn't bother with the tired "Nobody believes me!" trope. We know from the start that there is a weird ass house that will eat anything that used to be alive - so glad he didn't try to add a hundred pages of hand-wringing to figure that out.

I think this will actually be quite liked by many fans of the genre. I just couldn't find anyone to root for and it felt like it should have been a short story.

[Elizabeth]

If you’re looking for books to add to your Fall TBR this should absolutely be on it. It has the spooky haunted house vibe mixed with magical elements and an old lady who knows more than she is letting on which I LOVE. I’m a sucker for an ominous elderly character.

I truly loved everything about this from start to finish. I loved the fact that when Claire noticed something was wrong, Tom immediately backed her up and told her he believed her. He didn’t tell her she was crazy or gaslight her in any way. It was so nice to see a woman be believed and supported. The bar is low but man, when it’s met it is so nice 🤣.

The house itself as a character was also very likable. Even though it’s meant to be a villain, I thought of it more as a pet and I wanted the house to “win” so to say.

I didn’t feel like anything was left open at the end, it was wrapped up so nicely and so well done. This is a must read and I’ll definitely add it to my Fall reread list.


✨Vibes✨
•Monster House
•Amityville
•Encanto

[Beth]

4.5 ⭐

[Brandy]

5 stars. 5 beautiful stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
THIS is how you do a twist on a haunted house story! 👏🏻

This house isn’t just haunted, it eats! Organic things. Dead things. Memories. History. It changes the people living inside it.

There’s something deeply unsettling about a house that doesn’t simply want to scare you, it wants to consume you, alter you, and erase the evidence that you ever existed in the first place. This was creepy, atmospheric, disturbing, and genuinely such a fresh take on the haunted house trope. I went into this expecting a spooky house story and got something so much stranger and more unsettling!

And yes, I’m giving it ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ even though Max Doty committed the unforgivable act of hurting my feelings by killing a dog. 😭💔
---->🚨 TRIGGER WARNING: 🚨 Chapter 6 contains a dog death. If animal death is a hard no for you, please go in knowing that ahead of time.

But despite that heartbreak… FIVE STARS.
Add this one to your TBR IMMEDIATELY!

Huge thank you to NetGalley, Max Doty and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Aubrei K (earlgreypls)]

this was so much fun

[Lia's Haunted Library]

DNF

I really wanted to like this one because the concept is genuinely interesting, a house driven by hunger is such a strong and unsettling idea. But the pacing completely lost me.

It felt uneven in a way that made it hard to stay engaged. Some parts rushed through moments that should have mattered, while others dragged to the point where I found myself bored and disconnected. I never fully got invested in the characters or the story, and that made it difficult to keep going.

I can see the potential in the premise, but the execution just didn’t work for me.