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Solace House
Not yet published
Expected 13 Oct 26In the summer of 1993, broke student Alex Lane joins a team clearing out Solace House, a Victorian mansion bequeathed to the university by a reclusive hoarder called Flayne. The other students are a mixed bunch, but Alex quickly falls into a close friendship with the lively, redheaded Ella.
When the crew begins sorting through piles of junk, they stumble upon Flayne's journals, in which he details his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of a place called Bewise, and - most mysteriously - his belief in another realm lying parallel to ours, along with coded instructions as to how it might be reached.
As the students delve deeper into the house's secrets, one of them becomes obsessed with deciphering Flayne's strange opus and its promise of another world... and they may be willing to sacrifice everything, and everyone, to get there.
When the crew begins sorting through piles of junk, they stumble upon Flayne's journals, in which he details his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of a place called Bewise, and - most mysteriously - his belief in another realm lying parallel to ours, along with coded instructions as to how it might be reached.
As the students delve deeper into the house's secrets, one of them becomes obsessed with deciphering Flayne's strange opus and its promise of another world... and they may be willing to sacrifice everything, and everyone, to get there.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 229 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Are we dreaming this place, or is this place dreaming us?
This book hits that elusive sweet spot of being a compelling page-turner that is also literate and fluently written. It's one of those books where I can't say much about the plot for fear of spoilers. I will say, though, that the blurb comparison with The Secret History puzzled me. I could see the Piranesi connection though this does something quite different. For me, I was thinking mostly of The Haunting of Hill House, especially the idea of mutual agencies questioned in the quotation above, and the psychological interactions between the house and inhabitants. There's also an M.R. James vibe in the attention to archaeology and artefacts and a visionary quality of William Blake, name-checked in the text. But intertexts are more than the literary with a particular Queen song and painting that reverberate and echo throughout.
On the writing, it's only near to the end that we understand exactly how clever Maclean has been - Nevertheless, there are also places where the slow-burn pace of the storytelling started to drag a little for me: I got to about 50% and it felt like we were still in the set-up. Also not all the characters are particularly well-defined: Malcolm sort of fades away and Ruth has never had much of a role in the story. But the end is tense and intriguing and pulled off well - I love the way the book remains unresolved right to the end and we are left, as readers, to create our own meanings for what we have read - or, even, hold paradoxical and contradictory endings together in our head, which is where I ended up.
Perhaps one of the big clues to my own interpretation was dropped in too early:
Still, this was a book I could barely put down: intriguing, clever, twisting and dark with its esoteric and even philosophical qualities sitting completely comfortably alongside the 'popular' haunted house/supernatural horror elements. And that final section is an unexpected departure that I certainly didn't see coming - a fabulous piece of storytelling!
Many thanks to Atlantic Books for an ARC via NetGalley
Want to Read
February 11, 2026Drill a hole in my fucking skull, and force feed this book straight into my temporal lobe.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
✰ 3.5 stars ✰
Bummer. I was really hoping for it to be a four-star read. 😣
Loved the prose. It sucks you in. So atmospheric and haunting, visually entrancing. From the ridge to the marshlands to the Solace House, to the mystical realm, it really reeled me in, captivated and bewitched, almost cinematic in it's depiction. Despite its unnecessary length with a bit of repetitiveness, the details were mesmerizing and chilling.👌
Was I high? No, just high on the appeal of expectation where I had to know, I had to see. How I longed for something surreal and macabre to define all that was unseemly and ghastly in this vivid tapestry of seductive illusion.
“I am in a place where no choice is without horror.”
High on the surprise, I went along for the ride where time is uncertainty, and reality is a betrayal in a walled idyll, a strange paradise. But after a while, the drugs dulled my senses, and I entered a state of confusion and perplexity. 🤔 There was no conclusion, just a mirage of ideas that didn't reach a point, leaving it to me to deem what the actual endgame was.
And that sucked. Big time. 🙎🏻♀️ It's bad enough I was in this magical house, but once I escaped, I was not getting anywhere. It left me hollow and empty, without any closure. It's like riding a roller coaster: you're at the peak, and right at the drop-off point, you plummet painstakingly. 😐 There's no thrill of the rush, just a crippling disappointment that the build-up wasn't worth the intrigue.
At least give me a sense of the real issue with his parents? The Annihilator and the Terrible Last Day? I needed some veracity to this tortured experience, a cursed revelation of how our frail, feeble evils are revealed. Had he gone mentally unstable after a tragic, unfortunate accident? 🥺
It was too much speculation for the burgeoning questions to be conclusive, which left me undecided. Dodging the question just as much as Alex avoided giving a concrete answer. 🙄 Meandering, not so much misleading with purposefully disguised details, but ultimately failed to strike a match - for me, anyway.
The tone is laced literally with disguised hokey-ness, I don't know whether to applaud it or be offended that it left me to surmise the true intent behind it.What was real and what was a figment of his imagination serving as a coping mechanism—creating something so unbelievable that the horror allowed him to survive the trauma?
“Labyrinth, yew maze, artful dead ends.
built upon tragedy foreseen.
on ruination - everything depends
on obliterating my dream.”
I applaud the author's poetic talents that displayed plentiful creative ingenuity; however, their inclusion at the start of every chapter became distracting and burdensome. It felt ineffectual and also a little over my head, even when the urge to skip them was ever present. 😕
19yo Alex was a strange MC, unlikeable, duplicitous, insufferable, and almost apathetic, with how his empathy and concern seemed fake. He felt devoid of any real interest in other human beings. His very actions suggested an ulterior motive with a hidden agenda.
The cast did fall under the stereotypical archetypes with very little depth, save to serve as a checklist of perfect inclusion to depict a lifeboat of easy camaraderie that existed over a bleak, terrible summer filled with nightmares, terrors, vivid dreams.
“How precious and precarious is sanity, how fleeting, how utterly unappreciated.”
I would have liked more mysticism than mushrooms—some credulity to the disbelieving nature of the plot, maybe more weight to the mental asylum's tortured history. But, the mushrooms became such a predominant element, that I was no longer fazed. Forget Alex's already crippling psyche, the hallucinations were overwhelming the narrative. 😵💫 And that definitely put my investment on the back burner.
Wow, the more I try to write shorter reviews, the more words escape me. 😅
Long story short: I was gripped by Edwin Flayne's disturbing mystery of horrors, enthralled with the atmospheric vibes and vivid descriptive imagery of - the unreality... the madness... and the strangeness - but left with a feeling of bittersweet disappointment, if not sadness, for failing to leave with a clear understanding of what actually happened. I have theories, but, honestly, it would have been nice to have some clarity on what essentially read like a fever dream, instead. 🥴
“Here is a story, a parable, that can speak only to those who understand.”
Bummer. I was really hoping for it to be a four-star read. 😣
Loved the prose. It sucks you in. So atmospheric and haunting, visually entrancing. From the ridge to the marshlands to the Solace House, to the mystical realm, it really reeled me in, captivated and bewitched, almost cinematic in it's depiction. Despite its unnecessary length with a bit of repetitiveness, the details were mesmerizing and chilling.👌
Was I high? No, just high on the appeal of expectation where I had to know, I had to see. How I longed for something surreal and macabre to define all that was unseemly and ghastly in this vivid tapestry of seductive illusion.
“I am in a place where no choice is without horror.”
High on the surprise, I went along for the ride where time is uncertainty, and reality is a betrayal in a walled idyll, a strange paradise. But after a while, the drugs dulled my senses, and I entered a state of confusion and perplexity. 🤔 There was no conclusion, just a mirage of ideas that didn't reach a point, leaving it to me to deem what the actual endgame was.
And that sucked. Big time. 🙎🏻♀️ It's bad enough I was in this magical house, but once I escaped, I was not getting anywhere. It left me hollow and empty, without any closure. It's like riding a roller coaster: you're at the peak, and right at the drop-off point, you plummet painstakingly. 😐 There's no thrill of the rush, just a crippling disappointment that the build-up wasn't worth the intrigue.
At least give me a sense of the real issue with his parents? The Annihilator and the Terrible Last Day? I needed some veracity to this tortured experience, a cursed revelation of how our frail, feeble evils are revealed. Had he gone mentally unstable after a tragic, unfortunate accident? 🥺
It was too much speculation for the burgeoning questions to be conclusive, which left me undecided. Dodging the question just as much as Alex avoided giving a concrete answer. 🙄 Meandering, not so much misleading with purposefully disguised details, but ultimately failed to strike a match - for me, anyway.
The tone is laced literally with disguised hokey-ness, I don't know whether to applaud it or be offended that it left me to surmise the true intent behind it.What was real and what was a figment of his imagination serving as a coping mechanism—creating something so unbelievable that the horror allowed him to survive the trauma?
“Labyrinth, yew maze, artful dead ends.
built upon tragedy foreseen.
on ruination - everything depends
on obliterating my dream.”
I applaud the author's poetic talents that displayed plentiful creative ingenuity; however, their inclusion at the start of every chapter became distracting and burdensome. It felt ineffectual and also a little over my head, even when the urge to skip them was ever present. 😕
19yo Alex was a strange MC, unlikeable, duplicitous, insufferable, and almost apathetic, with how his empathy and concern seemed fake. He felt devoid of any real interest in other human beings. His very actions suggested an ulterior motive with a hidden agenda.
The cast did fall under the stereotypical archetypes with very little depth, save to serve as a checklist of perfect inclusion to depict a lifeboat of easy camaraderie that existed over a bleak, terrible summer filled with nightmares, terrors, vivid dreams.
“How precious and precarious is sanity, how fleeting, how utterly unappreciated.”
I would have liked more mysticism than mushrooms—some credulity to the disbelieving nature of the plot, maybe more weight to the mental asylum's tortured history. But, the mushrooms became such a predominant element, that I was no longer fazed. Forget Alex's already crippling psyche, the hallucinations were overwhelming the narrative. 😵💫 And that definitely put my investment on the back burner.
Wow, the more I try to write shorter reviews, the more words escape me. 😅
Long story short: I was gripped by Edwin Flayne's disturbing mystery of horrors, enthralled with the atmospheric vibes and vivid descriptive imagery of - the unreality... the madness... and the strangeness - but left with a feeling of bittersweet disappointment, if not sadness, for failing to leave with a clear understanding of what actually happened. I have theories, but, honestly, it would have been nice to have some clarity on what essentially read like a fever dream, instead. 🥴
April 26, 2026
I see what you’re going for and I read it very quickly. Two stars for effort!
However
I’ve previously stated, but the comparison to haunting of hill house is only accurate if you are speaking, specifically, about the 1999 theatrical release featuring Catherine zeta jones in which a guy’s head gets knocked off and which incidentally has a 17% on rotten tomatoes. Genuinely as a 2 hour popcorn experience in the hottest week of July this would be my absolute jam. I’d still find the below items problematic or just plain bad but boy would I have a good time.
It should not be comped to secret history at all, and comparing it to house of leaves is just mean. Like comparing a 20 piece puzzle to a 1000 piece puzzle. I’m sorry this description feels SO mean but despite my misgivings about house of leaves / danielewski I think it’s just wrong to put these two things on the same footing.
And while we are here
-it is fcuked up about women, both caricaturish (jilly and Helen are actively sexist annoying shrill portrayals of women) and profoundly fridgifying ([redacted] is a sexist portrayal of women in the sense of only being sexy and relatable and dead)
-it is fcuked up about albinism that it pretends isn’t albinism. why is the [redacted] of your [redacted] an otherworldly sinister “Strange and Pale” fellow and the vessel for the story’s majority supply of being violent and creepy? You didn’t need the shadow being who reflects your deepest terrors to also be: a disabled person
-it’s briefly but very weird about the ~mystical~ nature of Irish and Romani people, just throwing it in there for why the hell not
-it’s incredible how lazy you can be about the nature of mental illness sorry MADNESS and INSANITY OOOOH spooky and evocative, when you’re trying to do a Lovecraft and please god don’t do a Lovecraft [carving out an exception for The Fisherman which I really really like]
-the main character? He’s shit. Regardless of anything that happens or how crrrrAaaazzzy things get he’s just kind of gross and egotistical in a pedestrian way and I can’t stand him and he is not someone I am enthusiastic about as the center of the mystery
-I just rly don’t think he ever hits the balance between ~Madness~, real cosmic horror, and magic mushrooms — I love the effort to throw the reader violently against one perception or interpretation after the other but it never quite hit the right pitch
-we seem to be entering an era of long novels which could have been half the length. It is okay for books to be 300 pages instead of 500. Concentrate your plot, your sensations, your propulsion in fewer words and you become more powerful than you can imagine. There’s a place for long books I swear but the amount of stuff that happens in this book is not commensurate with its length.
Now to cap off, I’m going to suggest very earnestly and with great encouragement to all my fellow readers: if you got something out of the poetry in this novel please read the canonical and real life romantics. Read the people who inspired this (as evidenced by the meander through a gallery of paintings featuring red headed pre raphaelite muses) You will love them. Their poems will remind you aesthetically of the poetry in this book but oh you can pack so much into the bad boys of Christina Rossetti, Keats and Byron. It’s worth delving into with the spirit of curiosity and melodrama and Deep Philosophy.
Shortest review: honestly flew through it and would love the movie but gosh did it need some work and some slaps in the face.
However
I’ve previously stated, but the comparison to haunting of hill house is only accurate if you are speaking, specifically, about the 1999 theatrical release featuring Catherine zeta jones in which a guy’s head gets knocked off and which incidentally has a 17% on rotten tomatoes. Genuinely as a 2 hour popcorn experience in the hottest week of July this would be my absolute jam. I’d still find the below items problematic or just plain bad but boy would I have a good time.
It should not be comped to secret history at all, and comparing it to house of leaves is just mean. Like comparing a 20 piece puzzle to a 1000 piece puzzle. I’m sorry this description feels SO mean but despite my misgivings about house of leaves / danielewski I think it’s just wrong to put these two things on the same footing.
And while we are here
-it is fcuked up about women, both caricaturish (jilly and Helen are actively sexist annoying shrill portrayals of women) and profoundly fridgifying ([redacted] is a sexist portrayal of women in the sense of only being sexy and relatable and dead)
-it is fcuked up about albinism that it pretends isn’t albinism. why is the [redacted] of your [redacted] an otherworldly sinister “Strange and Pale” fellow and the vessel for the story’s majority supply of being violent and creepy? You didn’t need the shadow being who reflects your deepest terrors to also be: a disabled person
-it’s briefly but very weird about the ~mystical~ nature of Irish and Romani people, just throwing it in there for why the hell not
-it’s incredible how lazy you can be about the nature of mental illness sorry MADNESS and INSANITY OOOOH spooky and evocative, when you’re trying to do a Lovecraft and please god don’t do a Lovecraft [carving out an exception for The Fisherman which I really really like]
-the main character? He’s shit. Regardless of anything that happens or how crrrrAaaazzzy things get he’s just kind of gross and egotistical in a pedestrian way and I can’t stand him and he is not someone I am enthusiastic about as the center of the mystery
-I just rly don’t think he ever hits the balance between ~Madness~, real cosmic horror, and magic mushrooms — I love the effort to throw the reader violently against one perception or interpretation after the other but it never quite hit the right pitch
-we seem to be entering an era of long novels which could have been half the length. It is okay for books to be 300 pages instead of 500. Concentrate your plot, your sensations, your propulsion in fewer words and you become more powerful than you can imagine. There’s a place for long books I swear but the amount of stuff that happens in this book is not commensurate with its length.
Now to cap off, I’m going to suggest very earnestly and with great encouragement to all my fellow readers: if you got something out of the poetry in this novel please read the canonical and real life romantics. Read the people who inspired this (as evidenced by the meander through a gallery of paintings featuring red headed pre raphaelite muses) You will love them. Their poems will remind you aesthetically of the poetry in this book but oh you can pack so much into the bad boys of Christina Rossetti, Keats and Byron. It’s worth delving into with the spirit of curiosity and melodrama and Deep Philosophy.
Shortest review: honestly flew through it and would love the movie but gosh did it need some work and some slaps in the face.
May 10, 2026
Solace House is the first novel by Will Maclean that I’ve read, and on this showing he very much seems like a writer worth following. It’s an ambitious book: eerie, quiet, deeply atmospheric, and content to remain strange on its own terms. From the beginning, the novel slowly builds a lingering sense of unease and loneliness that completely pulled me in. It also has one of the most striking covers I’ve seen in some time — evocative, disorienting, and perfectly in tune with the novel’s blend of the ordinary and the uncanny.
Maclean brings together grief story, period piece, haunted-house mystery, and something harder to define, with a quiet confidence that never feels forced. Set in the early ’90s, it captures the texture of the period perfectly without leaning too heavily on nostalgia. What comes through instead is the feeling of empty summers, cultural leftovers, and the uncertain drift of early adulthood. The setting feels genuinely lived in rather than carefully arranged.
The story follows Alex Lane, who takes a job clearing the cluttered Victorian house of a dead painter named Flayne. From there, the novel proceeds by accumulation: each discovery explains something while making the larger shape of things feel even less clear. Maclean is particularly good at sustaining that tension between explanation and unease, and at suggesting how little distance there often is between the two.
Beneath the haunted-house mystery and grief story, the novel increasingly becomes something stranger and more disorienting — a book about memory, obsession, and the fragility of reality itself. In an interview with The Bookseller, Maclean described the novel as having “a very simple and obvious explanation” as well as “a very baroque and esoteric one,” leaving it up to the reader which version they believe. The novel constantly balances between rational explanation and something far stranger, until even the ordinary details of reality begin to feel unstable.
The writer has a real gift for characterisation, and I found myself becoming more invested in the characters with every chapter. The shifting dynamics between them give the novel much of its emotional pull, and the cast feel like real people rather than figures simply moved into place for the plot.
This is a slow-burning 500-page novel, but the short, snappy chapters give it a welcome sense of momentum, and I flew through it. The length allows both the atmosphere and the novel’s themes — memory, grief, obsession, loneliness — time to fully settle in.
The ending absolutely nailed it, too. The final section moves into stranger territory and refuses to explain everything away. Some readers may resist that, but I thought it suited the novel perfectly. It would have lost something if it had become too neat or too legible by the end.
A thoughtful, quietly accomplished novel. I immediately ordered the author's first novel, The Apparition Phase after finishing this, which probably says enough on its own.
Maclean brings together grief story, period piece, haunted-house mystery, and something harder to define, with a quiet confidence that never feels forced. Set in the early ’90s, it captures the texture of the period perfectly without leaning too heavily on nostalgia. What comes through instead is the feeling of empty summers, cultural leftovers, and the uncertain drift of early adulthood. The setting feels genuinely lived in rather than carefully arranged.
The story follows Alex Lane, who takes a job clearing the cluttered Victorian house of a dead painter named Flayne. From there, the novel proceeds by accumulation: each discovery explains something while making the larger shape of things feel even less clear. Maclean is particularly good at sustaining that tension between explanation and unease, and at suggesting how little distance there often is between the two.
Beneath the haunted-house mystery and grief story, the novel increasingly becomes something stranger and more disorienting — a book about memory, obsession, and the fragility of reality itself. In an interview with The Bookseller, Maclean described the novel as having “a very simple and obvious explanation” as well as “a very baroque and esoteric one,” leaving it up to the reader which version they believe. The novel constantly balances between rational explanation and something far stranger, until even the ordinary details of reality begin to feel unstable.
The writer has a real gift for characterisation, and I found myself becoming more invested in the characters with every chapter. The shifting dynamics between them give the novel much of its emotional pull, and the cast feel like real people rather than figures simply moved into place for the plot.
This is a slow-burning 500-page novel, but the short, snappy chapters give it a welcome sense of momentum, and I flew through it. The length allows both the atmosphere and the novel’s themes — memory, grief, obsession, loneliness — time to fully settle in.
The ending absolutely nailed it, too. The final section moves into stranger territory and refuses to explain everything away. Some readers may resist that, but I thought it suited the novel perfectly. It would have lost something if it had become too neat or too legible by the end.
A thoughtful, quietly accomplished novel. I immediately ordered the author's first novel, The Apparition Phase after finishing this, which probably says enough on its own.
Read
March 10, 2026Solace House (2026) is the follow up to Will Maclean’s excellent debut novel The Apparition Phase (2020) which I loved, so was delighted to get my mitts on a review copy of this one.
Rest assured it’s another high wire winner and a triumph of storytelling. A real slow burn though and one which requires a bit of patience. The pay off is well worth it.
The less you know the better. Suffice to say the start is all atmosphere before it takes flight in the final sections. That said, I found it all really compelling and was immersed from the off.
A strange, multi layered, playful, unsettling, haunting novel. If you enjoy literary horror then this is essential and one that almost demands an instant reread.
4/5
More about Solace House (2026)]...
A brilliant, towering, puzzle-box novel about perfect summers and forbidden knowledge, somewhere in the mad interstice of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and A.S. Byatt’s Possession.
Summer, 1993, and university student Alex Lane finds himself at the end of the summer term, broke and without plans. When offered the chance to join students – including beautiful, mercurial Ella – clearing out Solace House, a Victorian residence left by reclusive hoarder Edwin Flayne, he accepts. Initially the house seems ordinary, if slightly mad. But sorting through junk, they discover Flayne’s journals detailing his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of strange place Bewise, and his belief in another parallel realm, with coded instructions for reaching it. One of the students becomes increasingly obsessed with the house’s secrets and gaining forbidden knowledge – assuming they’re willing to sacrifice everything and everyone.
Rest assured it’s another high wire winner and a triumph of storytelling. A real slow burn though and one which requires a bit of patience. The pay off is well worth it.
The less you know the better. Suffice to say the start is all atmosphere before it takes flight in the final sections. That said, I found it all really compelling and was immersed from the off.
A strange, multi layered, playful, unsettling, haunting novel. If you enjoy literary horror then this is essential and one that almost demands an instant reread.
4/5
More about Solace House (2026)]...
A brilliant, towering, puzzle-box novel about perfect summers and forbidden knowledge, somewhere in the mad interstice of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and A.S. Byatt’s Possession.
Summer, 1993, and university student Alex Lane finds himself at the end of the summer term, broke and without plans. When offered the chance to join students – including beautiful, mercurial Ella – clearing out Solace House, a Victorian residence left by reclusive hoarder Edwin Flayne, he accepts. Initially the house seems ordinary, if slightly mad. But sorting through junk, they discover Flayne’s journals detailing his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of strange place Bewise, and his belief in another parallel realm, with coded instructions for reaching it. One of the students becomes increasingly obsessed with the house’s secrets and gaining forbidden knowledge – assuming they’re willing to sacrifice everything and everyone.
April 30, 2026
✨✨✨Great concept, excellent atmosphere, but…frustrating.🫣 ✨✨✨
Solace House started off a bit slow for me and it was a bit of a struggle for me to get into it. The plot of this one sounded super intriguing and absolutely right up my alley but it ended up kind of a mixed bag for me.
I think a lot the struggle I had with it is that it’s a little slow and the characters were all just a bit dry and flat. I didn’t really feel invested in the MC or anyone else. I didn’t like any of them either. I was hoping for some Alex and Adam romance, that would have been amazing and the vibes were there. I would have been invested in that. 😭 😂
Probably about 1/4th the way through I started to get really into the story. The atmosphere throughout the book is extremely well done. Things were getting so very interesting for a bit!! Unfortunately, then it lost my interest again, but also simultaneously it was also like too much was happening.❓By the time I (finally, I mean this really didn’t need to be as long as it is) got to the end I was hoping it would be an ending I enjoyed, but sadly it just wasn’t.
I liked the idea of this one a lot. It definitely could have been edited down (a lot) some. Maybe cut out the bloating in exchange for some better connection to the characters. I can definitely see what the author was going for, but it just fell a little short and was a bit frustrating for me unfortunately.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free ebook copy in exchange for an honest review. This book is expected to be released October 13, 2026 .
Solace House started off a bit slow for me and it was a bit of a struggle for me to get into it. The plot of this one sounded super intriguing and absolutely right up my alley but it ended up kind of a mixed bag for me.
I think a lot the struggle I had with it is that it’s a little slow and the characters were all just a bit dry and flat. I didn’t really feel invested in the MC or anyone else. I didn’t like any of them either. I was hoping for some Alex and Adam romance, that would have been amazing and the vibes were there. I would have been invested in that. 😭 😂
Probably about 1/4th the way through I started to get really into the story. The atmosphere throughout the book is extremely well done. Things were getting so very interesting for a bit!! Unfortunately, then it lost my interest again, but also simultaneously it was also like too much was happening.❓By the time I (finally, I mean this really didn’t need to be as long as it is) got to the end I was hoping it would be an ending I enjoyed, but sadly it just wasn’t.
I liked the idea of this one a lot. It definitely could have been edited down (a lot) some. Maybe cut out the bloating in exchange for some better connection to the characters. I can definitely see what the author was going for, but it just fell a little short and was a bit frustrating for me unfortunately.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free ebook copy in exchange for an honest review. This book is expected to be released October 13, 2026 .
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Mild spoilers ahead
Solace House's premise was quite interesting. The story follows a group of university students who have been called to clean a remote property over the summer. Once they've settled into their new apartments, they find the diaries and journals of Solace House’s former owner. Some of the students slowly become obsessed with the mystery surrounding the house and its lore.
The first 40% of this novel focuses on Alex, one of the students and our protagonist, showing us his troubled relationship with his friends and family, his need for belonging and, most of all, his naiveté. He is incredibly annoying, but I didn’t mind him as a main character. I enjoyed seeing things from his point of view, even though I felt frustrated by his behaviour at times.
I appreciated the slow pacing. Seeing everyone get to know each other was the best part of this novel. The atmosphere was creepy from the beginning, I felt a sense of dread after each chapter. The creepy atmosphere wasn’t created by something obvious; instead, the author conveyed it with small details. I really liked that.
Around the 50% mark the novel changes completely. The pacing is faster, so many things happen in a short amount of chapters. I would have loved for us to get some answers. There are things in this story that are never properly explained, even though they are important to the story. One of them being the ending.
The twist about Alex was horrible and cheap. The “it was all a dream” chapters completely ruined this book for me. It’s not easy to talk about mental health so I applaud the effort, but the execution completely lost me. It made everything we read up to that point feel pointless. In addition, I would have loved to know more about Alex’s backstory (we get only a few lines about his parents in a 500 pages book). Because we, as readers, barely know anything about Alex’s past, this twist just feels weird.
The characters, aside from Alex, lack depth. Some of them are more characterized than others (see Clive), others are misogynistic caricatures (Helen, christian obsessed with religion; Ruth, emo goth girl; Ella, sexy beautiful pre-Raphaelite looking woman), others barely talk (see Malcolm).
An interesting concept, but I feel like the execution lacked momentum. There were some aspects that I liked but I wanted more.
ARC kindly given by the publisher for free. All opinions are my own
-----------
I’m so disappointed lol. Full RTC.
——————
No one loves a mysterious house full of secrets more than me
Solace House's premise was quite interesting. The story follows a group of university students who have been called to clean a remote property over the summer. Once they've settled into their new apartments, they find the diaries and journals of Solace House’s former owner. Some of the students slowly become obsessed with the mystery surrounding the house and its lore.
The first 40% of this novel focuses on Alex, one of the students and our protagonist, showing us his troubled relationship with his friends and family, his need for belonging and, most of all, his naiveté. He is incredibly annoying, but I didn’t mind him as a main character. I enjoyed seeing things from his point of view, even though I felt frustrated by his behaviour at times.
I appreciated the slow pacing. Seeing everyone get to know each other was the best part of this novel. The atmosphere was creepy from the beginning, I felt a sense of dread after each chapter. The creepy atmosphere wasn’t created by something obvious; instead, the author conveyed it with small details. I really liked that.
Around the 50% mark the novel changes completely. The pacing is faster, so many things happen in a short amount of chapters. I would have loved for us to get some answers. There are things in this story that are never properly explained, even though they are important to the story. One of them being the ending.
The twist about Alex was horrible and cheap. The “it was all a dream” chapters completely ruined this book for me. It’s not easy to talk about mental health so I applaud the effort, but the execution completely lost me. It made everything we read up to that point feel pointless. In addition, I would have loved to know more about Alex’s backstory (we get only a few lines about his parents in a 500 pages book). Because we, as readers, barely know anything about Alex’s past, this twist just feels weird.
The characters, aside from Alex, lack depth. Some of them are more characterized than others (see Clive), others are misogynistic caricatures (Helen, christian obsessed with religion; Ruth, emo goth girl; Ella, sexy beautiful pre-Raphaelite looking woman), others barely talk (see Malcolm).
An interesting concept, but I feel like the execution lacked momentum. There were some aspects that I liked but I wanted more.
ARC kindly given by the publisher for free. All opinions are my own
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I’m so disappointed lol. Full RTC.
——————
No one loves a mysterious house full of secrets more than me
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Absolutely stunning
A wild trip
I've never read anything like this before and I doubt I'll read anything like this again. I'm just sad that I won't be able to read it for the first time again. Or, maybe I can . . .
A wild trip
I've never read anything like this before and I doubt I'll read anything like this again. I'm just sad that I won't be able to read it for the first time again. Or, maybe I can . . .
March 31, 2026
What did I just read? And I mean that in the best way. In Solace House, Will Maclean doesn’t take us by the hand. Instead, we tumble along into the story, and, believe me, we aren’t meant to come out the other side the same. As you may gather, the writing is exquisite - the prose, that is. The poetry - eh. But the poetry is just window dressing. The story begins with a group of university students involved in a cleanup at an old hospital that comes to include Solace House, a mysterious mansion. We are with that small group, isolated as they are, as they come to discover the secrets of Solace House and to find themselves in places of which their minds cannot make sense. This is psychological horror that takes a hard right into cosmic horror. Can you truly believe what your mind is telling you? How do you know what is real? Is it possible that all realities exist all at once? And where does that leave us as humans? Are we truly passengers on this planet or is it possible that we can bend things to our will? This book makes you think. That’s one of the more notable things about this book - the thinking. Another notable thing is that some aspects of the story feel familiar, but you can’t put your finger on it. You can’t see the plot twists coming - well, I saw one or two twists coming, but this book is twisty enough that readers are bound to be surprised. The atmosphere is deliciously gothic - dark, mysterious, and uneasy. I loved it and highly recommend.
I would like to thank Netgalley, Will Maclean, and Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to enjoy this ARC.
All opinions are entirely my own.
I would like to thank Netgalley, Will Maclean, and Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to enjoy this ARC.
All opinions are entirely my own.
Want to Read
February 18, 2026im sorry but it's being compared to THE SECRET HISTORY????? THE SECRET HISTORY...... GOURLLLLLLLLL I've never seen a book being compared to the secret history before and now I have 6 star expectations
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
The publisher's blurb comparing Solace House to The Secret History and Piranesi really made me eager to read it. I did fly through the 600 pages fairly quickly since I did like the writing style, but unfortunately the book as a whole fell a little flat and I don't think Solace House is especially reminiscent of either book referenced. Yes, there is a group of fairly reckless students like in TSH, but they aren't as interesting or close-knit. And Solace House doesn't have the same good-heartedness I remember of Piranesi.
Although I liked the initial premise of the book and the general mystery of the house, I didn't like any of the characters- all of them were obsessed with getting high, teasing each other (they were harsh on Helen) and shutting each other out (I didn't like that Alex and Ella were hiding information from the others when they all were supposed to be in on the "mystery?" together). Overall, all of the characters all felt like fairly flat stereotypes.
The two poem stanzas at the start of each chapter, although gothic-feeling and atmospheric, were so verbose and dense that I couldn't get any meaning out of them and I ended up skipping over them every time. I will praise the author for the genius trick he did with the formatting (revealed at the end), but I might have liked it if there had not been so much of the poem right at the start of each chapter- maybe just a couple lines each chapter would have been better, or maybe putting a larger chunk of the poem at the start of each "section" rather than each chapter?
The last 25% or so- I liked the twist, but I don't think I understand everything the author intends me to regarding Adam and Ella (no spoilers). And I don't think we ever got closure on Alex's history with the Annihilator and the Last Day.
Overall I don't know if it needed to be shorter, than 600 pages but I would take out some of the beginning part and add more insight into these characters. The author is obviously very smart but I think we needed a better build-up to the payoff at the end.
The publisher's blurb comparing Solace House to The Secret History and Piranesi really made me eager to read it. I did fly through the 600 pages fairly quickly since I did like the writing style, but unfortunately the book as a whole fell a little flat and I don't think Solace House is especially reminiscent of either book referenced. Yes, there is a group of fairly reckless students like in TSH, but they aren't as interesting or close-knit. And Solace House doesn't have the same good-heartedness I remember of Piranesi.
Although I liked the initial premise of the book and the general mystery of the house, I didn't like any of the characters- all of them were obsessed with getting high, teasing each other (they were harsh on Helen) and shutting each other out (I didn't like that Alex and Ella were hiding information from the others when they all were supposed to be in on the "mystery?" together). Overall, all of the characters all felt like fairly flat stereotypes.
The two poem stanzas at the start of each chapter, although gothic-feeling and atmospheric, were so verbose and dense that I couldn't get any meaning out of them and I ended up skipping over them every time. I will praise the author for the genius trick he did with the formatting (revealed at the end), but I might have liked it if there had not been so much of the poem right at the start of each chapter- maybe just a couple lines each chapter would have been better, or maybe putting a larger chunk of the poem at the start of each "section" rather than each chapter?
The last 25% or so- I liked the twist, but I don't think I understand everything the author intends me to regarding Adam and Ella (no spoilers). And I don't think we ever got closure on Alex's history with the Annihilator and the Last Day.
Overall I don't know if it needed to be shorter, than 600 pages but I would take out some of the beginning part and add more insight into these characters. The author is obviously very smart but I think we needed a better build-up to the payoff at the end.
Read
April 3, 2026I’m gonna need to read some reviews cuz what was that ending?
Want to Read
May 6, 2026I've been approved for an eARC of this beauty on NetGalley!!! I'm screaming of happiness. <3
paused
April 13, 2026The Secret History meets The Haunting of Hill House
OKAY DON'T THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME !!!
February 28, 2026
Solace House is like one big puzzle where every single room that gets uncovered reveals a small hidden puzzle piece that gets you just a little closer to seeing the full picture. The best part being that only on the last page you find the final piece that suddenly makes everything click.
I’ve never been this impressed by an author before. I want to tell everything that happens just so that anyone might be convinced to read this (and I promise you, if you know what I know you’d pick this book up in a heartbeat) but I can’t, because I’d spoiler the entire plot unfortunately. This is really a book where you need to go in blind to enjoy it to the fullest.
What I can say is that this book reminded me so much of some of my favorite books. The suspense was as masterfully written as Donna Tartt did in The Secret History, mixed with the mystery and complexity of Piranesi while the overall feeling of it really reminded me of If We Were Villains.
You can tell that the author put their all into this book and I’m impressed this only took 5 years to write, because this is insane! Truly a masterpiece.
It’s one of those book that you instantly want to reread once you reach the final sentence. And I know for a fact that reading it for the second time will be an ever better experience.
Anyone who’s interested in a book that includes mystery, cosmic horror, suspense, dark academia and at the end blows your mind… this is it!
Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for the arc
I’ve never been this impressed by an author before. I want to tell everything that happens just so that anyone might be convinced to read this (and I promise you, if you know what I know you’d pick this book up in a heartbeat) but I can’t, because I’d spoiler the entire plot unfortunately. This is really a book where you need to go in blind to enjoy it to the fullest.
What I can say is that this book reminded me so much of some of my favorite books. The suspense was as masterfully written as Donna Tartt did in The Secret History, mixed with the mystery and complexity of Piranesi while the overall feeling of it really reminded me of If We Were Villains.
You can tell that the author put their all into this book and I’m impressed this only took 5 years to write, because this is insane! Truly a masterpiece.
It’s one of those book that you instantly want to reread once you reach the final sentence. And I know for a fact that reading it for the second time will be an ever better experience.
Anyone who’s interested in a book that includes mystery, cosmic horror, suspense, dark academia and at the end blows your mind… this is it!
Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for the arc
Want to Read
February 26, 2026Got the arc!! This sounds incredible, thank you netgalley 🙏🏻🙏🏻
Read
March 24, 2026This is the kind of novel that doesn’t just tell a story — it builds a maze and hands you the key, daring you to decide whether you really want to unlock the next door.
From the moment Alex steps into Solace House, the tone is unmistakable: off-kilter, charged, quietly ominous. The premise may begin with something almost mundane — a group of university students clearing out a decaying Victorian mansion for summer work — but what unfolds is anything but ordinary. The house is not simply a setting. It breathes. It remembers. It resists being understood.
What makes this novel so compelling is its patience. The first half lingers in dust and debris, in old newspapers and forgotten objects, in the rhythm of students cataloguing a life long past. But beneath that routine, something coils. The journals of Edwin Flayne are the turning point — obsessive, coded, intimate — and once they enter the story, the narrative tightens like a wire. The mystery of a parallel realm is not presented as spectacle, but as possibility. And that subtlety is what makes it unsettling.
The dynamic between the students is sharply drawn without ever feeling exaggerated. Alex, financially precarious and emotionally adrift, feels like the perfect lens through which to witness the unraveling. His connection with Ella adds a current of longing and instability that mirrors the house itself — magnetic, beautiful, and possibly dangerous. Meanwhile, the fractures within the group deepen in believable, human ways as curiosity turns to fixation.
What elevates this novel is its refusal to spoon-feed answers. It invites interpretation. It blurs the boundary between grief and madness, genius and obsession. It asks whether belief can shape reality — or distort it beyond recognition. By the final pages, certainty feels like the most fragile thing of all.
The atmosphere is rich without being overwrought, thoughtful without sacrificing tension. It rewards attention. It lingers. And it leaves you with that rare, delicious discomfort of not being entirely sure what you’ve just witnessed — only that it mattered.
For readers who appreciate layered storytelling, intellectual dread, and the slow tightening of psychological horror, this is a puzzle box worth opening.
Solace House may be neglected, but its secrets are anything but quiet.
From the moment Alex steps into Solace House, the tone is unmistakable: off-kilter, charged, quietly ominous. The premise may begin with something almost mundane — a group of university students clearing out a decaying Victorian mansion for summer work — but what unfolds is anything but ordinary. The house is not simply a setting. It breathes. It remembers. It resists being understood.
What makes this novel so compelling is its patience. The first half lingers in dust and debris, in old newspapers and forgotten objects, in the rhythm of students cataloguing a life long past. But beneath that routine, something coils. The journals of Edwin Flayne are the turning point — obsessive, coded, intimate — and once they enter the story, the narrative tightens like a wire. The mystery of a parallel realm is not presented as spectacle, but as possibility. And that subtlety is what makes it unsettling.
The dynamic between the students is sharply drawn without ever feeling exaggerated. Alex, financially precarious and emotionally adrift, feels like the perfect lens through which to witness the unraveling. His connection with Ella adds a current of longing and instability that mirrors the house itself — magnetic, beautiful, and possibly dangerous. Meanwhile, the fractures within the group deepen in believable, human ways as curiosity turns to fixation.
What elevates this novel is its refusal to spoon-feed answers. It invites interpretation. It blurs the boundary between grief and madness, genius and obsession. It asks whether belief can shape reality — or distort it beyond recognition. By the final pages, certainty feels like the most fragile thing of all.
The atmosphere is rich without being overwrought, thoughtful without sacrificing tension. It rewards attention. It lingers. And it leaves you with that rare, delicious discomfort of not being entirely sure what you’ve just witnessed — only that it mattered.
For readers who appreciate layered storytelling, intellectual dread, and the slow tightening of psychological horror, this is a puzzle box worth opening.
Solace House may be neglected, but its secrets are anything but quiet.
April 11, 2026
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
3.5 stars rounded up.
Freshly finished feeling a bit of whiplash. This was a five star read for me until it wasn’t. Around the 80% mark I started to question everything. It really felt like Alex and Will Maclean both lost their way around there. I feel like I can tell what was written and developed in the grips of COVID versus what was done after normalcy started to return.
This book is atmospheric, beautifully written, and so compelling. I never trusted Alex completely, nor do I think we were meant to, so when the story starts to unravel I felt so frustrated. Why did he say some of those things? Why were some of the characters even in the story. At the end, some of it felt unnecessary or like it went completely over my head - and I just don’t really care which one it is.
This was like the House on Haunted Hill meets Hoarders, with a splash of The Magician’s Nephew.
I had a good creepy time.
3.5 stars rounded up.
Freshly finished feeling a bit of whiplash. This was a five star read for me until it wasn’t. Around the 80% mark I started to question everything. It really felt like Alex and Will Maclean both lost their way around there. I feel like I can tell what was written and developed in the grips of COVID versus what was done after normalcy started to return.
This book is atmospheric, beautifully written, and so compelling. I never trusted Alex completely, nor do I think we were meant to, so when the story starts to unravel I felt so frustrated. Why did he say some of those things? Why were some of the characters even in the story. At the end, some of it felt unnecessary or like it went completely over my head - and I just don’t really care which one it is.
This was like the House on Haunted Hill meets Hoarders, with a splash of The Magician’s Nephew.
I had a good creepy time.
May 13, 2026
What a ride! I really enjoyed The Apparition Phase as well as the author's podcast, The Broken Veil, so I was really excited to read this. Solace House is gripping, creepy, absolutely bonkers at times, but also just *so clever*, and dark, atmospheric, and also funny. Like the titular house cast the spell on our characters, the story will not let you go. It's 500 pages, but I just had to keep reading to find out more. Some things really got under my skin, some made my jaw drop, some almost made me laugh out loud. The characters were so vivid and real; they reminded me of whenever I read Stephen King as I always find his characters insanely vivid. A crazy ride, an incredible read. Congratulations Will Maclean and everyone else, go and read it.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Atlantic Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
4.5 stars.
In the summer of 1993, Alex and his fellow university students clear out an old hospital and the nearby Solace House, a home formerly owned by an eccentric old man, and packed to the rafters with junk. They discover a room full of journals with hand-written and rambling thoughts, revealing the mind of someone seemingly disturbed. As they empty more of the house they uncover more strange and unnerving items and rooms, and the students' minds begin to fracture.
The first 80% of the book left me with a sense of creepy dread, as events become more bizarre and increasingly trippy. The last part I felt it did lose its way a little bit, but this was such a brilliant reading experience. It's rare I won't read a book before bed because the feelings it generates are too uncomfortable - if a book can provoke such strong reactions that's a sign of a great read for me.
4.5 stars.
In the summer of 1993, Alex and his fellow university students clear out an old hospital and the nearby Solace House, a home formerly owned by an eccentric old man, and packed to the rafters with junk. They discover a room full of journals with hand-written and rambling thoughts, revealing the mind of someone seemingly disturbed. As they empty more of the house they uncover more strange and unnerving items and rooms, and the students' minds begin to fracture.
The first 80% of the book left me with a sense of creepy dread, as events become more bizarre and increasingly trippy. The last part I felt it did lose its way a little bit, but this was such a brilliant reading experience. It's rare I won't read a book before bed because the feelings it generates are too uncomfortable - if a book can provoke such strong reactions that's a sign of a great read for me.
May 1, 2026
i’d call this (affectionately) hill house for the 90’s era
this book is a constantly changing, destabilizing labyrinth following a mysterious narrator down a more shadowed path alongside a rag tag group of students
the horror house story is evergreen (for me) and this book drew me in — it had all the elements it needed to make it a satisfying and impossible to put down read for me — i could not stop turning pages until i got to the end.
now i just need someone to talk about it with 😭
this book is a constantly changing, destabilizing labyrinth following a mysterious narrator down a more shadowed path alongside a rag tag group of students
the horror house story is evergreen (for me) and this book drew me in — it had all the elements it needed to make it a satisfying and impossible to put down read for me — i could not stop turning pages until i got to the end.
now i just need someone to talk about it with 😭
Read
March 6, 2026Keeps you gripped but I have a lot of frustrations.
One is that most of the characters have the same voice. Yes they’re all students so the mixture of bants and self conscious intellectual twaddle is going to be common amongst them but it really read like Ruth, Malcolm, Clyde, Leo and our protagonist were all mouthpieces for a single idea of what that sounds like, not individual people talking to each other. Where characters did have have a distinctive quality though they felt one-note - like holy joe Helen and creepy morose Adam.
Alex suffers from this as a protagonist and from the author’s determination to be coy about various things, especially the tragedy that lies in his past. For instance the setting is not named, even by county, which felt pointless and undermining of a story about a place. It’s hard to form even an immediate picture or sense of Alex’s recent life experience if I don’t know what kind of scenery and university to think of. The time period also isn’t outright said for a long time until it comes as a sudden surprise to hear the year 1993 insisted upon halfway through. Not because I hadn’t intuited this felt like the early 90s but because NOT naming a year had felt kind of pointed, like not naming a location does. It was like the author suddenly realised around halfway what he was going to go at the the and that he’d need to anchor us in a named year for that after all.
The choice to only allude ominously to Alex’s backstory feels a poor one. It means we can’t get a handle on him because to tell us anything at all about his pre-uni life would give the game away. We open with a sense of class and social tension but these qualities don’t really affect him going forward. When details are revealed it isn’t clear what was gained by delaying the information reaching us.
Ultimately, like Apparition Phase, I found the ending too dreamlike and hard to follow to be satisfying.
The thing about a story that wants to be ambiguous is you’ve got to pick what you’re being ambiguous about. Otherwise you have too many variables and it’s all just confusion without anything to track. I honestly don’t even know what questions I’m meant to be asking with this one. I’m kind of looking forward to publication and reviews filling up here to see if other responses help me form even a broad sense of what the ideas at play actually were.
There’s also a bit of what seems like a waste real estate, as it were. Why include the mental hospital setting at all? The students could have stayed living in their mostly empty halls of residence, commissioned from the beginning to clean out the titular house. Having them move to the old hospital with the initial plan to just clear that only for a new plan to come in and the hospital clearance conveniently wrap itself up much quicker than anyone had anticipated doesn’t seem to add anything but needless extra manoeuvring into a situation they could have reached more directly.
And it feels like there’s this slightly ‘writing a screenplay rather than a novel’ issue where every interaction is written with a consistent micro level of detail. Every gesture, reaction, laugh etc accounted for. Scenes Always micro-described so it’s hard to form a macro-picture. No sense of the narrating character forming by way of what he does and doesn’t notice and describe.
So all in all a frustrating book that nonetheless made for an absorbing reading experience while it was ongoing. Great cover though.
One is that most of the characters have the same voice. Yes they’re all students so the mixture of bants and self conscious intellectual twaddle is going to be common amongst them but it really read like Ruth, Malcolm, Clyde, Leo and our protagonist were all mouthpieces for a single idea of what that sounds like, not individual people talking to each other. Where characters did have have a distinctive quality though they felt one-note - like holy joe Helen and creepy morose Adam.
Alex suffers from this as a protagonist and from the author’s determination to be coy about various things, especially the tragedy that lies in his past. For instance the setting is not named, even by county, which felt pointless and undermining of a story about a place. It’s hard to form even an immediate picture or sense of Alex’s recent life experience if I don’t know what kind of scenery and university to think of. The time period also isn’t outright said for a long time until it comes as a sudden surprise to hear the year 1993 insisted upon halfway through. Not because I hadn’t intuited this felt like the early 90s but because NOT naming a year had felt kind of pointed, like not naming a location does. It was like the author suddenly realised around halfway what he was going to go at the the and that he’d need to anchor us in a named year for that after all.
The choice to only allude ominously to Alex’s backstory feels a poor one. It means we can’t get a handle on him because to tell us anything at all about his pre-uni life would give the game away. We open with a sense of class and social tension but these qualities don’t really affect him going forward. When details are revealed it isn’t clear what was gained by delaying the information reaching us.
Ultimately, like Apparition Phase, I found the ending too dreamlike and hard to follow to be satisfying.
The thing about a story that wants to be ambiguous is you’ve got to pick what you’re being ambiguous about. Otherwise you have too many variables and it’s all just confusion without anything to track. I honestly don’t even know what questions I’m meant to be asking with this one. I’m kind of looking forward to publication and reviews filling up here to see if other responses help me form even a broad sense of what the ideas at play actually were.
There’s also a bit of what seems like a waste real estate, as it were. Why include the mental hospital setting at all? The students could have stayed living in their mostly empty halls of residence, commissioned from the beginning to clean out the titular house. Having them move to the old hospital with the initial plan to just clear that only for a new plan to come in and the hospital clearance conveniently wrap itself up much quicker than anyone had anticipated doesn’t seem to add anything but needless extra manoeuvring into a situation they could have reached more directly.
And it feels like there’s this slightly ‘writing a screenplay rather than a novel’ issue where every interaction is written with a consistent micro level of detail. Every gesture, reaction, laugh etc accounted for. Scenes Always micro-described so it’s hard to form a macro-picture. No sense of the narrating character forming by way of what he does and doesn’t notice and describe.
So all in all a frustrating book that nonetheless made for an absorbing reading experience while it was ongoing. Great cover though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 27, 2026
Solace House is ultimately a fun, popcorn-horror page-turner, but it makes you work far too hard to get to the ride.
The book is a 500+ page behemoth that spends its entire first half as a meandering slow burn. Unfortunately, the extensive setup feels irrelevant, as it doesn't meaningfully deepen our understanding of the characters or the setting. The cast largely sounds the same, and Maclean spends a lot of time on details that prolong the story without propelling the plot. Because of this, comparisons to The Secret History do this book a major disservice; where Donna Tartt uses micro-level details to build agonizing suspense and rich characterization, the details here often just feel like clutter.
However, once you hit the 50-60% mark, the book finally shifts gears. The hallucinogenic, haunted-house trip in Act 2 borders on repetitive, but the subsequent "twist" in Act 3 was a fantastic, thrilling reprise.
The multi-layered epigraphic poetry at the beginning of the chapters… was cool. While I initially skipped them because they lacked context, the eventual reveal that they form a layered secret message is a cool. Kudos to Maclean for the sheer craft of constructing that, but truthfully I didn’t feel like it was anything meaningful or like a “twist” in any way.
Where the book lost me again was the toward the middle of Act 3. I loved the initially grounded aspect of Alex believing the rituals and spirits were fake. But when he wakes from a coma suddenly believing it's all real, it undoes the grounded reality the plot worked so hard to build. The ending devolves into a Shutter Island-esque psychological ambiguity that asks the reader to do too much of the heavy lifting. You're left with zero clear guidelines on how to interpret the reality of the story (Was he manic? Was there a car crash? Are we dimension-jumping?), leaving it entirely unclear if this was meant to be a fantasy horror or a grounded psychological thriller. Some heavy-handed hinting earlier in the book didn't help clarify the messy finale.
Bottom Line: Once it gets going, it’s a thrilling, trippy ride. But it isn't worth the 500-page investment, and readers expecting a dark academia masterpiece will likely be disappointed. A solid, if structurally flawed, popcorn thriller.
The book is a 500+ page behemoth that spends its entire first half as a meandering slow burn. Unfortunately, the extensive setup feels irrelevant, as it doesn't meaningfully deepen our understanding of the characters or the setting. The cast largely sounds the same, and Maclean spends a lot of time on details that prolong the story without propelling the plot. Because of this, comparisons to The Secret History do this book a major disservice; where Donna Tartt uses micro-level details to build agonizing suspense and rich characterization, the details here often just feel like clutter.
However, once you hit the 50-60% mark, the book finally shifts gears. The hallucinogenic, haunted-house trip in Act 2 borders on repetitive, but the subsequent "twist" in Act 3 was a fantastic, thrilling reprise.
The multi-layered epigraphic poetry at the beginning of the chapters… was cool. While I initially skipped them because they lacked context, the eventual reveal that they form a layered secret message is a cool. Kudos to Maclean for the sheer craft of constructing that, but truthfully I didn’t feel like it was anything meaningful or like a “twist” in any way.
Where the book lost me again was the toward the middle of Act 3. I loved the initially grounded aspect of Alex believing the rituals and spirits were fake. But when he wakes from a coma suddenly believing it's all real, it undoes the grounded reality the plot worked so hard to build. The ending devolves into a Shutter Island-esque psychological ambiguity that asks the reader to do too much of the heavy lifting. You're left with zero clear guidelines on how to interpret the reality of the story (Was he manic? Was there a car crash? Are we dimension-jumping?), leaving it entirely unclear if this was meant to be a fantasy horror or a grounded psychological thriller. Some heavy-handed hinting earlier in the book didn't help clarify the messy finale.
Bottom Line: Once it gets going, it’s a thrilling, trippy ride. But it isn't worth the 500-page investment, and readers expecting a dark academia masterpiece will likely be disappointed. A solid, if structurally flawed, popcorn thriller.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 7, 2026
I am trying to be really picky with the ARCs I request this year and I was desperate to get my hands on this one. A group of college students cleaning out an abandoned psych hospital and an eccentric old man's house? That sounds right up my alley.
Unfortunately, I don't feel like this book lived up to its own premise in any satisfying way.
Things I Enjoyed:
-The setting was fantastic. I loved the lush descriptions and the drastic changes in setting. From the quickly emptying college campus to the decrepit abandoned hospital to the odd treasures of Solace House, each setting was full of character and had me on the edge of my seat wondering what was lurking around each corner.
-Some parts of the story were really fun and suspenseful. I liked the hints of what was to come with certain characters. The mystery of Alex's family, The Annihilator, and whatever happened to be wrong with Adam kept me turning the pages.
Things I Didn't Enjoy:
-I felt that the characters were all underdeveloped. The few that were interesting barely had anything to do with the story. The women were all one-note and I found the writing held a hint of misogyny whenever describing them--especially Helen.
-What was the point of this story? Like, genuinely, I don't know if I'm dumb or if the last sixty or so pages negated the point of the entire thing. On the one hand, I enjoyed the twist at first but the longer it went on, the more it felt like the author dug too deep of a metaphysical hole and couldn't find their way out of it.
-I'm not sure if reading the verses before each chapter added anything to the experience, but it got incredibly tedious after a while.
-The Marshlands was so underutilized as a setting. When they found all of the ledgers from every patient there, I figured that would come back into play at least a little bit. Why have them staying in a former psychiatric hospital with all of this information and red herrings when you're ultimately not going to tie it into the larger story in an interesting way? It felt like such a letdown that the hospital ended up fading into the background along with the stories of all the former patients there.
-All of the creepy elements from the house (the dummies, the pictures, the big room of mirrors, the mysterious telephone, etc.) never paid off into anything bigger. I thought surely the dummies might link to something more than they did--especially considering certain characters' reactions to them.
-On that same note, all of the suspense of who Adam is and what happened to Alex's parents and what exactly was wrong with Flayne all went out the window. I'm not sure what I wanted, but I wanted slightly more than the lukewarm info we received.
Moments that will Stick in my Brain like a Popcorn Kernel in a Back Tooth
I'm not super into metaphysical horror and I don't know why I keep thinking books will change that about me. But I keep trying! But if you are, I highly recommend this book to you, you silly little goose. And if you're not, I don't know what to tell you. I clearly cannot be trusted to make decisions for myself let alone a stranger on Goodreads.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Unfortunately, I don't feel like this book lived up to its own premise in any satisfying way.
Things I Enjoyed:
-The setting was fantastic. I loved the lush descriptions and the drastic changes in setting. From the quickly emptying college campus to the decrepit abandoned hospital to the odd treasures of Solace House, each setting was full of character and had me on the edge of my seat wondering what was lurking around each corner.
-Some parts of the story were really fun and suspenseful. I liked the hints of what was to come with certain characters. The mystery of Alex's family, The Annihilator, and whatever happened to be wrong with Adam kept me turning the pages.
Things I Didn't Enjoy:
-I felt that the characters were all underdeveloped. The few that were interesting barely had anything to do with the story. The women were all one-note and I found the writing held a hint of misogyny whenever describing them--especially Helen.
-What was the point of this story? Like, genuinely, I don't know if I'm dumb or if the last sixty or so pages negated the point of the entire thing. On the one hand, I enjoyed the twist at first but the longer it went on, the more it felt like the author dug too deep of a metaphysical hole and couldn't find their way out of it.
-I'm not sure if reading the verses before each chapter added anything to the experience, but it got incredibly tedious after a while.
-The Marshlands was so underutilized as a setting. When they found all of the ledgers from every patient there, I figured that would come back into play at least a little bit. Why have them staying in a former psychiatric hospital with all of this information and red herrings when you're ultimately not going to tie it into the larger story in an interesting way? It felt like such a letdown that the hospital ended up fading into the background along with the stories of all the former patients there.
-All of the creepy elements from the house (the dummies, the pictures, the big room of mirrors, the mysterious telephone, etc.) never paid off into anything bigger. I thought surely the dummies might link to something more than they did--especially considering certain characters' reactions to them.
-On that same note, all of the suspense of who Adam is and what happened to Alex's parents and what exactly was wrong with Flayne all went out the window. I'm not sure what I wanted, but I wanted slightly more than the lukewarm info we received.
Moments that will Stick in my Brain like a Popcorn Kernel in a Back Tooth
I'm not super into metaphysical horror and I don't know why I keep thinking books will change that about me. But I keep trying! But if you are, I highly recommend this book to you, you silly little goose. And if you're not, I don't know what to tell you. I clearly cannot be trusted to make decisions for myself let alone a stranger on Goodreads.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 12, 2026
WOWZA I loved this. I read this bc his first novel became my favourite book, and I’ve been waiting and hoping he would write another. I loved it because I actually was scared at points reading especially the middle parts of this book at night - it was so unsettling and creepy that I would be thinking about it sometimes at work.
I’m not usually a science fiction type of fantasy person and I did prefer the ghost story setting of his first book to this, but actually by the end this book had won me over to some of that aspect in it. The ending was better than expected too as I had been wrongfully doubtful of how he would end the book but I was pretty happy with it.
Downsides were that Alex was pretty unlikeable and I did not care for the poetry. Still comes second for me in his corpus, but really good all the same. I mean I read it in 3 days.
I’m not usually a science fiction type of fantasy person and I did prefer the ghost story setting of his first book to this, but actually by the end this book had won me over to some of that aspect in it. The ending was better than expected too as I had been wrongfully doubtful of how he would end the book but I was pretty happy with it.
Downsides were that Alex was pretty unlikeable and I did not care for the poetry. Still comes second for me in his corpus, but really good all the same. I mean I read it in 3 days.
April 14, 2026
Let me first start off by saying you can tell how much thought and work went into this book. The writing is exquisite, and don’t even get me started on the poems (and poems within poems!!). It was so well-developed and executed. I almost want to reread it to pick up on early hints and clues that only made sense towards the end.
I was a little intimidated by how long this book was, but once I got into the story, it really flew by. As a Haunting of Hill House fan, I was excited to see this book compared to it. I can see why it’s likened to that book, but it also stands on its own.
The only thing I struggled with was the scenes of that night. I found it pretty confusing, which is probably part of the point, but I kept rereading passages to make sure I understood what was happening. It slowed down the pace for me. I also found it a little hard to believe Alex was able to go about London without being found by authorities (why weren’t there people at his apartment waiting for him? Surely that’s the first place he’d try to go?), but I digress.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and think it’d be a perfect spooky, autumnal read!
Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC.
I was a little intimidated by how long this book was, but once I got into the story, it really flew by. As a Haunting of Hill House fan, I was excited to see this book compared to it. I can see why it’s likened to that book, but it also stands on its own.
The only thing I struggled with was the scenes of that night. I found it pretty confusing, which is probably part of the point, but I kept rereading passages to make sure I understood what was happening. It slowed down the pace for me. I also found it a little hard to believe Alex was able to go about London without being found by authorities (why weren’t there people at his apartment waiting for him? Surely that’s the first place he’d try to go?), but I digress.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and think it’d be a perfect spooky, autumnal read!
Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Durante el verano, Alex, un estudiante universitario sin un hogar al que poder regresar, consigue un trabajo limpiando edificios abandonados para que la universidad pueda valuar las propiedades. Ahí conoce a otros estudiantes que, por alguna razón, no quieren o no pueden irse a casa.
Mientras limpian una casa, que se encuentra en un lugar remoto y tiene una arquitectura muy extraña, encuentran un par de escritos que al principio parecen ser los delirios del hombre que vivió recluido ahí por años.
Nunca he tenido un viaje psicodélico; sin embargo, después de leer este libro, estoy segura de que experimenté alguna versión de eso. La narración es muy inmersiva y hubo partes escalofriantes que disfruté bastante. Definitivamente leeré más de Will Maclean.
Mientras limpian una casa, que se encuentra en un lugar remoto y tiene una arquitectura muy extraña, encuentran un par de escritos que al principio parecen ser los delirios del hombre que vivió recluido ahí por años.
Nunca he tenido un viaje psicodélico; sin embargo, después de leer este libro, estoy segura de que experimenté alguna versión de eso. La narración es muy inmersiva y hubo partes escalofriantes que disfruté bastante. Definitivamente leeré más de Will Maclean.
February 26, 2026
Welcome to Solace House.
In this book you jump into the shoes of Alex Lane, a 19 year old boy who has experienced a mysterious loss from which he is running, and who, with the teenage ennui of someone clawing their way to the end of the school year, introduced as someone who is a bit of a loser - no money, his mate isn't really his mate, didn't get the girl.
He ends up finding housing by agreeing to spend the summer cleaning out an old hospital which is being acquired for school property, and eventually, the attached Victorian mansion, long abandoned and filled to the brim with chaotic amounts of clutter. He is joined by Clive (snarky stoner), Helen (a Christian of the homeschooled stick-in-the-mud variety), Leo (so patient and kind he embarrasses everyone who is mean to him, and we love him for this), Malcom (prettyboy partyboy), Ruth (goth girl mother hen combo), Adam (creepy translucent boy who is first introduced screaming at nothing), and Ella (manic pixie dream girl).
Character:
The characters are very well drawn and some of their banter made me smile in delight at my book. I found the character of Helen particularly endearingly done, because even as she is extremely annoying, and I was wary of her being a 'judgmental stick up the behind Christian', the others take to her with exasperated fondness and do in some regards try to protect her due to her naivete.
I did think some of the characters were slightly underused and could have been cut or brought in more throughout the story. Additionally, I was frustrated at
Structure:
The structure of the story is done with quite a lot of detail. It may be just that I love British writing and how it often meanders and adds excessive levels of detail (and smoking!), but this worked for me. Especially because one of the overarching themes of the story is that creepy Richard Dadd painting, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, and how it represents a horror of the absent, and a need for every space to be filled with incredible amounts of detail. Much of the prose I found to draw me fully into Solace House and ground me in a sense of the place. I only noticed a couple of times when an ill-placed or heavy-handed metaphor threw me out of the narrative.
I think the pacing could have been tightened up a little overall. Around halfway through I started to wonder how much more set-up we could possibly get, but then something else would draw me in. It wasn't enough to put me off, but occasionally I found myself speed-reading through paragraphs or scenes which were more transitional.
Most of the time, though, I was absolutely enchanted by the book. I wanted to know what in the world was going on. I attempted to decipher what was going on with the poetry before the big reveal (although I was wrong). I read through car rides and lunches and work.
The ending did somewhat disappoint me. The author leaves a lot up to interpretation as to what is going on, what is true. The very last few paragraphs confounded me and I was left to sit there thinking as to what Maclean could have meant by doing this.
The author does something right off the bat with that I caught right away; it seemed kind of heavy-handedly lobbed into the story as an obvious Chekhov's gun to look for later. I figured I would have an eyeroll later when the curtain was yanked away to reveal something I'd figured out 17% of the way through. But no! The heavy-handedness of the information we were given early on did not, in fact, give me a definitive answer. I kind of liked this, at the same time that it maddened me.
I wish I'd had a slightly more conclusive ending or at least more breadcrumbs left for us to understand what was going on. For that reason alone I deducted a star.
Conclusion:
I don't know if I agree with the comparisons to the Secret History, as the philosophical themes of the story seem to tend more towards the cosmic horror side of things rather than the intersection of beauty and terror. The premise, though -- an evil sentient house; cosmic existentialism; gnostic secret layers of knowledge attained only through enlightenment (does NOT represent my personal views on real life, but a favorite theme of mine); an alien, inhuman future -- were right up my alley.
Thank you also Mr. Maclean for being so staunchly anti-AI. It's the first thing I noticed in the early pages, and so I did kind of go into reading the book thinking it would be about an evil AI-run house. I was pleasantly surprised when it was not.
Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!
In this book you jump into the shoes of Alex Lane, a 19 year old boy who has experienced a mysterious loss from which he is running, and who, with the teenage ennui of someone clawing their way to the end of the school year, introduced as someone who is a bit of a loser - no money, his mate isn't really his mate, didn't get the girl.
He ends up finding housing by agreeing to spend the summer cleaning out an old hospital which is being acquired for school property, and eventually, the attached Victorian mansion, long abandoned and filled to the brim with chaotic amounts of clutter. He is joined by Clive (snarky stoner), Helen (a Christian of the homeschooled stick-in-the-mud variety), Leo (so patient and kind he embarrasses everyone who is mean to him, and we love him for this), Malcom (prettyboy partyboy), Ruth (goth girl mother hen combo), Adam (creepy translucent boy who is first introduced screaming at nothing), and Ella (manic pixie dream girl).
Character:
The characters are very well drawn and some of their banter made me smile in delight at my book. I found the character of Helen particularly endearingly done, because even as she is extremely annoying, and I was wary of her being a 'judgmental stick up the behind Christian', the others take to her with exasperated fondness and do in some regards try to protect her due to her naivete.
I did think some of the characters were slightly underused and could have been cut or brought in more throughout the story. Additionally, I was frustrated at
Structure:
The structure of the story is done with quite a lot of detail. It may be just that I love British writing and how it often meanders and adds excessive levels of detail (and smoking!), but this worked for me. Especially because one of the overarching themes of the story is that creepy Richard Dadd painting, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, and how it represents a horror of the absent, and a need for every space to be filled with incredible amounts of detail. Much of the prose I found to draw me fully into Solace House and ground me in a sense of the place. I only noticed a couple of times when an ill-placed or heavy-handed metaphor threw me out of the narrative.
I think the pacing could have been tightened up a little overall. Around halfway through I started to wonder how much more set-up we could possibly get, but then something else would draw me in. It wasn't enough to put me off, but occasionally I found myself speed-reading through paragraphs or scenes which were more transitional.
Most of the time, though, I was absolutely enchanted by the book. I wanted to know what in the world was going on. I attempted to decipher what was going on with the poetry before the big reveal (although I was wrong). I read through car rides and lunches and work.
The ending did somewhat disappoint me. The author leaves a lot up to interpretation as to what is going on, what is true. The very last few paragraphs confounded me and I was left to sit there thinking as to what Maclean could have meant by doing this.
The author does something right off the bat with that I caught right away; it seemed kind of heavy-handedly lobbed into the story as an obvious Chekhov's gun to look for later. I figured I would have an eyeroll later when the curtain was yanked away to reveal something I'd figured out 17% of the way through. But no! The heavy-handedness of the information we were given early on did not, in fact, give me a definitive answer. I kind of liked this, at the same time that it maddened me.
I wish I'd had a slightly more conclusive ending or at least more breadcrumbs left for us to understand what was going on. For that reason alone I deducted a star.
Conclusion:
I don't know if I agree with the comparisons to the Secret History, as the philosophical themes of the story seem to tend more towards the cosmic horror side of things rather than the intersection of beauty and terror. The premise, though -- an evil sentient house; cosmic existentialism; gnostic secret layers of knowledge attained only through enlightenment (does NOT represent my personal views on real life, but a favorite theme of mine); an alien, inhuman future -- were right up my alley.
Thank you also Mr. Maclean for being so staunchly anti-AI. It's the first thing I noticed in the early pages, and so I did kind of go into reading the book thinking it would be about an evil AI-run house. I was pleasantly surprised when it was not.
Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
★★★☆☆
This book should be right up my alley.
On a macro level, this coming-of-age text explores themes of fate, loss, and isolation through the lives of seven college students, all living and working together over a rural, British summer in 1993. There's a haunted house, there's drugs, there's a lush woods for miles in every direction... What tragedy might befall these teens so far from civilization? What clumsy, tangled relationships might they form, and how will they bend and break under the pressure of manual labor and creepy architecture? This story sets itself up with a rock-solid formula of psychological horror elements, and certain chapters knock those expectations out of the park.
For much of the book, however, those themes mainly serve as road signs for an otherwise one-dimensional story. In 500+ pages, it doesn't actually say much about the ideas it introduces, using them instead as a framework for story beats and shallow parallels. I'm not of the opinion that every book needs to be a literary masterpiece, or that you must have an interesting and unique perspective on themes in order to use them in your novel... But I do expect them to be used effectively, and that didn't happen for me here.
The dialogue does successfully differentiate each cast member enough to make conversations and group interactions feel lively and realistic, however, by the end, the characters felt far more flat than I was expecting. If you're familiar with the film Cabin in the Woods, you'll know what I mean when I say that over time, these characters somehow fell into easily-identifiable tropes despite how much time spent getting to know them. This is to be expected with side characters, but these seven teenagers are pretty much the only people in the book, so I would have liked them to feel more complex, if only to make their relationships more interesting.
When the plot thickens and the train gets moving, I devoured this book. I must have read 200-300 pages in one sitting because the atmosphere was so effective. I thought the pacing of the central mystery was great, even if the mass exposition dump via felt longer than it had to be-- that information would have been much more interesting spread out through the rest of the story. By the time it was finished, I felt like I knew exactly what was going to happen (and I was right).
The imagery throughout the book is phenomenal. There are certain scenes that are exceptionally unsettling, my personal favorite being the . The introduction of did a lot to increase the tension for me personally, though at a certain point the cosmic imagery feels repetitive and muddies the experience. Plenty of outstanding works use open-endedness to enhance the central themes of their story, but since we don't have those strong themes to latch onto, the final act feels confused and lacking, where a stronger foundation would allow a reader to infer more confident conclusions. Overall, you could probably shave 150-200 pages off this behemoth and tighten it into something more focused and effective. The final 25%, especially, felt surprisingly hand-holdy for how predictable it was, as if the author didn't trust me to put the very obvious and repetitive clues together up until then.
I could go on, because I truly did enjoy reading this book, I just wish it did more with the sea of potential it has, rather than spending so much time treading water. I look forward to Will Maclean's next book and recommend this to anyone who is normal and reads books for fun, rather than me who has a degree in English and reads everything like a teacher with a red pen.
This book should be right up my alley.
On a macro level, this coming-of-age text explores themes of fate, loss, and isolation through the lives of seven college students, all living and working together over a rural, British summer in 1993. There's a haunted house, there's drugs, there's a lush woods for miles in every direction... What tragedy might befall these teens so far from civilization? What clumsy, tangled relationships might they form, and how will they bend and break under the pressure of manual labor and creepy architecture? This story sets itself up with a rock-solid formula of psychological horror elements, and certain chapters knock those expectations out of the park.
For much of the book, however, those themes mainly serve as road signs for an otherwise one-dimensional story. In 500+ pages, it doesn't actually say much about the ideas it introduces, using them instead as a framework for story beats and shallow parallels. I'm not of the opinion that every book needs to be a literary masterpiece, or that you must have an interesting and unique perspective on themes in order to use them in your novel... But I do expect them to be used effectively, and that didn't happen for me here.
The dialogue does successfully differentiate each cast member enough to make conversations and group interactions feel lively and realistic, however, by the end, the characters felt far more flat than I was expecting. If you're familiar with the film Cabin in the Woods, you'll know what I mean when I say that over time, these characters somehow fell into easily-identifiable tropes despite how much time spent getting to know them. This is to be expected with side characters, but these seven teenagers are pretty much the only people in the book, so I would have liked them to feel more complex, if only to make their relationships more interesting.
When the plot thickens and the train gets moving, I devoured this book. I must have read 200-300 pages in one sitting because the atmosphere was so effective. I thought the pacing of the central mystery was great, even if the mass exposition dump via felt longer than it had to be-- that information would have been much more interesting spread out through the rest of the story. By the time it was finished, I felt like I knew exactly what was going to happen (and I was right).
The imagery throughout the book is phenomenal. There are certain scenes that are exceptionally unsettling, my personal favorite being the . The introduction of did a lot to increase the tension for me personally, though at a certain point the cosmic imagery feels repetitive and muddies the experience. Plenty of outstanding works use open-endedness to enhance the central themes of their story, but since we don't have those strong themes to latch onto, the final act feels confused and lacking, where a stronger foundation would allow a reader to infer more confident conclusions. Overall, you could probably shave 150-200 pages off this behemoth and tighten it into something more focused and effective. The final 25%, especially, felt surprisingly hand-holdy for how predictable it was, as if the author didn't trust me to put the very obvious and repetitive clues together up until then.
I could go on, because I truly did enjoy reading this book, I just wish it did more with the sea of potential it has, rather than spending so much time treading water. I look forward to Will Maclean's next book and recommend this to anyone who is normal and reads books for fun, rather than me who has a degree in English and reads everything like a teacher with a red pen.
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