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The Haunting of Ashburn House
Everyone knows about Ashburn House. They whisper its old owner went mad, and restless ghosts still walk the halls. They say it's the dwelling place of something cruel and sinister. But when Adrienne―desperate and in need of a place to stay―inherits the crumbling old mansion, she only sees it as a lifeline... until darkness falls.Strange messages are etched into the walls. Furniture moves when she leaves the room. There's something here―something powerful, angry, and hell-bent on shaking things up. Worse, a grave hidden in the depths of the forest hints at a terrible, unforgivable secret. Eventually Adrienne can't ignore that a twisted thing lives in the house, its hungry eyes ever-watchful. Chasing the threads of a decades-old mystery, it isn't long before she realizes she's become prey to something deeply unnatural and intensely resentful.She has no idea how to escape. She has no idea how to survive. Only one thing is Ashburn's dead are not at rest.
328 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 20, 2016
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About the author
Darcy Coates
69 books14.1k followersDarcy Coates is the USA Today bestselling author of more than a dozen horror and suspense novels.
She lives in the Central Coast of Australia with her family, cat, and a collection of chickens. Her home is surrounded by rolling wilderness on all sides, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
You can hear about her next book by joining her newsletter: www.darcycoates.com/updates
She lives in the Central Coast of Australia with her family, cat, and a collection of chickens. Her home is surrounded by rolling wilderness on all sides, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
You can hear about her next book by joining her newsletter: www.darcycoates.com/updates
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,113 reviews
October 1, 2016
I wish I could share in the love the majority of reviewers have expressed for this book. The story just didn't work for me for a variety of reasons, which I'll do my best to clarify without spoilers.
First, I think it's important to note that this is far more of an 'undead' theme than a haunted house or ghost story. I love ghost stories, but zombies and the undead don't interest me. Had the title and description better reflected the content, I wouldn't have read the book at all.
I felt the pace was painfully slow. We walk around the house with Adrienne, open a cupboard, find a cup, boil water in the kettle, make tea, walk around some more. In other words, we spend a lot of time doing uninteresting things in a house that should have held all sorts of allure.
And that brings me to the next issue. Adrienne had so little curiosity about the house she'd inherited that I found myself internally yelling for her to look around and discover what might be behind all those doors and inside those drawers she never opened. Her claim in the narration was that she didn't want to invade Edith's privacy. An absurd claim, to me, at least. The woman - whom Adrienne hadn't even known existed - was dead and the house belonged to Adrienne now, yet she didn't seem at all interested in the contents. We were well past the 3/4 point before Adrienne even looked in Edith's room.
The entire story is told from Adrienne's perspective. We spend most of our time with her, in that house, alone with her cat, yet I never got much sense of Adrienne as a person. She was supposedly a freelance writer, but I have no idea what types of articles she wrote or what subjects appealed to her. She sat around at night doing absolutely nothing, yet barely acknowledged all the old books Edith had left behind. I found her timid and uninteresting. Her character lacked depth. The only character I found all all interesting or likable was Wolfgang, Adrienne's cat.
Little details also bothered me throughout. For instance, she had nothing but time on her hands, complained constantly that the windows were so grimy she couldn't see outside, yet she never once thought to wash them. She had an attic full of candles, yet complained about not having light and never considered bringing some of those candles down and dispersing them throughout the rooms. She also managed to move into a home with working electricity and running water, while never putting utilities in her own name or showing any sort of proof of ownership. This might work differently in England, but there is no way you could do that (legally) here in the US.
The detail that most irritated me was the second floor hallway's lineup of portraits hanging on the wall. Adrienne hated those portraits, mentioning how they creeped her out every single time she went upstairs, yet she did not do the simple, logical, intelligent thing a person would do in a home she now lived in and owned, which would be to take those portraits off the wall.
A little beyond the halfway point, when things actually started to happen, it all became too silly and predictable. I did like the cat and the intriguing setting, but the rest never came together in a way I could enjoy.
First, I think it's important to note that this is far more of an 'undead' theme than a haunted house or ghost story. I love ghost stories, but zombies and the undead don't interest me. Had the title and description better reflected the content, I wouldn't have read the book at all.
I felt the pace was painfully slow. We walk around the house with Adrienne, open a cupboard, find a cup, boil water in the kettle, make tea, walk around some more. In other words, we spend a lot of time doing uninteresting things in a house that should have held all sorts of allure.
And that brings me to the next issue. Adrienne had so little curiosity about the house she'd inherited that I found myself internally yelling for her to look around and discover what might be behind all those doors and inside those drawers she never opened. Her claim in the narration was that she didn't want to invade Edith's privacy. An absurd claim, to me, at least. The woman - whom Adrienne hadn't even known existed - was dead and the house belonged to Adrienne now, yet she didn't seem at all interested in the contents. We were well past the 3/4 point before Adrienne even looked in Edith's room.
The entire story is told from Adrienne's perspective. We spend most of our time with her, in that house, alone with her cat, yet I never got much sense of Adrienne as a person. She was supposedly a freelance writer, but I have no idea what types of articles she wrote or what subjects appealed to her. She sat around at night doing absolutely nothing, yet barely acknowledged all the old books Edith had left behind. I found her timid and uninteresting. Her character lacked depth. The only character I found all all interesting or likable was Wolfgang, Adrienne's cat.
Little details also bothered me throughout. For instance, she had nothing but time on her hands, complained constantly that the windows were so grimy she couldn't see outside, yet she never once thought to wash them. She had an attic full of candles, yet complained about not having light and never considered bringing some of those candles down and dispersing them throughout the rooms. She also managed to move into a home with working electricity and running water, while never putting utilities in her own name or showing any sort of proof of ownership. This might work differently in England, but there is no way you could do that (legally) here in the US.
The detail that most irritated me was the second floor hallway's lineup of portraits hanging on the wall. Adrienne hated those portraits, mentioning how they creeped her out every single time she went upstairs, yet she did not do the simple, logical, intelligent thing a person would do in a home she now lived in and owned, which would be to take those portraits off the wall.
A little beyond the halfway point, when things actually started to happen, it all became too silly and predictable. I did like the cat and the intriguing setting, but the rest never came together in a way I could enjoy.
March 19, 2020
Hey horror lovers, have you seen the commercial with four teens running around scared in the dark and each suggests a place to hide like the basement of a creepy house, etc., another says, why can't we just leave in the running car and they ultimately decide to hide in an open garage filled with a zillion sharp instruments, well....
A near destitute Adrienne who recently inherited a big ole house from an unknown Great Aunt Edith makes some really idiotic decisions herein, but I really enjoyed this one. I liked Adrienne, the carved messages, Wolfgang the cat, the characters, the storyline, and most of all....the end.
Oh and....Ashburn House IS haunted....so don't forget to light a candle!
February 6, 2021
I wanted to smack some people, but that’s not unusual 😉
IS IT FRIDAY
LIGHT THE CANDLE
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
March 29, 2020
2.5 stars*
October 28, 2025
This would make a nice, fluffy Octobrrrr read.
It's like a chick-lit horror story, if that makes sense? Like, the women in this weren't awful to each other, and friendships were important. Plus, the heroine had a cat who became a main character, so I could get behind all of that.
I'm not disparaging it because it had some good scenes. I like spooky portraits and ambiguous warnings scratched into the furniture as much as the next girl.
And I think this one would be a good one for all of those who like to read scary stories but don't like to read horror that leaves you feeling truly chilled at the end.
Speaking of the end. Does this have a happy ending? Some of you may want to know, so I'll spoiler tag the answer.
The skinny gist is that our girl here had been taking care of her only family, her mother, who she just lost to some disease. Now she has no money, no place to live, and one rescue cat that she's holding onto for dear life.
Just when it seems all is lost, she finds out that a great aunt she never knew existed has left her a home in her will. Ashburn House.
As we all know, if you're left a mansion in a will by an unknown relative, said domicile has an obligation to be completely infested with malicious entities.
It can be no other way.
Of course, things seem off from the time Adrienne arrives at Ashburn House. From the whispering villagers, the no mirrors warning carved into tabletops, finding 10 billion boxes of candles in the attic, electricity cutting out at inconveniently terrifying moments, and the dreams of some malignant force digging its way out of a grave, the avid reader will recognize all the signs of supernatural shenanigans.
Good times.
I think if you go into this one with the right mindset, it's an enjoyable story.
A word of warning:
Eva Kaminsky narrates this, and while I really liked her voice, two things badly bothered me.
One, the story is set in England, and yet, no one has an English accent.
Two, you can hear Kaminsky gasp for air between sentences. And once you hear it, you can't unhear it. Feels like someone should have caught that in editing. At first, I thought maybe it was just something I'd never noticed before when listening to an audiobook, so I flipped over to a different book and...nope. The sucking intake sound was just a bonus for this book.
I'm not saying it's a dealbreaker, but buyer beware if you're an audiobook listener and think this might be the kind of thing that would annoy you.
Recommended for fans of Hallmark Horror.
It's like a chick-lit horror story, if that makes sense? Like, the women in this weren't awful to each other, and friendships were important. Plus, the heroine had a cat who became a main character, so I could get behind all of that.
I'm not disparaging it because it had some good scenes. I like spooky portraits and ambiguous warnings scratched into the furniture as much as the next girl.
And I think this one would be a good one for all of those who like to read scary stories but don't like to read horror that leaves you feeling truly chilled at the end.
Speaking of the end. Does this have a happy ending? Some of you may want to know, so I'll spoiler tag the answer.
The skinny gist is that our girl here had been taking care of her only family, her mother, who she just lost to some disease. Now she has no money, no place to live, and one rescue cat that she's holding onto for dear life.
Just when it seems all is lost, she finds out that a great aunt she never knew existed has left her a home in her will. Ashburn House.
As we all know, if you're left a mansion in a will by an unknown relative, said domicile has an obligation to be completely infested with malicious entities.
It can be no other way.
Of course, things seem off from the time Adrienne arrives at Ashburn House. From the whispering villagers, the no mirrors warning carved into tabletops, finding 10 billion boxes of candles in the attic, electricity cutting out at inconveniently terrifying moments, and the dreams of some malignant force digging its way out of a grave, the avid reader will recognize all the signs of supernatural shenanigans.
Good times.
I think if you go into this one with the right mindset, it's an enjoyable story.
A word of warning:
Eva Kaminsky narrates this, and while I really liked her voice, two things badly bothered me.
One, the story is set in England, and yet, no one has an English accent.
Two, you can hear Kaminsky gasp for air between sentences. And once you hear it, you can't unhear it. Feels like someone should have caught that in editing. At first, I thought maybe it was just something I'd never noticed before when listening to an audiobook, so I flipped over to a different book and...nope. The sucking intake sound was just a bonus for this book.
I'm not saying it's a dealbreaker, but buyer beware if you're an audiobook listener and think this might be the kind of thing that would annoy you.
Recommended for fans of Hallmark Horror.
May 29, 2022
1.5 stars?? I think
I really wanted to love this... but I think cozy horror and this author are not for me.
I read this for my book club The Book Troop this month and we discussed it in a live show here if you'd like to hear all our thoughts: https://youtu.be/BFPK6BBryGQ
I really wanted to love this... but I think cozy horror and this author are not for me.
I read this for my book club The Book Troop this month and we discussed it in a live show here if you'd like to hear all our thoughts: https://youtu.be/BFPK6BBryGQ
March 19, 2018
It had some tense moments, but for the most part it was corny, clichéd, and forgettable.
August 6, 2020
The Haunting of Ashburn House by Darcy Coates is a 2016 publication.
Effective and Entertaining
Ashburn House has enjoyed a sinister reputation for nearly a century. When the current owner of the old house dies, her sole heir, Adrienne, inherits the house.
Adrienne is in no position to turn down her inheritance. She has twenty dollars to her name, one suitcase, and her cat. But, holding on to the legendary house becomes a living nightmare when she learns about the Ashburn's horrifying history, and the puzzling mystery that haunts it.
Soon Adrienne is faced with a shocking dilemma as the ghosts of the past refuse to be silenced…
This is my first book by Darcy Coates. I have seen her books listed in the Kindle Unlimited program and noticed she was quite prolific and popular. But, when a relative read one of her books last fall for Halloween and enjoyed it, I decided I would give her a chance someday.
Normally, I reserve my traditional horror reading for Halloween, and even then, it is only to re-read favorites or to read classics I never got around to previously. Newer horror novels are a hard sell for me as so many of them lack atmosphere and rely too heavily on gore and gratuitous violence.
But, I am always a sucker for a good haunted house or ghost story, and due to all the lunacy of 2020, I have dabbled in any and all genres, hoping for something to keep my mind busy and entertained for a while
So, in the height of summer, when daylight lingers past 9 PM, at a time when I am normally engaged in lighter reading, I am instead reading a good old-fashioned horror novel- and what an entertaining ride it was!
The story has a great atmosphere, a terrific backstory and some superficial chills and thrills and suspense. No, this novel is not the in league with some of horror novel heavy weights I usually rely on and am accustomed to. In fact, it could be easily be labeled as ‘horror novel lite' but that suits me just fine- and happened to be what I needed to escape into at the moment.
It’s a quick, absorbing read, and works even without the mood setting chill of a dark, cold winter’s night curled up by the fire listening to what you hope is the wind howling… and not something else…
Effective and Entertaining
Ashburn House has enjoyed a sinister reputation for nearly a century. When the current owner of the old house dies, her sole heir, Adrienne, inherits the house.
Adrienne is in no position to turn down her inheritance. She has twenty dollars to her name, one suitcase, and her cat. But, holding on to the legendary house becomes a living nightmare when she learns about the Ashburn's horrifying history, and the puzzling mystery that haunts it.
Soon Adrienne is faced with a shocking dilemma as the ghosts of the past refuse to be silenced…
This is my first book by Darcy Coates. I have seen her books listed in the Kindle Unlimited program and noticed she was quite prolific and popular. But, when a relative read one of her books last fall for Halloween and enjoyed it, I decided I would give her a chance someday.
Normally, I reserve my traditional horror reading for Halloween, and even then, it is only to re-read favorites or to read classics I never got around to previously. Newer horror novels are a hard sell for me as so many of them lack atmosphere and rely too heavily on gore and gratuitous violence.
But, I am always a sucker for a good haunted house or ghost story, and due to all the lunacy of 2020, I have dabbled in any and all genres, hoping for something to keep my mind busy and entertained for a while
So, in the height of summer, when daylight lingers past 9 PM, at a time when I am normally engaged in lighter reading, I am instead reading a good old-fashioned horror novel- and what an entertaining ride it was!
The story has a great atmosphere, a terrific backstory and some superficial chills and thrills and suspense. No, this novel is not the in league with some of horror novel heavy weights I usually rely on and am accustomed to. In fact, it could be easily be labeled as ‘horror novel lite' but that suits me just fine- and happened to be what I needed to escape into at the moment.
It’s a quick, absorbing read, and works even without the mood setting chill of a dark, cold winter’s night curled up by the fire listening to what you hope is the wind howling… and not something else…
May 31, 2017
I enjoyed this spooky haunted house tale by author, Darcy Coates. It was creepy and mysterious, but not to the point of being spooked out of my skin. Still it kept moving right along and I am giving it 5* for keeping me entertained.
April 16, 2019
I just finished the book and thought it an extremely entertaining and eerie read. Adrienne inherits Ashburn House from her great-aunt she only met as a small child (the opening paragraphs of the novel). But the house has a bad reputation. The family it once owned it was murdered in a gruesome way. No murderer was ever arrested. Why are no mirrors in the house? An what are those strange clicking noises at the window and floors about? From the middle of the book on the action got fast paced. Something is hunting Adrienne. Is it a human being or some unnatural force? Adrienne has a wonderful mouser named Wolfgang who helps her to survive (absolutely love the cat's part since we also have a British shorthair cat). The story is well structered and cleverly built around convincing characters. The author also gives an interesting twist to the haunted house tales with Edith (the great-aunt) and her family in detail. The description of the family portraits was also very intriguing and gothic. The Haunting of Ashburn House will definitely haunt you. It's very well written in a fluid style and cooked to the point. Highly recommended. You don't want to meet those ghosts...
January 31, 2023
THE HAUNTING OF ASHBURN HOUSE by Darcy Coates is a 4-star mix of brilliance and implausibility.
MY TEASE…
At 22 years old, Adrienne is one heartbeat from destitute. She has no money. No car. No cellphone. No surviving relatives. No longstanding friends. And sporadic freelance employment.
Her possessions are meager. Just three changes of clothing, a dying laptop, and her beloved tabby cat, Wolfgang.
Turns out, all is not hopeless. A deceased great aunt, whom Adrienne never knew existed, bequeaths Ashburn House to her: a dilapidated mansion sitting on top of a steep hill overlooking the tiny, rural town of Ipson.
After Adrienne moves in, she quickly learns that Ashburn House isn’t the refuge she had hoped for. Strange carvings on the furniture and walls hint that the mansion harbors a horrifying past. One that wasn’t put to rest with Great Aunt Edith’s passing.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Without the proper rituals, the past is reawakening. And Adrienne is now its quarry.
THOUGHTS…
Hauntingly Brilliant…
There is a scene in this book when Adrienne is being chased through the woods by a terrifying entity. I kid you not: I actually screamed out loud! My heart was racing along with the main character’s. I was running beside her, stumbling, fighting to survive, and completely immersed in the action as if I was the one being chased.
I’ve been known to scream at the movie theatre…lol. Yeah, I’m that person! But I can’t remember ever screaming out loud when reading a book! I think Darcy Coates deserves a lot of kudos for bringing me into the story like that. WOW!
Hauntingly Implausible…
If only this book hadn’t veered into unbelievable territory. Granted, my preferences aren’t just to be shocked and scared. I want/need a story to be credible within its context. (That might just be me.)
Let me give you an example of the implausibility that I found frustrating.
One of the former house rituals was to light a candle in the attic every Friday (I have no clue why this wasn’t required every night). Consequently, there are boxes and boxes of candles and matches in the attic. Turns out, the light from one lit wick can keep the evil entity at bay.
Adrienne becomes trapped in the house with one oil lamp, a flashlight with weak batteries, and a diminishing supply of firewood for the fireplace. Darkness is the entity’s friend. You get the picture.
I kept urging Adrienne (lol) to bring down all those candles from the attic to the first floor. To light those suckers and be safe at night! Duh, right?
Not to mention…
Nevertheless, there were bright spots in this book, and I never considered putting it down. In fact, overall, I gave it 4 stars. My screaming in that near perfect scene had to significantly count!
QUICKFIRE RATINGS from 1 (ugh) to 5 (woo-hoo)…
Plot (the story): 4
Main character’s likability: 4
Development of supporting character(s): 3
Settings/Atmosphere: 5
Pacing (how fast did I turn the pages): 4
Believability (in the context of the story): 2.0 - 2.5
Satisfying ending: 4
Tension of the story: 4.5
Stirs the heart (romantic elements): N/A
Did I solve the mystery/guess the ending before the reveal? Yes, but I didn’t find that disappointing.
OVERALL:
THE HAUNTING OF ASHBURN HOUSE was a nicely paced read that included some brilliant moments, as well as some unbelievable ones.
MY TEASE…
At 22 years old, Adrienne is one heartbeat from destitute. She has no money. No car. No cellphone. No surviving relatives. No longstanding friends. And sporadic freelance employment.
Her possessions are meager. Just three changes of clothing, a dying laptop, and her beloved tabby cat, Wolfgang.
Turns out, all is not hopeless. A deceased great aunt, whom Adrienne never knew existed, bequeaths Ashburn House to her: a dilapidated mansion sitting on top of a steep hill overlooking the tiny, rural town of Ipson.
After Adrienne moves in, she quickly learns that Ashburn House isn’t the refuge she had hoped for. Strange carvings on the furniture and walls hint that the mansion harbors a horrifying past. One that wasn’t put to rest with Great Aunt Edith’s passing.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Without the proper rituals, the past is reawakening. And Adrienne is now its quarry.
THOUGHTS…
Hauntingly Brilliant…
There is a scene in this book when Adrienne is being chased through the woods by a terrifying entity. I kid you not: I actually screamed out loud! My heart was racing along with the main character’s. I was running beside her, stumbling, fighting to survive, and completely immersed in the action as if I was the one being chased.
I’ve been known to scream at the movie theatre…lol. Yeah, I’m that person! But I can’t remember ever screaming out loud when reading a book! I think Darcy Coates deserves a lot of kudos for bringing me into the story like that. WOW!
Hauntingly Implausible…
If only this book hadn’t veered into unbelievable territory. Granted, my preferences aren’t just to be shocked and scared. I want/need a story to be credible within its context. (That might just be me.)
Let me give you an example of the implausibility that I found frustrating.
One of the former house rituals was to light a candle in the attic every Friday (I have no clue why this wasn’t required every night). Consequently, there are boxes and boxes of candles and matches in the attic. Turns out, the light from one lit wick can keep the evil entity at bay.
Adrienne becomes trapped in the house with one oil lamp, a flashlight with weak batteries, and a diminishing supply of firewood for the fireplace. Darkness is the entity’s friend. You get the picture.
I kept urging Adrienne (lol) to bring down all those candles from the attic to the first floor. To light those suckers and be safe at night! Duh, right?
Not to mention…
Nevertheless, there were bright spots in this book, and I never considered putting it down. In fact, overall, I gave it 4 stars. My screaming in that near perfect scene had to significantly count!
QUICKFIRE RATINGS from 1 (ugh) to 5 (woo-hoo)…
Plot (the story): 4
Main character’s likability: 4
Development of supporting character(s): 3
Settings/Atmosphere: 5
Pacing (how fast did I turn the pages): 4
Believability (in the context of the story): 2.0 - 2.5
Satisfying ending: 4
Tension of the story: 4.5
Stirs the heart (romantic elements): N/A
Did I solve the mystery/guess the ending before the reveal? Yes, but I didn’t find that disappointing.
OVERALL:
THE HAUNTING OF ASHBURN HOUSE was a nicely paced read that included some brilliant moments, as well as some unbelievable ones.
July 8, 2019
The story was stagnant, the author went into great detail about mundane and irrelevant things such as every step to making tea several times a day, Adrienne started to become irritating because everyday she thought about the same things, and the words the author chose were strange. I felt like a find and replace thesaurus was overused. Many times I had to reread paragraphs because they didn’t make sense.
The word “groan” is used 44 times....*groan*. That’s a great example of the repetitiveness.
How can the sun feel beautiful on your skin? How can it set on top of the trees? Why did she keep buying dry cardboard noodles for herself but expensive cat food for Wolfgang? If the portraits were THAT creepy, why not take them down? Why didn’t she bring some of the million candles downstairs? She only got paid $60 for one of her two write ups? Was she never going to put the electricity in her name? Why go on about the old dusty, grimy house but only have her randomly go over furniture with a cloth? Her concern was over Marion’s car possibly being a write off instead of the fact that Marion very well could’ve been dead? If the house is meant to be isolated, why was she always pleasantly surprised by how quickly she made it home on the trail? How could a thick blanket be unsettling?
Adrienne was a likable character and had potential but the book needed to move along. The house wasn’t coming to life and the ghost wasn’t making a presence. I feel like I really wanted this book to work but it frustrated me too much.
The word “groan” is used 44 times....*groan*. That’s a great example of the repetitiveness.
How can the sun feel beautiful on your skin? How can it set on top of the trees? Why did she keep buying dry cardboard noodles for herself but expensive cat food for Wolfgang? If the portraits were THAT creepy, why not take them down? Why didn’t she bring some of the million candles downstairs? She only got paid $60 for one of her two write ups? Was she never going to put the electricity in her name? Why go on about the old dusty, grimy house but only have her randomly go over furniture with a cloth? Her concern was over Marion’s car possibly being a write off instead of the fact that Marion very well could’ve been dead? If the house is meant to be isolated, why was she always pleasantly surprised by how quickly she made it home on the trail? How could a thick blanket be unsettling?
Adrienne was a likable character and had potential but the book needed to move along. The house wasn’t coming to life and the ghost wasn’t making a presence. I feel like I really wanted this book to work but it frustrated me too much.
March 19, 2018
Definitely one of my favorites that Darcy Coates has written. This one was creepy there for a bit. I wanted to shout at Adrienne and tell her what to do. But no. None of us book people EVER do that. :-/
Yes. So I enjoyed this one a lot.
Edit: I also want to add that this author, so far in my reading just writes good ghost stories. Nothing psychological, no gore fest, just good ghost stories like I used to hear when I was younger.
Yes. So I enjoyed this one a lot.
Edit: I also want to add that this author, so far in my reading just writes good ghost stories. Nothing psychological, no gore fest, just good ghost stories like I used to hear when I was younger.
March 14, 2021
As the moon edged closer to full, it brought the shapes into sharper relief. Adrienne could make out the individual branches in several trees and one bush that stood a little ahead of the woods' edge that looked like a hunched, twisted woman.
Adrienne, penniless and alone save her cat Wolfgang, moves into a house bequeathed to her by a great aunt she never knew existed. It really is the proper way to begin a haunted house story, isn't it?
The Haunting of Ashburn House is an exceptionally entertaining novel by Darcy Coates. The family mystery is well plotted and the house rich in intrigue. I felt Adrienne's growing isolation and anxiety as the days slipped into terrifying nights.
She lifted the clean plate, shook the excess water off it, and glanced toward the window. The odd, human-shaped shrub was gone
The story moves along at a respectable pace with plenty of creepy, suspenseful moments steadily building tension to the climax.
This is my fourth Coates book and it is my new favorite. The imagery is by far the most twisted and exciting. I can easily see this be made into a movie with a cringing audience gasping and screaming in all the right places.
Adrienne, penniless and alone save her cat Wolfgang, moves into a house bequeathed to her by a great aunt she never knew existed. It really is the proper way to begin a haunted house story, isn't it?
The Haunting of Ashburn House is an exceptionally entertaining novel by Darcy Coates. The family mystery is well plotted and the house rich in intrigue. I felt Adrienne's growing isolation and anxiety as the days slipped into terrifying nights.
She lifted the clean plate, shook the excess water off it, and glanced toward the window. The odd, human-shaped shrub was gone
The story moves along at a respectable pace with plenty of creepy, suspenseful moments steadily building tension to the climax.
This is my fourth Coates book and it is my new favorite. The imagery is by far the most twisted and exciting. I can easily see this be made into a movie with a cringing audience gasping and screaming in all the right places.
September 17, 2024
"HUGE RAINDROPS HIT ADRIENNE'S exposed arms and face as her mother carried her out of the porch's shelter and down the groaning wooden steps."
This was the scariest book I've read as an adult. I actually found it difficult to read alone in the dark. How delicious!
Full review to come :)
"The woman in the mirror folded her hands tidily in her lap and smiled as Adrienne opened the novel and began to read aloud."
This was the scariest book I've read as an adult. I actually found it difficult to read alone in the dark. How delicious!
Full review to come :)
"The woman in the mirror folded her hands tidily in her lap and smiled as Adrienne opened the novel and began to read aloud."
January 13, 2019
4.5 stars. enjoyable although at times, the main characters was a bit naive. love the ending.
June 8, 2020
Spoilers ahoy!
The Haunting of Ashburn house is about a braindead woman named Adrienne who cannot adult. She inherits a bust up mansion in the middle of bumf*** nowhere. There *is* a ghost, as it turns out, but that's not what wants to kill her. In the woods her murderous zombie great aunt - who is decidedly smarter than she is - waits for her to let her guard down. Instead of doing anything useful at all, she cowers in the house until she finds a letter from her other great aunt (the friendly ghost) basically telling her exactly what she has to do.
Also there's a cat.
Usually I'd be happy to say that even though the story didn't interest me, I can see why it interests others. 'Horror' is very subjective... but in the case of this book I genuinely cannot understand the plethora of five star ratings across the board. I bought it on the strength of those reviews but quickly realised I had made a grave error.
Grave, d'ya geddit...
I did finish it, but only because it was quite expensive for a second hand book.
Pros and cons!
Good stuff:
1. I was genuinely creeped out when the zombie is crouched and waiting for Adrienne on the roof like the world’s scariest pigeon. It was a little, thrilling, unexpected ‘oh no’ moment. Likewise, when Adrienne is in the basement in the dark and can hear the clicking of the corpses bones as it shambles about, only to discover it’s in the rafters waiting to jump on her -that was good.
2. The angry undead is fairly common in books and films, but you're not sure what the rules are in this one... not knowing makes it scarier because you don't know what laws it has to abide by.
... and that's about it.
Bad stuff:
1. The writing was genuinely poor. It was all over the place, badly paced, and sometimes insensible.
For at least the first half of the book it was as if she were picking every 20th word and replacing it with an alternative from The Big Thesaurus. The end result was lots of oddness that didn't fit the rest of the narrative and sounded forced.
For example, Adrienne is making tea, and because she’s already said ‘tea cup’ twice, she opts for ‘delicate floral beaker’ the next. Ew.
Time and pacing meanders all over the show. It takes hours to make cups of noodles or look around one attic room. Then the protagonist is always getting caught at sunset, or not having enough hours in the day, which is bizarre because she does NOTHING.
We're constantly alerted to the time: 'it was about four' 'from the rays of the sun she guessed it was mid morning' 'it was just after five' 'the grandfather clock struck three' 'the shadows meant it was early evening' and so on and so on. Maybe this is meant to move the story along but it just bludgeons you over the head with how much hasn’t really happened.
There are many dull, pointless paragraphs, written in 50 words where a simple sentence will do, such as how she can't charge her laptop or how she makes tea or the 10,000 fires she builds. There is no impetus, no urgency. Zombie can wait, I guess.
In amongst this generally strange and choppy narrative, the author drops an extra clunker every now and then.
For example:
'It was a dark shade, not quite slate but deeper than a midtone. A hint of light still came through it, but it was dim enough that she still felt submerged in twilight.'
Fffff...What? Thanks for that vague, rambling and lukewarm description. It’s really set the mood...
The other descriptions and adjectives are overused and underwhelming.
Eg:
-- The cat is continually referred to as 'the grey beast' in the first few chapters, until that’s suddenly dropped because I guess she got bored, idk.
-- Everything (EVERYTHING) groans. I think this word is used about 50 times, no exaggeration. The boards groan, the walls groan, the wind groans, the trees groan, I groaned...
-- Dear god, the amount of times she inhales and exhales, I could not even ... I had to put the book down at one point and do some sighing of my own whilst pinching the bridge of my nose to stop my impending brain aneurysm. It was beyond ridiculous.
- Ah, god, the word 'sanitised'. It's used once and then suddenly becomes the word of the day.
-- The sun set on the trees or over the trees or the sun was about to reach the trees... there are so many ways to describe a sunset. Feel free to mix it up a little.
-- There is no red colour in this book that is not described as 'wine-red' (c'mon, you find three different words for cup but you only use wine red? Carmine, burgundy, claret, crimson, scarlet, ruby, vermilion, garnet, cherry, berry, blood...)
-- WHY IS EVERYONE SCRUNCHING UP THEIR FACE?
*inhales sharply* *exhales in shock*
2. Various things in the book strike me as generally odd.
Eg:
-- The house is unoccupied for three months, yet the grandfather clock goes on ticking. Is it even giving her the right time if it hasn't been wound for so long? No wonder she's always getting caught out at night ...
-- Because of the three month period, there's a fridge full of rotted veg and meat. Why wasn't this removed before she came in? I mean... are there not people that do that? If not, surely the first thing you do is get rid of that stuff? She just shuts the fridge like, nah ...
-- The blessed cat is bought food but no litter tray or litter. There is no mention of an already existing litter tray being unpacked from Adrienne's suitcase. Is the cat just shitting all over the place? Is Adrienne carefully creeping about her cat's haphazard piles of faeces throughout? Does the house reek of unattended cat piss?
-- The sun has barely set but the moon and stars are already out. She's concerned there's no bird song when its pitch black outside. She plans to be back downstairs before the sun sets and then suddenly its night and she's still up there. She mentions Marion, who gets lost in the woods and is found in a clearing, must be cold from wandering so far. Later, the clearing is described as less than a minute from the house. The atmosphere and surroundings are disjointed to say the least.
3. My biggest gripe is the way the character was written. I have to connect with protagonists to enjoy the plot (or if not precisely with them, at least with their wily accomplices or the dastardly villain). I don't always necessarily need to like them, but they have to be engaging.
Adrianne is a potato. She has no personality. She has less wit than a ham sandwich. She's hardly even a real person, she does nothing real people would do, and I cannot fathom the choices she makes.
Examples:
-- I've never been left a crumbling mansion by an elderly relative I didn't know existed, so I can't say I know the finer details, but I'd be sure as hell to ask about that relative, where they were buried, what they died of, and all the rest of it. Surely the solicitor would have some information for me as well. Adrienne rocks up to the house without the faintest clue. She has to ask random townspeople how her great Aunt perished and she never asks where she was buried so she can pop to the grave to give an appreciative bunch of flowers.
-- Having been given this big house, Adrienne goes there immediately with her few worldly possessions. She's shocked how much the taxi fare is, shocked how far the house is from the town, and just shocked in general. Mate, did you not bring that house up in Google Maps as soon as you found it was yours? Do a cheeky route checker to see how far it was and how much it'd cost? No? Okeedokee then.
-- Adrienne has a small amount of money in her purse, most of which goes to pay the taxi driver. There's nothing in her bank account. But she leaves her situation (sharing with a friend, sleeping on their sofa - not ideal but at least safe and cheap) to run right to this old house without the foggiest idea of how she's going to pay for the electricity. gas, heating, water, etc... It doesn't even cross her mind. She walks in, turns the lights, and thinks, 'oh good, the powers on.' Not 'ah, the powers on, whose name is the utility bill in, and where do I have to pay it?' I'm sorry but as a grown ass woman that should be the first thing you sort.
-- Adrienne freelances as a writer. We're never told what she writes, what her interests are, what drives her ... nothing. Apart from the fact that she does write, we know nothing about her passions. We know her mother was ill before she died and that Adrienne took care of her but we’re offered no insight into their relationship or how this shaped Adrienne or anything else.
-- She seems to have a bad case of social anxiety. When driving into town she immediately assumes the women she passes are laughing at her and later, when a group of women come to visit her, she has a panic attack, hopping around hyperventilating (sorry, INHALING) over the possible ills this group of people may wish on her. Now, if this is truly the way she thinks, then I want to know why. It would give another layer to her character.
-- On the flip side, every person she encounters in town is a potential best friend. She goes gooey eyed at the cheerful receptionist, just because she's nice to her. Again, exploring this would give us a better idea of Adrienne - why is she so paranoid and needy and desperate? It almost draws a parallel to Eleanor in The Haunting of Hill House. She has to look after her mother as well, and it makes her broody and unused to company. Her mental deterioration is due in part to her lack of ability to interact naturally with anyone. If this was explored with Adrienne it might have made me warm to her.
-- She moves into a house that is dirty with disuse. There are many comments about the rotting food in the fridge, the grimy windows, the dirt making the light bulbs dim, etc ... I don’t know about you, but if I moved into somewhere that was a bit nasty I would want to sort it out. I would not want to wallow in the filth for four days without even cleaning a window.
-- This is her house. Granted, she might feel a bit weirded out by its grandeur, but it is HER house. Instead of being normal and having a look around, poking into cubby holes, inventorying the heirlooms, deciding what kind of wallpaper she wants etc, she reverently sneaks about trying not to disturb anything. Why? You didn’t even know the woman you inherited it from and it’s YOUR house. Change what you don’t like.
-- She moans that the house offers no distractions, and she's bored and scared. Umm. Clean the shit out the fridge. Wash the windows. Scrub the kitchen. Check the cupboards for old and interesting antiques. Rearrange the furniture. Plan new fittings and colours (even if you can't afford it, this is the most fun part of getting a new house). There's a big bookshelf of classics in the lounge, why not read them by the fire? Is the house boring because, perhaps, she is boring?
-- She falls over. A lot.
-- She's obsessed with her cat. She splurges on treats for him and buys instant noodles for herself. I know people get this way about their pets, but when you have twenty dollars to your name it’s time to think rationally.
-- She uses said 20 dollars to buy food and such. 20 dollars equates to about £16 here in England. You could get a loaf of bread, a tub of spread, a pack of ham and cheese, a whole chicken, some instant coffee, eggs, bag of potatoes, etc ... you know, stuff that's going to last you and is a bit wholesome. Instead she buys lentils she never eats and pack after pack of instant noodles which taste terrible and have very little nutritional value. It’s like she has the brain of a child. When a friendly neighbour gives her a basket of food she promptly uses most of it to make a cake FOR SOMEONE ELSE.
-- She knows full well that the zombie is prowling. Even before she's aware it’s a zombie, she realises there's something fishy going on. She's apparently hyper aware. But for some reason - oopsie - she leaves the attic window open. Urgh. I mentioned earlier that the good points of this book are when the zombie appears in a frightening manner, much closer than expected. This works well the first two times (on the roof and in the basement). Then this suspense is murdered by using it a third time (Adrienne is in the attic trying to light the candle and she wonders why the zombie isn't coming up the stairs, only to find out -SHOCKED INHALATION - that it’s got in through the unlocked window ...)
-- This is the one I can't forgive. Adrienne finds a 'generations worth' of candles in the attic. Later, the zombie somehow renders her electricity useless and the house is plunged into darkness several nights in a row. She huddles in one room with a single lamp, wishing, hoping, praying, longing for more light. BITCH THERE ARE A THOUSAND CANDLES UPSTAIRS... I kid you not, it’s something like page 310 of 340 when she realises she can use the attic candles...
-- She’s a helpless idiot. Food is brought to her. At the end of the book, everything gets cleaned... BY OTHER PEOPLE. Oh my god. I was just waiting for her to die of stupidity.
4. The ending, oohhh lordy, the ending.
Adrienne: well I’m in the basement and the door to the outside is open, meaning my cat can get out and the zombie can get in, and its dark and I’m terrified, and a moment ago I was rushing, but I’ve just found this interesting letter that appears to have fallen from the cracks in the floor above, so I better stop to hunker down and read this right away...
Who does that?
Anyway, this letter is from her Aunt Edith explaining that her wicked sister Eleanor is the zombie, the person who killed the entire family all those years ago, and that special instructions need to be followed to prevent her from rising from her grave...
Had to pause here to 'wtf' at the explanation for her being a zombie. She’s a reincarnated magic woman with special powers, but only the powers she believes in at the time work, and even though she’s dead she can come back because she gains extra years from the people she kills? When did you bang that together? Why is this not further explored?
Also, I do not – and never will – buy the whole ‘THIS WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING, IF YOU HAD READ THIS BIG LETTER EXPLAINING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING THEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE’. No. No thank you.
Then the cat basically saves the day and Adrienne manages to kill the zombie – but not without the help of her ghostly Aunt because Christ knows she can’t do a thing for herself.
Later she settles down in the living room and reads a book aloud for her ghost Aunt and you're left wondering things like, why did she never call the friend she stayed with, why did she assume it was Edith's grave in the clearing when she had just read an article about the secret sister's original grave being broken into, why didn't Adrienne start applying for better jobs once her mother had passed away, why doesn't she open some of the rooms as a boarding house, why did I spend £10 on this...
The Haunting of Ashburn house is about a braindead woman named Adrienne who cannot adult. She inherits a bust up mansion in the middle of bumf*** nowhere. There *is* a ghost, as it turns out, but that's not what wants to kill her. In the woods her murderous zombie great aunt - who is decidedly smarter than she is - waits for her to let her guard down. Instead of doing anything useful at all, she cowers in the house until she finds a letter from her other great aunt (the friendly ghost) basically telling her exactly what she has to do.
Also there's a cat.
Usually I'd be happy to say that even though the story didn't interest me, I can see why it interests others. 'Horror' is very subjective... but in the case of this book I genuinely cannot understand the plethora of five star ratings across the board. I bought it on the strength of those reviews but quickly realised I had made a grave error.
Grave, d'ya geddit...
I did finish it, but only because it was quite expensive for a second hand book.
Pros and cons!
Good stuff:
1. I was genuinely creeped out when the zombie is crouched and waiting for Adrienne on the roof like the world’s scariest pigeon. It was a little, thrilling, unexpected ‘oh no’ moment. Likewise, when Adrienne is in the basement in the dark and can hear the clicking of the corpses bones as it shambles about, only to discover it’s in the rafters waiting to jump on her -that was good.
2. The angry undead is fairly common in books and films, but you're not sure what the rules are in this one... not knowing makes it scarier because you don't know what laws it has to abide by.
... and that's about it.
Bad stuff:
1. The writing was genuinely poor. It was all over the place, badly paced, and sometimes insensible.
For at least the first half of the book it was as if she were picking every 20th word and replacing it with an alternative from The Big Thesaurus. The end result was lots of oddness that didn't fit the rest of the narrative and sounded forced.
For example, Adrienne is making tea, and because she’s already said ‘tea cup’ twice, she opts for ‘delicate floral beaker’ the next. Ew.
Time and pacing meanders all over the show. It takes hours to make cups of noodles or look around one attic room. Then the protagonist is always getting caught at sunset, or not having enough hours in the day, which is bizarre because she does NOTHING.
We're constantly alerted to the time: 'it was about four' 'from the rays of the sun she guessed it was mid morning' 'it was just after five' 'the grandfather clock struck three' 'the shadows meant it was early evening' and so on and so on. Maybe this is meant to move the story along but it just bludgeons you over the head with how much hasn’t really happened.
There are many dull, pointless paragraphs, written in 50 words where a simple sentence will do, such as how she can't charge her laptop or how she makes tea or the 10,000 fires she builds. There is no impetus, no urgency. Zombie can wait, I guess.
In amongst this generally strange and choppy narrative, the author drops an extra clunker every now and then.
For example:
'It was a dark shade, not quite slate but deeper than a midtone. A hint of light still came through it, but it was dim enough that she still felt submerged in twilight.'
Fffff...What? Thanks for that vague, rambling and lukewarm description. It’s really set the mood...
The other descriptions and adjectives are overused and underwhelming.
Eg:
-- The cat is continually referred to as 'the grey beast' in the first few chapters, until that’s suddenly dropped because I guess she got bored, idk.
-- Everything (EVERYTHING) groans. I think this word is used about 50 times, no exaggeration. The boards groan, the walls groan, the wind groans, the trees groan, I groaned...
-- Dear god, the amount of times she inhales and exhales, I could not even ... I had to put the book down at one point and do some sighing of my own whilst pinching the bridge of my nose to stop my impending brain aneurysm. It was beyond ridiculous.
- Ah, god, the word 'sanitised'. It's used once and then suddenly becomes the word of the day.
-- The sun set on the trees or over the trees or the sun was about to reach the trees... there are so many ways to describe a sunset. Feel free to mix it up a little.
-- There is no red colour in this book that is not described as 'wine-red' (c'mon, you find three different words for cup but you only use wine red? Carmine, burgundy, claret, crimson, scarlet, ruby, vermilion, garnet, cherry, berry, blood...)
-- WHY IS EVERYONE SCRUNCHING UP THEIR FACE?
*inhales sharply* *exhales in shock*
2. Various things in the book strike me as generally odd.
Eg:
-- The house is unoccupied for three months, yet the grandfather clock goes on ticking. Is it even giving her the right time if it hasn't been wound for so long? No wonder she's always getting caught out at night ...
-- Because of the three month period, there's a fridge full of rotted veg and meat. Why wasn't this removed before she came in? I mean... are there not people that do that? If not, surely the first thing you do is get rid of that stuff? She just shuts the fridge like, nah ...
-- The blessed cat is bought food but no litter tray or litter. There is no mention of an already existing litter tray being unpacked from Adrienne's suitcase. Is the cat just shitting all over the place? Is Adrienne carefully creeping about her cat's haphazard piles of faeces throughout? Does the house reek of unattended cat piss?
-- The sun has barely set but the moon and stars are already out. She's concerned there's no bird song when its pitch black outside. She plans to be back downstairs before the sun sets and then suddenly its night and she's still up there. She mentions Marion, who gets lost in the woods and is found in a clearing, must be cold from wandering so far. Later, the clearing is described as less than a minute from the house. The atmosphere and surroundings are disjointed to say the least.
3. My biggest gripe is the way the character was written. I have to connect with protagonists to enjoy the plot (or if not precisely with them, at least with their wily accomplices or the dastardly villain). I don't always necessarily need to like them, but they have to be engaging.
Adrianne is a potato. She has no personality. She has less wit than a ham sandwich. She's hardly even a real person, she does nothing real people would do, and I cannot fathom the choices she makes.
Examples:
-- I've never been left a crumbling mansion by an elderly relative I didn't know existed, so I can't say I know the finer details, but I'd be sure as hell to ask about that relative, where they were buried, what they died of, and all the rest of it. Surely the solicitor would have some information for me as well. Adrienne rocks up to the house without the faintest clue. She has to ask random townspeople how her great Aunt perished and she never asks where she was buried so she can pop to the grave to give an appreciative bunch of flowers.
-- Having been given this big house, Adrienne goes there immediately with her few worldly possessions. She's shocked how much the taxi fare is, shocked how far the house is from the town, and just shocked in general. Mate, did you not bring that house up in Google Maps as soon as you found it was yours? Do a cheeky route checker to see how far it was and how much it'd cost? No? Okeedokee then.
-- Adrienne has a small amount of money in her purse, most of which goes to pay the taxi driver. There's nothing in her bank account. But she leaves her situation (sharing with a friend, sleeping on their sofa - not ideal but at least safe and cheap) to run right to this old house without the foggiest idea of how she's going to pay for the electricity. gas, heating, water, etc... It doesn't even cross her mind. She walks in, turns the lights, and thinks, 'oh good, the powers on.' Not 'ah, the powers on, whose name is the utility bill in, and where do I have to pay it?' I'm sorry but as a grown ass woman that should be the first thing you sort.
-- Adrienne freelances as a writer. We're never told what she writes, what her interests are, what drives her ... nothing. Apart from the fact that she does write, we know nothing about her passions. We know her mother was ill before she died and that Adrienne took care of her but we’re offered no insight into their relationship or how this shaped Adrienne or anything else.
-- She seems to have a bad case of social anxiety. When driving into town she immediately assumes the women she passes are laughing at her and later, when a group of women come to visit her, she has a panic attack, hopping around hyperventilating (sorry, INHALING) over the possible ills this group of people may wish on her. Now, if this is truly the way she thinks, then I want to know why. It would give another layer to her character.
-- On the flip side, every person she encounters in town is a potential best friend. She goes gooey eyed at the cheerful receptionist, just because she's nice to her. Again, exploring this would give us a better idea of Adrienne - why is she so paranoid and needy and desperate? It almost draws a parallel to Eleanor in The Haunting of Hill House. She has to look after her mother as well, and it makes her broody and unused to company. Her mental deterioration is due in part to her lack of ability to interact naturally with anyone. If this was explored with Adrienne it might have made me warm to her.
-- She moves into a house that is dirty with disuse. There are many comments about the rotting food in the fridge, the grimy windows, the dirt making the light bulbs dim, etc ... I don’t know about you, but if I moved into somewhere that was a bit nasty I would want to sort it out. I would not want to wallow in the filth for four days without even cleaning a window.
-- This is her house. Granted, she might feel a bit weirded out by its grandeur, but it is HER house. Instead of being normal and having a look around, poking into cubby holes, inventorying the heirlooms, deciding what kind of wallpaper she wants etc, she reverently sneaks about trying not to disturb anything. Why? You didn’t even know the woman you inherited it from and it’s YOUR house. Change what you don’t like.
-- She moans that the house offers no distractions, and she's bored and scared. Umm. Clean the shit out the fridge. Wash the windows. Scrub the kitchen. Check the cupboards for old and interesting antiques. Rearrange the furniture. Plan new fittings and colours (even if you can't afford it, this is the most fun part of getting a new house). There's a big bookshelf of classics in the lounge, why not read them by the fire? Is the house boring because, perhaps, she is boring?
-- She falls over. A lot.
-- She's obsessed with her cat. She splurges on treats for him and buys instant noodles for herself. I know people get this way about their pets, but when you have twenty dollars to your name it’s time to think rationally.
-- She uses said 20 dollars to buy food and such. 20 dollars equates to about £16 here in England. You could get a loaf of bread, a tub of spread, a pack of ham and cheese, a whole chicken, some instant coffee, eggs, bag of potatoes, etc ... you know, stuff that's going to last you and is a bit wholesome. Instead she buys lentils she never eats and pack after pack of instant noodles which taste terrible and have very little nutritional value. It’s like she has the brain of a child. When a friendly neighbour gives her a basket of food she promptly uses most of it to make a cake FOR SOMEONE ELSE.
-- She knows full well that the zombie is prowling. Even before she's aware it’s a zombie, she realises there's something fishy going on. She's apparently hyper aware. But for some reason - oopsie - she leaves the attic window open. Urgh. I mentioned earlier that the good points of this book are when the zombie appears in a frightening manner, much closer than expected. This works well the first two times (on the roof and in the basement). Then this suspense is murdered by using it a third time (Adrienne is in the attic trying to light the candle and she wonders why the zombie isn't coming up the stairs, only to find out -SHOCKED INHALATION - that it’s got in through the unlocked window ...)
-- This is the one I can't forgive. Adrienne finds a 'generations worth' of candles in the attic. Later, the zombie somehow renders her electricity useless and the house is plunged into darkness several nights in a row. She huddles in one room with a single lamp, wishing, hoping, praying, longing for more light. BITCH THERE ARE A THOUSAND CANDLES UPSTAIRS... I kid you not, it’s something like page 310 of 340 when she realises she can use the attic candles...
-- She’s a helpless idiot. Food is brought to her. At the end of the book, everything gets cleaned... BY OTHER PEOPLE. Oh my god. I was just waiting for her to die of stupidity.
4. The ending, oohhh lordy, the ending.
Adrienne: well I’m in the basement and the door to the outside is open, meaning my cat can get out and the zombie can get in, and its dark and I’m terrified, and a moment ago I was rushing, but I’ve just found this interesting letter that appears to have fallen from the cracks in the floor above, so I better stop to hunker down and read this right away...
Who does that?
Anyway, this letter is from her Aunt Edith explaining that her wicked sister Eleanor is the zombie, the person who killed the entire family all those years ago, and that special instructions need to be followed to prevent her from rising from her grave...
Had to pause here to 'wtf' at the explanation for her being a zombie. She’s a reincarnated magic woman with special powers, but only the powers she believes in at the time work, and even though she’s dead she can come back because she gains extra years from the people she kills? When did you bang that together? Why is this not further explored?
Also, I do not – and never will – buy the whole ‘THIS WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING, IF YOU HAD READ THIS BIG LETTER EXPLAINING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING THEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE’. No. No thank you.
Then the cat basically saves the day and Adrienne manages to kill the zombie – but not without the help of her ghostly Aunt because Christ knows she can’t do a thing for herself.
Later she settles down in the living room and reads a book aloud for her ghost Aunt and you're left wondering things like, why did she never call the friend she stayed with, why did she assume it was Edith's grave in the clearing when she had just read an article about the secret sister's original grave being broken into, why didn't Adrienne start applying for better jobs once her mother had passed away, why doesn't she open some of the rooms as a boarding house, why did I spend £10 on this...
October 30, 2021
Great haunted house and exciting ending, but very slow in the middle there.
August 15, 2016
This one was not for me. It was brilliantly written, it was addictive in the best way possible, but the story was "meh". I didn't like it and by 40% of the book I pretty much knew how it would unfold... and I was right. This is the second Darcy Coates novel I read and it won't be the last because I love her style, I just prefer something along the lines of Blackwood House better... I'll try Gillespie next and see what happens, but it's all a matter of preference. The book is good and you should read it because, even if I didn't, maybe you'll end up loving it.
August 10, 2020
THIS BOOK HAS SPOILERS....ALSO IT WAS A STUPID BOOK
This ghost story promised me a spooky tale about a woman that is inherited a house (such an original idea in a ghost story) and has nowhere else to go because she lost her home once her mother died (wasn't this Eleanor Vance story from The Haunting of Hill House from Shirley Jackson?), Okay continuing on she moves to the creepy house on the hill in the woods. I'll never understand the story that tells of someone moving to a house they have never seen before. She was willed this house but was never explained anything from the person that gave it to her. So I guess the lawyer who gave it to her didn't exist because she never remembers back to that time. Ummm okay..... So Eleanor... I mean Addy moves into this house sight unseen and looks around downstairs. Then as night settles in and she has already started a fire, made food, fed the cat, changed her clothes, and had tea she decides to check what's upstairs. Who moves into a house and doesn't look around upstairs too!!!??
Some weird shit happens........ Ohhhh
Some women come over and look around the house. Suddenly Addy is calling them her friends throughout the book as though they have known one another since birth. YOU JUST MET THEM ONE TIME!
My most annoying thing about this book was how time just slipped away. One minute she would be awake at 6am-7pm and she would do a few things and she was beating the sun so it wasn't night. The sun was always setting as soon as she woke up. For some stupid reason, she is always going to the rooms without electricity at nighttime.
She talks about how she isn't going to be one of those dumb horror movie girls that goes after the sound but she does it so many times all in the next chapter after she said she wouldn't.
Another ridiculous thing is that the fuse box is on the outside of the house. THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE! How insane is that? I have never lived or seen a house that would have one on the outside of the house. That seems so dangerous if someone was trying to get into your house.
This ghost story promised me a spooky tale about a woman that is inherited a house (such an original idea in a ghost story) and has nowhere else to go because she lost her home once her mother died (wasn't this Eleanor Vance story from The Haunting of Hill House from Shirley Jackson?), Okay continuing on she moves to the creepy house on the hill in the woods. I'll never understand the story that tells of someone moving to a house they have never seen before. She was willed this house but was never explained anything from the person that gave it to her. So I guess the lawyer who gave it to her didn't exist because she never remembers back to that time. Ummm okay..... So Eleanor... I mean Addy moves into this house sight unseen and looks around downstairs. Then as night settles in and she has already started a fire, made food, fed the cat, changed her clothes, and had tea she decides to check what's upstairs. Who moves into a house and doesn't look around upstairs too!!!??
Some weird shit happens........ Ohhhh
Some women come over and look around the house. Suddenly Addy is calling them her friends throughout the book as though they have known one another since birth. YOU JUST MET THEM ONE TIME!
My most annoying thing about this book was how time just slipped away. One minute she would be awake at 6am-7pm and she would do a few things and she was beating the sun so it wasn't night. The sun was always setting as soon as she woke up. For some stupid reason, she is always going to the rooms without electricity at nighttime.
She talks about how she isn't going to be one of those dumb horror movie girls that goes after the sound but she does it so many times all in the next chapter after she said she wouldn't.
Another ridiculous thing is that the fuse box is on the outside of the house. THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE! How insane is that? I have never lived or seen a house that would have one on the outside of the house. That seems so dangerous if someone was trying to get into your house.
January 31, 2021
Adrienne has inherited a grand yet lonely house from a deceased great aunt she did not know she had. Despite the general disrepair and the strange words scrawled across the walls, it seems like it could be the answer to all her present problems. There are, however, many mysteries surrounding her new home but those surrounding its former owner are even more abundant and sinister.
This, for the most part, followed the typical haunted house novel format. I do not state this as a negative aspect, as it was exactly what I came here to receive. There were many a shifting shadow, many a bump in the night, and many a rumour that came to sinister life.
Adrienne was a protagonist I could empathise with and I liked that Coates showed the reader both her independence and her vulnerabilities, simultaneously. My heart was sold by Wolfgang the cat, however. I adore the presence of any animal in my fiction but finding one present inside a horror novel ensured I was instantly invested in the plot, whilst keeping my fingers tightly crossed for the animal continuing within it.
This, for the most part, followed the typical haunted house novel format. I do not state this as a negative aspect, as it was exactly what I came here to receive. There were many a shifting shadow, many a bump in the night, and many a rumour that came to sinister life.
Adrienne was a protagonist I could empathise with and I liked that Coates showed the reader both her independence and her vulnerabilities, simultaneously. My heart was sold by Wolfgang the cat, however. I adore the presence of any animal in my fiction but finding one present inside a horror novel ensured I was instantly invested in the plot, whilst keeping my fingers tightly crossed for the animal continuing within it.
January 1, 2024
Oggi vi parlo de I fantasmi di Ashburn House, romanzo della scrittrice statunitense Darcy Coates, recentemente pubblicato da Fanucci Editore.
I fantasmi di Ashburn House si è rivelato un ottimo intrattenimento. Nonostante qualche ingenuità di trama, è un libro dalla storia solida che, grazie a uno stile scorrevole, trascina il lettore curiosità dopo curiosità.
L’autrice dimostra un’abilità narrativa non da poco, la descrizione dell'atmosfera creepy che regna dentro e fuori la casa è nitida e viva, un’ambientazione dal sapore gotico ben realizzata e suggestiva. Darcy Coates utilizza pochi ingredienti, molti già visti, ma li mescola insieme in modo eccellente, regalando al lettore un susseguirsi di misteri, indizi e colpi di scena che vi terranno con il fiato sospeso.
La nostra protagonista, la giovane Adrienne, è perfetta per il ruolo di attrice principale, è facile empatizzare con lei ed è facile seguirla nelle sue indagini. Accompagnata dal fidato felino Wolfgang vi conquisterà, parola mia!
L’elemento soprannaturale viene svelato poco a poco, rompendo la fragile barriera tra razionale e irrazionale offre dei momenti di tensione e suspense estremamente coinvolgenti e capaci di suscitare più di qualche brivido. Spesso mi sono trovato a guardare fuori dalla finestra per accertarmi che non ci fosse nessuno.
I fantasmi di Ashburn House è stata una lettura divertente e inquietante, che consiglio a tutti gli amanti del genere.
I fantasmi di Ashburn House si è rivelato un ottimo intrattenimento. Nonostante qualche ingenuità di trama, è un libro dalla storia solida che, grazie a uno stile scorrevole, trascina il lettore curiosità dopo curiosità.
L’autrice dimostra un’abilità narrativa non da poco, la descrizione dell'atmosfera creepy che regna dentro e fuori la casa è nitida e viva, un’ambientazione dal sapore gotico ben realizzata e suggestiva. Darcy Coates utilizza pochi ingredienti, molti già visti, ma li mescola insieme in modo eccellente, regalando al lettore un susseguirsi di misteri, indizi e colpi di scena che vi terranno con il fiato sospeso.
La nostra protagonista, la giovane Adrienne, è perfetta per il ruolo di attrice principale, è facile empatizzare con lei ed è facile seguirla nelle sue indagini. Accompagnata dal fidato felino Wolfgang vi conquisterà, parola mia!
L’elemento soprannaturale viene svelato poco a poco, rompendo la fragile barriera tra razionale e irrazionale offre dei momenti di tensione e suspense estremamente coinvolgenti e capaci di suscitare più di qualche brivido. Spesso mi sono trovato a guardare fuori dalla finestra per accertarmi che non ci fosse nessuno.
I fantasmi di Ashburn House è stata una lettura divertente e inquietante, che consiglio a tutti gli amanti del genere.
August 12, 2024
A really fun haunted house read, it has all the classic elements of a haunted house classic, I felt like this book managed to turn up the scare during the reveal rather than it petering away which it so often does. I have now read three books by Darcy Coates and given each one 4 stars, I am waiting for that 5 star read but really enjoying my time with her books so far.
Unlike with a lot of horror specifically paranormal books I have read the body horror in this was amazing, not only did this book create amazing atmosphere and suspense but it delivered on real horror. Darcy's writing style really suits this genre, I found myself slowly moving this book further and further away from myself whilst not being able to put it down. I think a more entertaining final showdown could have bumped this up to a 5 star.
Something I did love about this book was the animal companion, there is nothing creepier than when my own dog reacts to something I can't see, I love to see it in horror books. This book reminded me of james Herbert's Ash in ways, another paranormal book I really enjoyed so if you enjoyed this I would check out Ash for sure. I am looking forward to reading more by this author - there is plenty to get through.
Unlike with a lot of horror specifically paranormal books I have read the body horror in this was amazing, not only did this book create amazing atmosphere and suspense but it delivered on real horror. Darcy's writing style really suits this genre, I found myself slowly moving this book further and further away from myself whilst not being able to put it down. I think a more entertaining final showdown could have bumped this up to a 5 star.
Something I did love about this book was the animal companion, there is nothing creepier than when my own dog reacts to something I can't see, I love to see it in horror books. This book reminded me of james Herbert's Ash in ways, another paranormal book I really enjoyed so if you enjoyed this I would check out Ash for sure. I am looking forward to reading more by this author - there is plenty to get through.
October 11, 2021
The Haunting of Ashburn House is a wonderfully spooky haunted house story with unexpected twists and turns! It's not perfect and has some inconsistencies, but it was incredibly enjoyable, with a cozy vibe and lots of creepy atmosphere. It's tropey, but with a bit of a different spin on a ghost story.
We follow Adrienne, a struggling writer who has inherited a house from an aunt she never knew she had. A place to live without rent is a lifeline, so she and her cat move into Ashburn House. A place that is supposedly haunted with a dark and murderous history. Not to mention the unsettling words carved into wood throughout the house, and the intentional lack of mirrors...
I had such a good time with this and there were definitely some unsettling moments that sucked me in! There's some gore late in the book, but most of it isn't super graphic. Overall this was a satisfying book and I would definitely read more from the author.
We follow Adrienne, a struggling writer who has inherited a house from an aunt she never knew she had. A place to live without rent is a lifeline, so she and her cat move into Ashburn House. A place that is supposedly haunted with a dark and murderous history. Not to mention the unsettling words carved into wood throughout the house, and the intentional lack of mirrors...
I had such a good time with this and there were definitely some unsettling moments that sucked me in! There's some gore late in the book, but most of it isn't super graphic. Overall this was a satisfying book and I would definitely read more from the author.
July 14, 2024
Can you even call a horror book cozy? I’m not sure, but this gothic spooky mystery did something for me & I can’t wait to read more from this author in the fall! 👻
https://youtu.be/a4KtC5Li11o?si=xvXQg...
https://youtu.be/a4KtC5Li11o?si=xvXQg...
June 2, 2019
Where do I start ...
To begin with, I did listen to the audiobook. The narrator did a good job, but the rest was terrible.
This book is just not well-written. Never mind the sloppiness, the following had me literally yelling at the book.
First or third person: pick ONE. Writing in third person but then constantly switching to the main character's thoughts is so jolting. Also, no one thinks like that.
The author refers to the main character as Adrianne throughout the entire book. But then when she meets the other girls, she's like, "call me Addy. Everyone does!" So from then on, the four girls all call her Addy. If she prefers to be called Addy, then she should be referred to as Addy in the third person, NOT Adrianne.
Adrianne jumps to conclusions throughout the entire book, and they are ALWAYS wrong! She has absolutely no basis for any of these conclusions, either.
The gravestone in the woods. If Edith reburied Eleanor there in secret, where'd she get the gravestone?
Eleanor keeps turning off the power, and there is electricity on only the first floor. Later, we find out that fire is what keeps Eleanor away. So what sense does it make that she keeps turning off the lights? And just because fire keeps her away, why can't the house be fitted with lights on the second floor?
Edith writes Adrianne a letter, but it falls through the crack in the floor and ends up in the basement, so Adrianne only finds it at the end of the book. Of course, it explains everything. EVERYTHING. And after Adrianne finds it, she only reads the first page (because the second page has to wrap up the book.)
We only find out after Adrianne finds the letter that she'd previously noticed the giant gaps between the floorboards. We get a LOT of information this way - Adrianne says she had previously noticed it, even though this is the first time we're hearing about it.
The whole thing with Eleanor being some reincarnated magical being makes no sense at all. If this being gets reincarnated, why is Eleanor still pulling a Weekend at Bernie's? Shouldn't this soul have gotten reincarnated again?
Eleanor and Edith were only about 8 when the rest of their family died, yet the way Edith talks in her letter, it seems like they're adults by the time the family is murdered.
There was no reason for Edith to cut out the newspaper clippings.
If Eleanor can appear in mirrors, then why does Edith let Adrianne keep up that one mirror? And suddenly Edith's a sentient ghost?
Why are the portraits able to change?
Why does Adrianne muse that the Ashburns must have been rich to take a photo because photos were sooooo expensive? SHE LIVES IN THEIR GORRAM MANSION.
Speaking of which, if photos were sooooo expensive, how was little Edith able to snap a photo of Eleanor? And get it processed? I mean, did she have her own dark room?
We never are told what day of the week it is. WHEN ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO LIGHT THE CANDLE?
Seriously, this book made zero sense and I honestly wonder if the author even had an editor. And who is giving it 5 stars? Then again, I was shocked that anyone voted for Trump, so what do I know?
To begin with, I did listen to the audiobook. The narrator did a good job, but the rest was terrible.
This book is just not well-written. Never mind the sloppiness, the following had me literally yelling at the book.
First or third person: pick ONE. Writing in third person but then constantly switching to the main character's thoughts is so jolting. Also, no one thinks like that.
The author refers to the main character as Adrianne throughout the entire book. But then when she meets the other girls, she's like, "call me Addy. Everyone does!" So from then on, the four girls all call her Addy. If she prefers to be called Addy, then she should be referred to as Addy in the third person, NOT Adrianne.
Adrianne jumps to conclusions throughout the entire book, and they are ALWAYS wrong! She has absolutely no basis for any of these conclusions, either.
The gravestone in the woods. If Edith reburied Eleanor there in secret, where'd she get the gravestone?
Eleanor keeps turning off the power, and there is electricity on only the first floor. Later, we find out that fire is what keeps Eleanor away. So what sense does it make that she keeps turning off the lights? And just because fire keeps her away, why can't the house be fitted with lights on the second floor?
Edith writes Adrianne a letter, but it falls through the crack in the floor and ends up in the basement, so Adrianne only finds it at the end of the book. Of course, it explains everything. EVERYTHING. And after Adrianne finds it, she only reads the first page (because the second page has to wrap up the book.)
We only find out after Adrianne finds the letter that she'd previously noticed the giant gaps between the floorboards. We get a LOT of information this way - Adrianne says she had previously noticed it, even though this is the first time we're hearing about it.
The whole thing with Eleanor being some reincarnated magical being makes no sense at all. If this being gets reincarnated, why is Eleanor still pulling a Weekend at Bernie's? Shouldn't this soul have gotten reincarnated again?
Eleanor and Edith were only about 8 when the rest of their family died, yet the way Edith talks in her letter, it seems like they're adults by the time the family is murdered.
There was no reason for Edith to cut out the newspaper clippings.
If Eleanor can appear in mirrors, then why does Edith let Adrianne keep up that one mirror? And suddenly Edith's a sentient ghost?
Why are the portraits able to change?
Why does Adrianne muse that the Ashburns must have been rich to take a photo because photos were sooooo expensive? SHE LIVES IN THEIR GORRAM MANSION.
Speaking of which, if photos were sooooo expensive, how was little Edith able to snap a photo of Eleanor? And get it processed? I mean, did she have her own dark room?
We never are told what day of the week it is. WHEN ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO LIGHT THE CANDLE?
Seriously, this book made zero sense and I honestly wonder if the author even had an editor. And who is giving it 5 stars? Then again, I was shocked that anyone voted for Trump, so what do I know?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 19, 2022
2.5 stars
Horror-lite with a hopelessly lifeless protagonist. This is my second time reading Darcy Coates, so I know what to expect — an intensely tropey horror story with a cozy, happy ending (and a show-stealing cat). In many ways, The Haunting of Ashburn House delivers exactly that, but the ho-hum pacing and inferior character setup kind of kill the buzz on this guilty pleasure.
An isolated old manor, lone grave in the forest, shifting portraits, and ghostly reflection — The Haunting of Ashburn House has it all. Like a theme park dark ride, isolated scenes are stronger than the collected whole; there are effective moments of haunts and gores, but once everything is revealed, the information isn't backed by a coherent lore — they are mishmash of 'things you would expect a generic supernatural entity does'. (why is the apparition 'trapped' in mirror, why the fear for fire, and why committing a mass murder — no reason, just because) There's nothing wrong with a story where one can simply turn off their brain, and that's exactly what The Haunting of Ashburn House offers.
All the nonsensical, silly fun is quickly drenched by the protagonist Adrienne, who is a mannequin being written to make head-scratching decision. From voluntarily abandoning her cellphone when moving to an isolated location (?!), complaining about being creeped out by paintings but still keeps them on the wall(?!), baking a cake when there are more urgent matter at hands(?!?), to a general lack of concern regarding her situation (I would've at least Googled before moving myself to an old house). The absence of an understandable protagonist makes reading the slow segments of The Haunting of Ashburn House rage-inducing (such as the constant mention of the place being dusty, but never takes care of wiping things down).
Now 2 books down, I can put final nail in the coffin on this one: Darcy Coates is not an author for me. I prefer my horror to be a little bit more gritty and unexpected, and featuring characters with well-rounded personality. This is not it.
**The Book Troop Book Club May 2022 Selection**
Horror-lite with a hopelessly lifeless protagonist. This is my second time reading Darcy Coates, so I know what to expect — an intensely tropey horror story with a cozy, happy ending (and a show-stealing cat). In many ways, The Haunting of Ashburn House delivers exactly that, but the ho-hum pacing and inferior character setup kind of kill the buzz on this guilty pleasure.
An isolated old manor, lone grave in the forest, shifting portraits, and ghostly reflection — The Haunting of Ashburn House has it all. Like a theme park dark ride, isolated scenes are stronger than the collected whole; there are effective moments of haunts and gores, but once everything is revealed, the information isn't backed by a coherent lore — they are mishmash of 'things you would expect a generic supernatural entity does'. (why is the apparition 'trapped' in mirror, why the fear for fire, and why committing a mass murder — no reason, just because) There's nothing wrong with a story where one can simply turn off their brain, and that's exactly what The Haunting of Ashburn House offers.
All the nonsensical, silly fun is quickly drenched by the protagonist Adrienne, who is a mannequin being written to make head-scratching decision. From voluntarily abandoning her cellphone when moving to an isolated location (?!), complaining about being creeped out by paintings but still keeps them on the wall(?!), baking a cake when there are more urgent matter at hands(?!?), to a general lack of concern regarding her situation (I would've at least Googled before moving myself to an old house). The absence of an understandable protagonist makes reading the slow segments of The Haunting of Ashburn House rage-inducing (such as the constant mention of the place being dusty, but never takes care of wiping things down).
Now 2 books down, I can put final nail in the coffin on this one: Darcy Coates is not an author for me. I prefer my horror to be a little bit more gritty and unexpected, and featuring characters with well-rounded personality. This is not it.
**The Book Troop Book Club May 2022 Selection**
October 25, 2024
This had all the bone-chilling and spine-tingling creepiness you would expect in a haunted house story.
An excellent Halloween read.
An excellent Halloween read.
October 20, 2022
You guys can think I’m crazy all you want, especially once you realize this is by no means a perfect book. It definitely has some flaws you have to overlook to be able to enjoy it. Clearly I indeed looked over them. And I think I’m a Darcy Coates fan girl now. And you know what? I think you could be too…. As long as you go into this not exactly expecting a life changing and horrifying ghost story… but rather a simple, but atmospheric one, that also even feels a little cozy?
That’s not saying it wasn’t spooky. It definitely was. During the setup there were times I actually got a little uneasy and had to come back to reality for a second lol. It just wasn’t super graphic is all.
And the house… omg I love the house. Don’t even get me started on how much I love books set in an old creepy building. Especially ones with cryptic messages written all over the walls.
Not to mention, this story actually takes a really unique twist/approach to ghosts. It’s not always a spooky transparent specter (although you do get some of that too), and I really appreciate that deviation from normal ghost stories. Honestly The entire plot was pretty interesting and unique.
Sure it uses tropes and cliches. There are tons of them. But they’re used in really satisfying ways. Especially atmosphere wise. The set up and mood of this book was honestly soooo good. The writing did start to fall off at the last portion for me. But not enough to upset me. Especially since I actually did love the actual ending. Which was actually pretty unique and spooky (depending on how you look at it) as well.
The characters and animals are all likeable which helps. But smart decisions aren’t always made… so you may want to slap them sometimes.
If you can look past that and suspend your disbelief a bit (especially when it comes to time passing in the story), then I really think this is a great ghost story. Curled in front of a fire with some hot chocolate and spooky music playing? Yes please. Suuuuch a mood setter.
I will for sure be reading more from this author as soon as I can.
That’s not saying it wasn’t spooky. It definitely was. During the setup there were times I actually got a little uneasy and had to come back to reality for a second lol. It just wasn’t super graphic is all.
And the house… omg I love the house. Don’t even get me started on how much I love books set in an old creepy building. Especially ones with cryptic messages written all over the walls.
Not to mention, this story actually takes a really unique twist/approach to ghosts. It’s not always a spooky transparent specter (although you do get some of that too), and I really appreciate that deviation from normal ghost stories. Honestly The entire plot was pretty interesting and unique.
Sure it uses tropes and cliches. There are tons of them. But they’re used in really satisfying ways. Especially atmosphere wise. The set up and mood of this book was honestly soooo good. The writing did start to fall off at the last portion for me. But not enough to upset me. Especially since I actually did love the actual ending. Which was actually pretty unique and spooky (depending on how you look at it) as well.
The characters and animals are all likeable which helps. But smart decisions aren’t always made… so you may want to slap them sometimes.
If you can look past that and suspend your disbelief a bit (especially when it comes to time passing in the story), then I really think this is a great ghost story. Curled in front of a fire with some hot chocolate and spooky music playing? Yes please. Suuuuch a mood setter.
I will for sure be reading more from this author as soon as I can.
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