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Solace House
In 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.
500 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 2026
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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
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
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.
June 5, 2026
4.5 ⭐️
This was a fantastic, captivating and unique novel.
From the get-go I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the ominous history of our protagonist, with new developments always adding to the unease rather than clarity in the story.
I particularly enjoyed the turn the author took with the climax of the story - there was a very obvious path which most authors take and the novel reaches its resolution, but WM did something different and very effective with what happened next.
The characters felt well fleshed out and intriguing and brought different dynamics to the group. I enjoyed their changing relationships with one another and the general atmosphere of distrust / scepticism especially at the high point of the novel. There were chapters that genuinely had me uneasy and I felt myself almost 'running' through the pages and keeping pace with the characters' distress!
I think the ending really fit the themes in the novel - just as the main character we were trying to piece together the 'reality' of the situation.
Overall, really fantastic and refreshing novel!
This was a fantastic, captivating and unique novel.
From the get-go I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the ominous history of our protagonist, with new developments always adding to the unease rather than clarity in the story.
I particularly enjoyed the turn the author took with the climax of the story - there was a very obvious path which most authors take and the novel reaches its resolution, but WM did something different and very effective with what happened next.
The characters felt well fleshed out and intriguing and brought different dynamics to the group. I enjoyed their changing relationships with one another and the general atmosphere of distrust / scepticism especially at the high point of the novel. There were chapters that genuinely had me uneasy and I felt myself almost 'running' through the pages and keeping pace with the characters' distress!
I think the ending really fit the themes in the novel - just as the main character we were trying to piece together the 'reality' of the situation.
Overall, really fantastic and refreshing novel!
May 21, 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 emotional and psychological themes 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 emotional and psychological themes 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.
Want to Read
June 4, 2026 ⌗ ── 😶🍋🟩🐈⬛ᝰ .ᐟ pre-read.
thanks to netgalley and the author for an arc in exchange of an honest review.
the premise of this book is insane and i'm here for it! let's goooo
thanks to netgalley and the author for an arc in exchange of an honest review.
the premise of this book is insane and i'm here for it! let's goooo
June 8, 2026
The quatrain poetry was so, so clever but I felt a lot of the story and characters were sacrificed in favour of the big reveal at the end.
Solace House is over 500 pages, and is mostly the story of a group of people clearing out a house. More than enough room, I feel, to properly flesh out the characters, the story and the mystery. But instead it stayed fairly vague and I lost a lot of interest as the pages wore on.
I also did not find the conclusion satisfying. It felt like when a TV series finds out it's not getting it's next season, and scrambles to end the story the best way it can, as quickly as possible. I never felt I fully understood, or cared about any of the characters or their endings, even the main character.
Solace House is over 500 pages, and is mostly the story of a group of people clearing out a house. More than enough room, I feel, to properly flesh out the characters, the story and the mystery. But instead it stayed fairly vague and I lost a lot of interest as the pages wore on.
I also did not find the conclusion satisfying. It felt like when a TV series finds out it's not getting it's next season, and scrambles to end the story the best way it can, as quickly as possible. I never felt I fully understood, or cared about any of the characters or their endings, even the main character.
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.
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 . . .
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 .
May 26, 2026
I don’t know how to move on after finishing this book. A part of me will always be with this group of people clearing out a house during a hot summer break. I loved every moment of this, the moments of warmth, the moments of joy, the moments of existential dread, the moments of plummeting, stomach dropping fear. All of it.
I can tell Maclean had a lot of fun writing this. His little trinkets of curiosities dappled throughout were sumptuous. Hinting Alice in Wonderland with a character saying “curiouser and curiouser”. Having the song “Out of Space” by The Prodigy cut out. There’s so so much in this that leans into its true purpose.
Not only is the story great, and the characters tangible, but it is written exquisitely. There are moments where you can tell Maclean is a script writer, there are paragraphs of him describing the situation we’re stepping into, painting the picture of who these characters are, giving places character and life. But also writing incredible phrases like “Cramped cathedral of lunacy”. Gorgeous!
I cannot wait to discuss this multi-layered mansion of a book with people who have read it. I haven’t enjoyed a book this much in years. Not only has it crammed its way into my brain constantly since I started reading it, but it has now left a terrifying void, because whatever I read next can’t stand a chance after finishing something this good.
I can tell Maclean had a lot of fun writing this. His little trinkets of curiosities dappled throughout were sumptuous. Hinting Alice in Wonderland with a character saying “curiouser and curiouser”. Having the song “Out of Space” by The Prodigy cut out. There’s so so much in this that leans into its true purpose.
Not only is the story great, and the characters tangible, but it is written exquisitely. There are moments where you can tell Maclean is a script writer, there are paragraphs of him describing the situation we’re stepping into, painting the picture of who these characters are, giving places character and life. But also writing incredible phrases like “Cramped cathedral of lunacy”. Gorgeous!
I cannot wait to discuss this multi-layered mansion of a book with people who have read it. I haven’t enjoyed a book this much in years. Not only has it crammed its way into my brain constantly since I started reading it, but it has now left a terrifying void, because whatever I read next can’t stand a chance after finishing something this good.
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.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
There was an excellent story hidden somewhere inside Solace House—one filled with cursed objects, impossible spaces, and mounting dread—but it just could not get out of its own way.
At just over 500 pages, this novel had no business being as long as it was. Every chapter opens with excerpts from journals that eventually become relevant, but they contribute nothing in the moment and quickly become tedious enough for me to skip them altogether.
The story doesn't actually begin until we arrive at Solace House around the 15% mark. Everything before that is spent with the exceptionally bland protagonist, Alex. He seems to be intentionally written as emotionally detached and unreliable, but that came at the expense of any investment to be had in him. He functions as the reader's eyes and ears, drifting through the events of the story instead of being an active participant in them. Outside of that, most of what defines him is his incessant pining over the women in his life, and I could not stand how pathetic it was.
Even after arriving at the house, the first half continues to meander through repetitive day-to-day routines, house-clearing scenes, and conversations that don't accomplish much. The side characters were distinct, but only because of how uniquely stereotypical they all were. Perhaps these scenes would have worked with stronger characterization, but with such one-dimensional personalities, the dialogue was perfunctory at best and vapid at worst.
There’s finally some plot momentum around the 40% mark when the crew finds the journals. The story spends its time between 40% and 60% exploring the impossible spaces, unsettling objects, and increasingly horrifying discoveries in the house. This section was easily the strongest part of the book; it was where I was most captivated and it had my full attention. Maclean's descriptions are wonderfully visual and atmospheric, with vivid sensory detail that made the house itself feel dark and oppressive. This is the novel the synopsis promises—the creepy, mysterious haunted house horror where every new room raises more questions than answers—but it's also the section the book moves through the fastest, smothering its greatest strengths beneath hundreds of pages of far less fascinating material.
The final third loses all momentum immediately, drudging through repetitive scenes and ideas, and returns once again to Alex's nausea-inducing fixation on a woman. Eventually, the story moves into some weird territory that it never provided enough groundwork to validate. If there was a point to anything that happened, it wasn’t clear, and that ambiguity felt like a consequence of a muddled execution rather than the result of a purposeful, well-constructed narrative.
Beneath all the bloat, unfocused storytelling, and abysmal characterization was an imaginative, luminal horror novel, but this was not that novel. This missed the mark in every way for me; and yet, I have no doubt Solace House will be loved by many, so I encourage anyone intrigued by its premise to give it a shot and form their own opinion.
Readers who enjoyed The Fisherman by John Langan, Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman, and Piranesi by Susanna Clarke may find more to appreciate about this read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
At just over 500 pages, this novel had no business being as long as it was. Every chapter opens with excerpts from journals that eventually become relevant, but they contribute nothing in the moment and quickly become tedious enough for me to skip them altogether.
The story doesn't actually begin until we arrive at Solace House around the 15% mark. Everything before that is spent with the exceptionally bland protagonist, Alex. He seems to be intentionally written as emotionally detached and unreliable, but that came at the expense of any investment to be had in him. He functions as the reader's eyes and ears, drifting through the events of the story instead of being an active participant in them. Outside of that, most of what defines him is his incessant pining over the women in his life, and I could not stand how pathetic it was.
Even after arriving at the house, the first half continues to meander through repetitive day-to-day routines, house-clearing scenes, and conversations that don't accomplish much. The side characters were distinct, but only because of how uniquely stereotypical they all were. Perhaps these scenes would have worked with stronger characterization, but with such one-dimensional personalities, the dialogue was perfunctory at best and vapid at worst.
There’s finally some plot momentum around the 40% mark when the crew finds the journals. The story spends its time between 40% and 60% exploring the impossible spaces, unsettling objects, and increasingly horrifying discoveries in the house. This section was easily the strongest part of the book; it was where I was most captivated and it had my full attention. Maclean's descriptions are wonderfully visual and atmospheric, with vivid sensory detail that made the house itself feel dark and oppressive. This is the novel the synopsis promises—the creepy, mysterious haunted house horror where every new room raises more questions than answers—but it's also the section the book moves through the fastest, smothering its greatest strengths beneath hundreds of pages of far less fascinating material.
The final third loses all momentum immediately, drudging through repetitive scenes and ideas, and returns once again to Alex's nausea-inducing fixation on a woman. Eventually, the story moves into some weird territory that it never provided enough groundwork to validate. If there was a point to anything that happened, it wasn’t clear, and that ambiguity felt like a consequence of a muddled execution rather than the result of a purposeful, well-constructed narrative.
Beneath all the bloat, unfocused storytelling, and abysmal characterization was an imaginative, luminal horror novel, but this was not that novel. This missed the mark in every way for me; and yet, I have no doubt Solace House will be loved by many, so I encourage anyone intrigued by its premise to give it a shot and form their own opinion.
Readers who enjoyed The Fisherman by John Langan, Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman, and Piranesi by Susanna Clarke may find more to appreciate about this read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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
-----------
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 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.
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
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.
June 4, 2026
Wow! Just wow!!
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 22, 2026
This was so good, it was scary and eerie and uncomfortable, just amazing
paused
April 13, 2026The Secret History meets The Haunting of Hill House
OKAY DON'T THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME !!!
Read
April 3, 2026I’m gonna need to read some reviews cuz what was that ending?
June 29, 2026
I couldn’t have read Will MacLean’s second novel Solace House in more appropriate circumstances. First during the intense heatwave last week, down south at the Chalke History Festival near Salisbury, sitting in a muggy tent in between either giving talks or attending other people’s. The sun was so fierce that everything became a little hazy, and the slow early chapters of the book ticked on. Second, in a Backrooms-like brand new Premier Inn in London, binging the second half of the novel in one big gulp in a bedroom lit by that distinctive purple glow. And yet I still wish I’d come to this one like I came to MacLean’s debut The Apparition Phase, which I discovered in a library with no expectations. By the time I opened Solace House, it had already been so praised by so many bloggers and reviewers I trust that, much as I did enjoy this trippy story, some disappointment was pretty much inevitable.
After a family tragedy, Alex faces an empty summer following his first year at university, until he becomes one of a team of students clearing out a huge Victorian house so it can be revamped as student accommodation. The now-dead owner, Edwin Flayne, seems to have been an obsessive hoarder – the house is so crammed with junk that only one narrow pathway through its vast halls remains. But as the students dig deeper, they realise there is a creepy secret at the heart of Solace House, incarnated in Edwin’s writings and the three locked doors that lead to tableaux of effigies and a hall of mirrors. Was Edwin onto something when he recorded thoughts about other realities, and are Alex and the others going to cross over into worlds they never wanted to encounter?
MacLean is, as ever, good at writing genuinely unsettling stuff, but I felt the pacing of Solace House was unbalanced. The first half seems endless, which in some ways fits nicely with the long shapeless summer that our protagonists are experiencing, but becomes even more frustrating when the book suddenly takes off at the halfway mark. I wanted much more of the dark end-game and less of the set-up; it’s not so much that the book is too long and more that it spends too long on its B-side. Also, given that one of the things I loved about The Apparition Phase was how evocative it was of the 1970s, I was surprised that I kept forgetting that Solace House is set in the early 1990s. It could have done more with that particular historical moment.
Having said this, I still think that MacLean remains one of my favourite British horror writers. Solace House may have its problems, but it’s still rare to read a novel that plays so effectively with reality without tipping over into meaningless dream sequences (there are some parallels with Joe Hill’s King Sorrow here, which I DNFd early on, partly because I found the hallucinatory bits silly). It may not be as good as Matt Wixey’s Basilisk, but what is? And what MacLean absolutely nails is the atmosphere of the thing, which seeps from every page and kept me wanting to read on even when nothing seemed to be happening. A perfect summer read if, like me, you like your summers a little unreal.
After a family tragedy, Alex faces an empty summer following his first year at university, until he becomes one of a team of students clearing out a huge Victorian house so it can be revamped as student accommodation. The now-dead owner, Edwin Flayne, seems to have been an obsessive hoarder – the house is so crammed with junk that only one narrow pathway through its vast halls remains. But as the students dig deeper, they realise there is a creepy secret at the heart of Solace House, incarnated in Edwin’s writings and the three locked doors that lead to tableaux of effigies and a hall of mirrors. Was Edwin onto something when he recorded thoughts about other realities, and are Alex and the others going to cross over into worlds they never wanted to encounter?
MacLean is, as ever, good at writing genuinely unsettling stuff, but I felt the pacing of Solace House was unbalanced. The first half seems endless, which in some ways fits nicely with the long shapeless summer that our protagonists are experiencing, but becomes even more frustrating when the book suddenly takes off at the halfway mark. I wanted much more of the dark end-game and less of the set-up; it’s not so much that the book is too long and more that it spends too long on its B-side. Also, given that one of the things I loved about The Apparition Phase was how evocative it was of the 1970s, I was surprised that I kept forgetting that Solace House is set in the early 1990s. It could have done more with that particular historical moment.
Having said this, I still think that MacLean remains one of my favourite British horror writers. Solace House may have its problems, but it’s still rare to read a novel that plays so effectively with reality without tipping over into meaningless dream sequences (there are some parallels with Joe Hill’s King Sorrow here, which I DNFd early on, partly because I found the hallucinatory bits silly). It may not be as good as Matt Wixey’s Basilisk, but what is? And what MacLean absolutely nails is the atmosphere of the thing, which seeps from every page and kept me wanting to read on even when nothing seemed to be happening. A perfect summer read if, like me, you like your summers a little unreal.
June 27, 2026
I feel like the tagline of this being like the Haunting of Hill House X Secret History is extremely misleading and I wish books and authors would stop advertising themselves by using other works for comparison. It just sets you up for failure. The epigraphic poetry was very clever but the pay off was not. Additionally, the ending was unclear and not in a reflective type way but in a ‘the author didn’t set this up properly’ way unfortunately. I will say the vibes were immaculate though if not a little slow to get rolling.
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June 10, 2026Smartly crafted, I'll give the novel that. While I wavered between boredom and the urge to come back for more through much of the first two hundred pages, I sped through the last hundred and fifty or so. And once what was at stake became clear, it did turn into something genuinely interesting. I do wonder, though, how much of the novel hinges on its gimmick - a gimmick that takes a while to reveal itself (and I'm sure that took for Mclean to produce), but a gimmick nevertheless. I wanted more cosmic horror, more Mad God, more insanity.
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May 16, 2026Did I enjoy this book? Absofuckinglutely. Did I like it? I’m not sure.
Solace House got me staying up way past my bedtime. I just wanted to know what happened, but the ending didn’t feel as rewarding. Maybe metaphysical horror is just not for me?
The Ridge gave me claustrophobic vibes despite the fact that Alex was alone there with Adam. The build up really got me feeling immersed that I found myself flipping through the pages, effortlessly drinking in every word. The prose was rapt with vivid imagery that I couldn’t help but feel as if I was also walking those dreadful halls and seeing those walls myself. And when we got to Marshlands, it felt like I could taste all the dusts from the walls. The path to Solace House was amazing, though. That’s when I really felt as if I was transported through time. As much as I wanted to pause and close the book to just breathe, I simply just couldn’t look away.
I enjoyed the characters a lot though some of them felt flat to me (looking at you Ruth and Malcom). Still, I liked all the banter and laughed several times. It’s one of the things that I will miss about this book— just the characters hanging out. However, the book lost me when it got to the exalted realm part. Even though I know that Alex was sent to this reality/time and he wasn’t really just dreaming, I still couldn’t help but groan and roll my eyes at the “it’s all just a dream” trope. I thought the author could’ve done better than that, but oh well. I don’t know if I was simply intoxicated with all the magic mushroom talk, but I can’t for the life of me, figure out what happened in the last few pages. Are Alex and Adam the same person? Was he really time traveling using the cave as a portal? Did the others really die? Who knows! Not me!!
Not to sound like Helen, but man, I don’t think I would do well with drugs after reading this book lol. Staying off from all of that. Anyway, after writing this review, I still don’t know whether to give this book either 3 or 4 stars. So it will stay unrated. Just know that I immensely enjoyed the atmosphere and plot, but not sure if I liked where and how it ended which really made me feel as if all of it was for nothing. But best believe that Solace House will probably stay with me for a long time.
Solace House got me staying up way past my bedtime. I just wanted to know what happened, but the ending didn’t feel as rewarding. Maybe metaphysical horror is just not for me?
The Ridge gave me claustrophobic vibes despite the fact that Alex was alone there with Adam. The build up really got me feeling immersed that I found myself flipping through the pages, effortlessly drinking in every word. The prose was rapt with vivid imagery that I couldn’t help but feel as if I was also walking those dreadful halls and seeing those walls myself. And when we got to Marshlands, it felt like I could taste all the dusts from the walls. The path to Solace House was amazing, though. That’s when I really felt as if I was transported through time. As much as I wanted to pause and close the book to just breathe, I simply just couldn’t look away.
I enjoyed the characters a lot though some of them felt flat to me (looking at you Ruth and Malcom). Still, I liked all the banter and laughed several times. It’s one of the things that I will miss about this book— just the characters hanging out. However, the book lost me when it got to the exalted realm part. Even though I know that Alex was sent to this reality/time and he wasn’t really just dreaming, I still couldn’t help but groan and roll my eyes at the “it’s all just a dream” trope. I thought the author could’ve done better than that, but oh well. I don’t know if I was simply intoxicated with all the magic mushroom talk, but I can’t for the life of me, figure out what happened in the last few pages. Are Alex and Adam the same person? Was he really time traveling using the cave as a portal? Did the others really die? Who knows! Not me!!
Not to sound like Helen, but man, I don’t think I would do well with drugs after reading this book lol. Staying off from all of that. Anyway, after writing this review, I still don’t know whether to give this book either 3 or 4 stars. So it will stay unrated. Just know that I immensely enjoyed the atmosphere and plot, but not sure if I liked where and how it ended which really made me feel as if all of it was for nothing. But best believe that Solace House will probably stay with me for a long time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 31, 2026
4.5 rounded up cos I enjoy having my mind blown to smithereens
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
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.
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