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Echo
I came to Hemlock House to finish my novel.
Six months ago, my son died. My marriage is over, my book is a year late, and I have nothing left to lose. A writing retreat in the Vermont mountains seems like the perfect place to disappear.
Hemlock House is a vast Gothic pile halfway through a renovation. Power cuts. No signal. A hedge maze you can lose an afternoon in, and a work crew who won’t talk about what happened here.
Then the pages start appearing.
Every morning there are thousands of words on my screen that I have no memory of typing. The writing is the best I have ever done. And the story is beginning to happen to me.
My characters know things I don’t. About the house. The girl who vanished. The deaths nobody will explain. And about the morning my son died, the morning I have made myself forget.
Is the house trying to warn me? Or is someone very much alive making sure I never reach the final page?
Every novel needs an ending. I’m terrified of mine.
Six months ago, my son died. My marriage is over, my book is a year late, and I have nothing left to lose. A writing retreat in the Vermont mountains seems like the perfect place to disappear.
Hemlock House is a vast Gothic pile halfway through a renovation. Power cuts. No signal. A hedge maze you can lose an afternoon in, and a work crew who won’t talk about what happened here.
Then the pages start appearing.
Every morning there are thousands of words on my screen that I have no memory of typing. The writing is the best I have ever done. And the story is beginning to happen to me.
My characters know things I don’t. About the house. The girl who vanished. The deaths nobody will explain. And about the morning my son died, the morning I have made myself forget.
Is the house trying to warn me? Or is someone very much alive making sure I never reach the final page?
Every novel needs an ending. I’m terrified of mine.
329 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 25, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 25, 2026
A twisty psychological thriller set in a spooky house. This will raise the goosebumps!
Alice or Ali as she prefers is grieving the death of her only son. A tragic overdose kills him
and wrecks the family.
Ali, an authoress, not surprisingly has writers block and is being nudged by her publisher
for the book that’s long overdue. The tragedy was also the final nail in the coffin of her
marriage and she is all alone In an attempt to free her troubled mind she moves to an old
and remote gothic pile of a house to write. The place is ramshackle and almost off grid,
certainly no Internet. She slowly turns her mind to writing in the gloomy house but the
house seems to have different ideas! Some mornings she finds pages and pages that she
doesn’t remember writing. Characters she doesn’t know appear and they know things that
she doesn’t. She doubts her own sanity but is the house talking to her through her ghost
writing.
Can she solve the mysterious past of the house and it’s dark murders before she loses her
sanity?
A great read and the descriptive really conjures up a creepy feeling cobwebs and all
Alice or Ali as she prefers is grieving the death of her only son. A tragic overdose kills him
and wrecks the family.
Ali, an authoress, not surprisingly has writers block and is being nudged by her publisher
for the book that’s long overdue. The tragedy was also the final nail in the coffin of her
marriage and she is all alone In an attempt to free her troubled mind she moves to an old
and remote gothic pile of a house to write. The place is ramshackle and almost off grid,
certainly no Internet. She slowly turns her mind to writing in the gloomy house but the
house seems to have different ideas! Some mornings she finds pages and pages that she
doesn’t remember writing. Characters she doesn’t know appear and they know things that
she doesn’t. She doubts her own sanity but is the house talking to her through her ghost
writing.
Can she solve the mysterious past of the house and it’s dark murders before she loses her
sanity?
A great read and the descriptive really conjures up a creepy feeling cobwebs and all
August 28, 2026
A mysterious house with a secret to solve, this was creepy and chilling at time, and with Ally reading the shining on her retreat too just added a bit more tension.
I found it fascinating with the story of her son both heartbreaking and scary, then the story of the houses past and the strange characters Ally encounters.
I couldn’t put it down it was a real page turner with lots of twists too.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews