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It Will Just Be Us
A terrifying new gothic horror novel about two sisters and a haunted house that never sleeps, perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
They say there's a door in Wakefield that never opens...
Sam Wakefield's ancestral home, a decaying mansion built on the edge of a swamp, isn't a place for children. Its labyrinthine halls, built by her mad ancestors, are filled with echoes of the past: ghosts and memories knotted together as one. In the presence of phantoms, it's all Sam can do to disentangle past from present in her daily life.
But when her pregnant sister Elizabeth moves in after a fight with her husband, something in the house shifts. Already navigating her tumultuous relationship with Elizabeth, Sam is even more unsettled by the appearance of a new ghost: a faceless boy who commits disturbing acts--threatening animals, terrorizing other children, and following Sam into the depths of the house wielding a knife. When it becomes clear the boy is connected to a locked, forgotten room, one which is never entered, Sam realizes this ghost is not like the others. This boy brings doom...
As Elizabeth's due date approaches, Sam must unravel the mysteries of Wakefield before her sister brings new life into a house marked by death. But as the faceless boy grows stronger, Sam will learn that some doors should stay closed--and some secrets are safer locked away forever.
They say there's a door in Wakefield that never opens...
Sam Wakefield's ancestral home, a decaying mansion built on the edge of a swamp, isn't a place for children. Its labyrinthine halls, built by her mad ancestors, are filled with echoes of the past: ghosts and memories knotted together as one. In the presence of phantoms, it's all Sam can do to disentangle past from present in her daily life.
But when her pregnant sister Elizabeth moves in after a fight with her husband, something in the house shifts. Already navigating her tumultuous relationship with Elizabeth, Sam is even more unsettled by the appearance of a new ghost: a faceless boy who commits disturbing acts--threatening animals, terrorizing other children, and following Sam into the depths of the house wielding a knife. When it becomes clear the boy is connected to a locked, forgotten room, one which is never entered, Sam realizes this ghost is not like the others. This boy brings doom...
As Elizabeth's due date approaches, Sam must unravel the mysteries of Wakefield before her sister brings new life into a house marked by death. But as the faceless boy grows stronger, Sam will learn that some doors should stay closed--and some secrets are safer locked away forever.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 8, 2020
163 people are currently reading
9003 people want to read
About the author
Jo Kaplan
26 books168 followersJo Kaplan is the Shirley Jackson Award nominated author of It Will Just Be Us and When the Night Bells Ring. Her short stories have appeared in Fireside Quarterly, Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, Vastarien, Horror Library, Nightscript, and Bram Stoker award winning anthologies. She has also published work as Joanna Parypinski. In addition to writing, she teaches English and creative writing at Glendale Community College and plays cello in the band Guerra/paz. You can find her on social media @joannapary.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 486 reviews
April 9, 2021
I read dead people and they are in everywhere… That son of… faceless kid scared the living daylights out of me!!!
Another batshit crazy roller coaster ride I have, are you also in? Let’s dive into blurb:
Two daughters live with their mother at the haunted mansion built at the edge of the swamp. (Yeap, they should sue the real estate manager, oh, wait a minute, they inherited that place, my bad!) It is a place like same production designer of Netflix’s “Haunting of Hill House” worked on about the entire creepy, spooky details ( creaky stairs, labyrinth halls, echoes behind the walls, spirits of mad ancestors watching you).
One of the daughters leaves the place but then returns back because of the domestic disturbance at her marriage a few years later, pregnant, about to give a birth sooner. And a faceless boy feels the existence of a baby’s coming out, starts wandering around the house, disturbing the last crumbles of the peace, terrifying the children and animals, following Sam who never leaves the place (unlucky daughter)
Sam wants to run! Sam doesn’t want to live in terror, be afraid of her own shadow but she cannot leave her sister and her innocent baby.
This book gothic version of Shining dances with Shirley Jackson’s eerie, nail biter novels (the very same horrifying Netflix production that You’s Love plays I mentioned at the beginning and We Have Always Lived in the Castle). Only negative thing I felt about it was long and detailed descriptions slow down the pace and heart throbbing rhythm of the story-telling.
But it’s dazzling, surprising and it has also mouth dropping and smart ending which was quiet satisfying. If you’re big fans of dark, ominous, claustrophobic, irritating, nerve-bending, gothic stories, this book is definitely great choice for you (and also for me, too, even though it was a little bit slow burn thriller for my own taste)
So I’m rounding up 3.5 stars to 4 and keep my lights open before go to sleep because the haunted mansion’s blood freezing, petrifying vibes will stay with you after you finish your reading.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for sharing this gothic horror ARC with me in exchange my honest review.
Another batshit crazy roller coaster ride I have, are you also in? Let’s dive into blurb:
Two daughters live with their mother at the haunted mansion built at the edge of the swamp. (Yeap, they should sue the real estate manager, oh, wait a minute, they inherited that place, my bad!) It is a place like same production designer of Netflix’s “Haunting of Hill House” worked on about the entire creepy, spooky details ( creaky stairs, labyrinth halls, echoes behind the walls, spirits of mad ancestors watching you).
One of the daughters leaves the place but then returns back because of the domestic disturbance at her marriage a few years later, pregnant, about to give a birth sooner. And a faceless boy feels the existence of a baby’s coming out, starts wandering around the house, disturbing the last crumbles of the peace, terrifying the children and animals, following Sam who never leaves the place (unlucky daughter)
Sam wants to run! Sam doesn’t want to live in terror, be afraid of her own shadow but she cannot leave her sister and her innocent baby.
This book gothic version of Shining dances with Shirley Jackson’s eerie, nail biter novels (the very same horrifying Netflix production that You’s Love plays I mentioned at the beginning and We Have Always Lived in the Castle). Only negative thing I felt about it was long and detailed descriptions slow down the pace and heart throbbing rhythm of the story-telling.
But it’s dazzling, surprising and it has also mouth dropping and smart ending which was quiet satisfying. If you’re big fans of dark, ominous, claustrophobic, irritating, nerve-bending, gothic stories, this book is definitely great choice for you (and also for me, too, even though it was a little bit slow burn thriller for my own taste)
So I’m rounding up 3.5 stars to 4 and keep my lights open before go to sleep because the haunted mansion’s blood freezing, petrifying vibes will stay with you after you finish your reading.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for sharing this gothic horror ARC with me in exchange my honest review.
October 21, 2020
Trigger warning which I inadvertently forgot to mention when I first published this review: ANIMAL ABUSE of birds and frogs - I know this is a big no no for many so please be aware.
Calling all haunted house fans: Do I have a book for you!
It Will Just Be Us delivers chills and thrills and it will have you peaking through your fingers while reading. Just look at the perfection that is the cover. 😍 I really don't want to discuss the plot too much but I'll give you a little teaser:
After Samantha is mugged at gun point she retreats back to her ancestral home, a decaying mansion, to live with her mother. Not all is what it seems inside the house as it is haunted by echoes of the past. Memories can be seen and heard at any place and at any time. Nothing to fear really as they can't see or hear you. Until one day an echo seems to cross the divide and can very clearly see Samantha. The boy with no face. The boy that terrifies Samantha as she watches him and the wicked things he does.
This book was so very good and gave me chills many times. The boy with no face is a walking nightmare. * shivers * The house itself is a labyrinth of hallways, staircases, and dead ends which only adds to the readers disorientation. Jo Kaplan has penned a winner of a ghost story that is perfect for these autumn nights.......if you dare to read it. 👻 5 Frightening stars!
Calling all haunted house fans: Do I have a book for you!
It Will Just Be Us delivers chills and thrills and it will have you peaking through your fingers while reading. Just look at the perfection that is the cover. 😍 I really don't want to discuss the plot too much but I'll give you a little teaser:
After Samantha is mugged at gun point she retreats back to her ancestral home, a decaying mansion, to live with her mother. Not all is what it seems inside the house as it is haunted by echoes of the past. Memories can be seen and heard at any place and at any time. Nothing to fear really as they can't see or hear you. Until one day an echo seems to cross the divide and can very clearly see Samantha. The boy with no face. The boy that terrifies Samantha as she watches him and the wicked things he does.
This book was so very good and gave me chills many times. The boy with no face is a walking nightmare. * shivers * The house itself is a labyrinth of hallways, staircases, and dead ends which only adds to the readers disorientation. Jo Kaplan has penned a winner of a ghost story that is perfect for these autumn nights.......if you dare to read it. 👻 5 Frightening stars!
March 5, 2024
My thanks to Crooked books, Jo Kaplan and Netgalley. I've been thinking about this story all day. I still don't know what to say. I didn't like this book at the beginning. It was a bit like being back in Elementary school, on Monday. For show and tell! I actually loved show and tell, but not so much in story form. Quickly though, this story took form and I was hooked. You know how sometimes you read a book and you find yourself in sync with the author or story? That was me. I knew too much of what was happening, and also how this book would end. For me, it was inevitable. This is still some messed the heck up haunted house. I'd have A) gone insane. B) struck a match to it! As I said, it was inevitable. That ending was like a stake through my shriveled up beef jerky heart! If you like haunted house stories, and I mean in your face hauntings then this might be your groove. No ambiguity here!
April 27, 2021
Does observation allow us to change reality? Or is there nothing at all that we can do to change what will someday occur?
All of this is to say: should I kill my nephew?
This book was really hard to rate. On the one hand it’s an unsettling, atmospheric tale about a house built on legend-laden swampland. On the other… it’s positively drowning in purple prose.
Sam Wakefield and her mother inhabit the manor that has belonged to their family for generations. It’s a bleak and unnatural place: the house has a memory. A twisted, extensive memory, in fact—it remembers all of the anguish it's witnessed over the years, regurgitating them via hallucinations for Sam to experience in the present day.
When her heavily pregnant sister shows up unannounced, Liz breaks the tentative peace that Sam's managed to carve out in this strange place. The house has always been restless—adding rooms here, removing corridors there, toying with time and space—but now there's someone, something, else prowling its halls. Something not of the past, but rather of the future.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
Before we get into all the creepy good stuff, let me explain why I was initially convinced this book was going to be a one-star read for me. Paragraph one of page one opened with a cringe-worthy description of Wakefield Manor that was choked with clichés and heavy on the flowery. Turns out this pretty much captures MOST of the writing in It Will Just Be Us. (Take a shot for every personification, and you can bid your liver farewell by chapter 2!)
I found the prose hyperbolic and melodramatic, which pulled me out of its (honestly pretty dark and awesome) world-building. According to this book, a purse is "an empty and forsaken thing," while candles become "sacred totems of light and warmth." The words "time immemorial" show up three times too many. At one point Sam describes Liz talking on the phone as "weighted with the heaviness of the earth as it depresses and curves space-time around it."
...What?
Descriptions are overwrought, points belaboured. Mixed metaphors abound. It made for an absolutely maddening reading experience—until the purple prose started to give way around the halfway mark, and I found myself thoroughly SPOOOKED.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
I am ecstatic to report that the faceless boy scared the BEJESUS out of me. Sam realizes that he is , and she struggles to convince herself that he cannot be real. That he's just a figment of the house's imagination.
Except... he's real enough to scuttle around its halls like a demented crab. He's real enough to torture crows and frogs, and eventually even mutilate little girls. He is a startlingly sinister presence in Sam's life: scratching knives at her door, whispering taunts into her ear, even forcing her to play a seriously deranged game of hide-and-seek.
As Sam grows more desperate to stop him, this unborn menace, she also becomes less sure that she can. What led him to be this way? Is it even possible to undo the future? These questions also play out for the others who make up Wakefield Manor's tragic history—a family of freed slaves. A cruel landowner. A Cherokee man. Sam's dead father. And the Swamp Witch. All of them tied up in different times, but the same haunted space.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
CONCLUSION: I was RIVETED as past/present unspooled together in this novel, culminating in a deliciously creepy ending. If you can push past the atrociously purple prose in the first half, I promise this book and its faceless boy will more than make it up to you.
Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!
February 12, 2022
Audio 4.25 Stars
Story 4.25 Stars
Story 4.25 Stars
June 17, 2024
This book will go down as one of the most intense and terrifying gothic horror novels I've read--right up there with The Silent Companions. Writing up my review for Patreon right now!
August 30, 2020
This novel has all the hallmarks of a classic gothic horror story. A sprawling, decaying mansion on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia, a locked room, terrifying tales of a witch who lives in the water of the swamps and the ghosts of past inhabitants of the house and of one who is yet to be born.
Although his novel starts off slowly, first with Sam returning to her mother and her childhood home after a traumatic assault followed by her pregnant sister Elizabeth who has left her husband, the tension sure ramps up about half way through, with the appearance of a faceless ghost, an evil boy yet to be born who can interact with Sam and earlier ghosts. Sam comes to believe this boy is a portent of what is to come and that she must find a way to stop him.
There's a sort of madness running through the book. Sam's mother never leaves the house and is unreliable and fragile, frequently drinking and becoming lost in watching old memories play before her eyes. Sam also sees images of herself and Elizabeth when they were younger and feels the history of the house and the people that lived there in rooms that she enters. The swamp really is a very creepy place and there is a malicious feeling that nothing good will come of entering it even though the girls used to explore it in a canoe when they were younger. Even though this has the feel of a classic horror story with an old fashioned, formal style of writing, Jo Kaplan has put her own original twist on it to produce a chilling tale with a really creepy ending.
With thanks to and Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley for a digital ARC to read
Although his novel starts off slowly, first with Sam returning to her mother and her childhood home after a traumatic assault followed by her pregnant sister Elizabeth who has left her husband, the tension sure ramps up about half way through, with the appearance of a faceless ghost, an evil boy yet to be born who can interact with Sam and earlier ghosts. Sam comes to believe this boy is a portent of what is to come and that she must find a way to stop him.
There's a sort of madness running through the book. Sam's mother never leaves the house and is unreliable and fragile, frequently drinking and becoming lost in watching old memories play before her eyes. Sam also sees images of herself and Elizabeth when they were younger and feels the history of the house and the people that lived there in rooms that she enters. The swamp really is a very creepy place and there is a malicious feeling that nothing good will come of entering it even though the girls used to explore it in a canoe when they were younger. Even though this has the feel of a classic horror story with an old fashioned, formal style of writing, Jo Kaplan has put her own original twist on it to produce a chilling tale with a really creepy ending.
With thanks to and Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley for a digital ARC to read
May 15, 2020
It Will Just Be Us by Jo Kaplan is a chilling gothic horror story that focuses on a family living in a haunted house. Our main character, Sam, has returned to her childhood home to live with her mom after a vicious robbery that left her struggling with PTSD. Sam's childhood home is not your average haunted house. It's a decaying mansion built on the edge of a mysterious swamp that has the ability to show Sam and her family echoes of the past and the ghosts of their ancestors. Sam and her family cannot interact with the past, or the ghosts, but when her pregnant sister, Elizabeth, moves in after a fight with her husband, something in the house shifts. Suddenly, Sam starts seeing a new ghost - a faceless boy who takes pleasure in killing animals and even has the ability to interact with the past, killing one of her ancestors and following her around the house with a knife. When he calls her auntie, she knows immediately that the boy is Julian, the son Elizabeth is about to give birth to. Sam is horrified by her nephew's actions and will do whatever it takes to change the future.
This atmospheric read will keep you guessing until the twisted ending. The author's writing style is captivating and works perfectly for a ghost story. The rich descriptions really made the haunted house come alive, and it felt like I was right there, experiencing the creepy and terrifying events occurring at Sam's home. There's a sense of uncertainty throughout the story about whether the house is actually haunted, or is Sam mentally unstable. I enjoyed watching this dark mystery unravel. This is not one of those stories where the main character gets a happy ending. The ending of this book was heartbreaking and very disturbing. If you're a fan of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, then I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This atmospheric read will keep you guessing until the twisted ending. The author's writing style is captivating and works perfectly for a ghost story. The rich descriptions really made the haunted house come alive, and it felt like I was right there, experiencing the creepy and terrifying events occurring at Sam's home. There's a sense of uncertainty throughout the story about whether the house is actually haunted, or is Sam mentally unstable. I enjoyed watching this dark mystery unravel. This is not one of those stories where the main character gets a happy ending. The ending of this book was heartbreaking and very disturbing. If you're a fan of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, then I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
October 4, 2020
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Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are mine.
I can feel something lurking on the other side of the closed door.
I'd like to explain to her so that she will not think me silly.
I'd like to explain to her that closed doors inherently provide us
with the potential for threat while offering a simulacrum of cold comfort
It's not often that I come across a modern Gothic novel told in a language that will make me fall deep into the story and catch the mad fever overtaking the characters. But It Will Just Be Us delivers tenfold.
The setting of the book is to be expected: an old house, big, imposing, with more rooms than those who live there can take care of and ghosts roaming the halls while the world outside is dreary and sometimes more inhospitable than this terrible home becomes. But these ghosts are not figments of the imagination. They're rather very real to anyone who spends enough time in the Wakefield mansion to see them. By being too loud, by living too strongly, by feeling too much joy, sadness, pain or hatred, the house takes an imprint of those moments and saves them so that they can live on at odd times of manifestation and tell the tale of everyone who has lived here. It was interesting yet eerie to see these phantoms of the past, even as they helped drive the plot forward.
Half of the “main” characters in this book (save for Elizabeth and Donovan) are fairly quiet in personality. They keep their emotions deep within themselves, and therefore cope in less than healthy ways, which only gives more fodder for Wakefield house to use. And yet, for Samantha. at least. this repression begins to crack at the edges until she not only starts to let go and show how she truly feels, but does so while allowing the instability of the house to dig into her. It's both freeing to see and devastating, as one connects the dots of everything that has been shown so far and realizes the conclusion that her life will have.
It made me, the reader, feel wonderfully out of my mind a few times while allowing the story take hold of me. And eerie became downright creepy whenever the at first mysterious Julian would make an appearance. What darkness the genre of this book insisted upon, Jo Kaplan was happy to supply us with. You will be spooked, you will feel uncomfortable even while driven by a need to see what happens next, and you will be as repulsed as you are fascinated.
The writing itself is absolutely gorgeous and gives the story a very authentic and old time feel despite the contemporary setting. It was a book that was impossible to put down, and deserves to be read by those that are fans of such an uncanny tale.
Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are mine.
I can feel something lurking on the other side of the closed door.
I'd like to explain to her so that she will not think me silly.
I'd like to explain to her that closed doors inherently provide us
with the potential for threat while offering a simulacrum of cold comfort
It's not often that I come across a modern Gothic novel told in a language that will make me fall deep into the story and catch the mad fever overtaking the characters. But It Will Just Be Us delivers tenfold.
The setting of the book is to be expected: an old house, big, imposing, with more rooms than those who live there can take care of and ghosts roaming the halls while the world outside is dreary and sometimes more inhospitable than this terrible home becomes. But these ghosts are not figments of the imagination. They're rather very real to anyone who spends enough time in the Wakefield mansion to see them. By being too loud, by living too strongly, by feeling too much joy, sadness, pain or hatred, the house takes an imprint of those moments and saves them so that they can live on at odd times of manifestation and tell the tale of everyone who has lived here. It was interesting yet eerie to see these phantoms of the past, even as they helped drive the plot forward.
Half of the “main” characters in this book (save for Elizabeth and Donovan) are fairly quiet in personality. They keep their emotions deep within themselves, and therefore cope in less than healthy ways, which only gives more fodder for Wakefield house to use. And yet, for Samantha. at least. this repression begins to crack at the edges until she not only starts to let go and show how she truly feels, but does so while allowing the instability of the house to dig into her. It's both freeing to see and devastating, as one connects the dots of everything that has been shown so far and realizes the conclusion that her life will have.
It made me, the reader, feel wonderfully out of my mind a few times while allowing the story take hold of me. And eerie became downright creepy whenever the at first mysterious Julian would make an appearance. What darkness the genre of this book insisted upon, Jo Kaplan was happy to supply us with. You will be spooked, you will feel uncomfortable even while driven by a need to see what happens next, and you will be as repulsed as you are fascinated.
The writing itself is absolutely gorgeous and gives the story a very authentic and old time feel despite the contemporary setting. It was a book that was impossible to put down, and deserves to be read by those that are fans of such an uncanny tale.
October 3, 2020
It is a house haunted by memory; it digests us, all of us, and spits us out again at random.
The Wakefield House is reminiscent of Winchester House. It's a labyrinth of corridors and rooms that echo the past, changing and transforming themselves at will. Phantom images of people and events of the house's history plays out like a movie reel. Even current residents are able to glimpse segments of their childhood memories-always there, unable to be forgotten.
This reads like a classic Southern Gothic tale. The atmosphere, the house, the landscape all culminate into an eerie tale full of dread and despair. This is such a great, thought provoking book that brings to mind Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" which was so much more than a ghost story! The house's past is pieced together through glimpses of its replayed history. Our protagonist, Sam, is also able to glimpse images of the future or so she thinks. Is she mad or is the future of the Wakefields also imprinted on the house? And if so, can it be altered or is fate?
The ending of this was so unsettling. A book's ending hasn't chilled me to the bone since Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black." That ending will linger with me for a long time to come.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The Wakefield House is reminiscent of Winchester House. It's a labyrinth of corridors and rooms that echo the past, changing and transforming themselves at will. Phantom images of people and events of the house's history plays out like a movie reel. Even current residents are able to glimpse segments of their childhood memories-always there, unable to be forgotten.
This reads like a classic Southern Gothic tale. The atmosphere, the house, the landscape all culminate into an eerie tale full of dread and despair. This is such a great, thought provoking book that brings to mind Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" which was so much more than a ghost story! The house's past is pieced together through glimpses of its replayed history. Our protagonist, Sam, is also able to glimpse images of the future or so she thinks. Is she mad or is the future of the Wakefields also imprinted on the house? And if so, can it be altered or is fate?
The ending of this was so unsettling. A book's ending hasn't chilled me to the bone since Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black." That ending will linger with me for a long time to come.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
August 9, 2020
Many thanks to Net Galley, Crooked Lane books and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.
There are all sorts of classics and there’s a classic!
Wakefield Manor is decaying and situated at the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp makes it a brooding and haunted mansion. And yes, it is peculiarly haunted. Besides the fact that all the ancestors are walking up and down the long and dark corridors, the house does not also let its inhabitants forget, revealing past memories and events in a faded loop.
Samantha Wakefield has been staying with her mom Agnes after a traumatic incident left her too scared and terrified. But the house is not conductive for a soothing recuperation. There’s a room at the end of a narrow and windowless corridor that has remain locked forever that holds much fascination for Sam from a young age. And when her heavily pregnant sister Elizabeth moves back separating herself from her husband Donovan, a new haunting seems to take prominence, that of a young and faceless boy.
Who’s this faceless boy?
What secrets are hidden behind the locked room?
As the stories of the Swamp Witch begins to take shape in bits and pieces for Sam, the faceless boy also is growing up in stages showing the streaks of cruelty and monster that hides underneath.
The first 2 parts of the story is slow in pace and therefore laborious to read, the writing resembling the classic way of storytelling with detailed and rich descriptions of everything under the sun but if you have got that far, do stick with it as the shift in pace begins from Part 3 and then this extremely creepy and horror story becomes a ricochet missile. Each segment of the horrors inside the locked room that gets revealed was engrossing.
None of the characters have any real warmth and at most times the relationship between the young Sam and Elizabeth borders on viciousness! I never did guess the outcome of the story and even after the close of the final chapter kept imagining if it could have ended in any different way.
For fans of classic gothic fiction!
This review is published in my blog, https://rainnbooks.com/ ; Amazon India, Goodreads and Twitter handles.
There are all sorts of classics and there’s a classic!
Wakefield Manor is decaying and situated at the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp makes it a brooding and haunted mansion. And yes, it is peculiarly haunted. Besides the fact that all the ancestors are walking up and down the long and dark corridors, the house does not also let its inhabitants forget, revealing past memories and events in a faded loop.
Samantha Wakefield has been staying with her mom Agnes after a traumatic incident left her too scared and terrified. But the house is not conductive for a soothing recuperation. There’s a room at the end of a narrow and windowless corridor that has remain locked forever that holds much fascination for Sam from a young age. And when her heavily pregnant sister Elizabeth moves back separating herself from her husband Donovan, a new haunting seems to take prominence, that of a young and faceless boy.
Who’s this faceless boy?
What secrets are hidden behind the locked room?
As the stories of the Swamp Witch begins to take shape in bits and pieces for Sam, the faceless boy also is growing up in stages showing the streaks of cruelty and monster that hides underneath.
The first 2 parts of the story is slow in pace and therefore laborious to read, the writing resembling the classic way of storytelling with detailed and rich descriptions of everything under the sun but if you have got that far, do stick with it as the shift in pace begins from Part 3 and then this extremely creepy and horror story becomes a ricochet missile. Each segment of the horrors inside the locked room that gets revealed was engrossing.
None of the characters have any real warmth and at most times the relationship between the young Sam and Elizabeth borders on viciousness! I never did guess the outcome of the story and even after the close of the final chapter kept imagining if it could have ended in any different way.
For fans of classic gothic fiction!
This review is published in my blog, https://rainnbooks.com/ ; Amazon India, Goodreads and Twitter handles.
August 5, 2020
In Wakefield Manor, a decaying ancestral mansion brooding on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia, there is a locked room.And this is the sort of opening sentence that immediately sucks me into a book. A decaying mansion, a swamp and a locked room? Please tell me more!
Sam and her sister, Elizabeth, grew up in Wakefield Manor with their neglectful mother. Since it was built, the mansion has witnessed both the mundane and the horrors experienced by those who have lived there, and it has not forgotten them.
Now adults, the sisters have returned to Wakefield Manor, where the locked room from their childhood remains a mystery and a new ghost has appeared.
I love haunted house stories so couldn’t wait to get into this one. I loved the house. I loved the swamp. I loved the way the ghosts made their way into the story and I wanted to spend more time with them.
The past is everywhere, here, wrapped up in the present.There were a couple of times when I managed to forget what was happening in the story’s present while exploring the past. I never really connected with any of the characters so, although I was interested in learning what happened to each of them, the emotional investment was missing. There were also a number of potentially superfluous paragraphs that took me out of the story.
I tend to gravitate to horror that is more visceral so after the set up of the first couple of chapters I found myself getting antsy. The action picks up towards the end of the book but I spent a good amount of time around the middle simply waiting for it to begin. There was an overall atmospheric feel to the book.
It is a door that should not be opened.Content warnings include mention of .
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read this book. I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.
Blog - https://schizanthusnerd.com
October 11, 2020
Sam and her mom, Agnes live in their family's old creepy mansion. Which just so happens to be haunted by the memories and spirits of the past. Late one night, Sam's pregnant sister Elizabeth arrives at the door, suitcase in hand, as she's left her husband. That's when things change and Sam starts seeing a weird spirit of a boy with a not fully formed face and an X where each of his eyes should be. This is similar to another spirit Sam can see, except this one can talk to her across time and is violent toward her. Who is this spirit and why is he trying to hurt her? That's all I can tell you about the plot without spoiling it for you.
This book is really atmospheric. Which means the first half or so is a little slow, but if you can stay with it, the second half really picks up. We get to know a lot about the history of the house, our three main characters, and the spirits that also share the house. To me, you really need that to get to the second half and what happens. Overall, I think this is an excellent book that has a great plot, characters you really get to know, even if they aren't always likable, and a plot that wows in the end.
Thank you to Crooked Lane, author Jo Kaplan, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
This book is really atmospheric. Which means the first half or so is a little slow, but if you can stay with it, the second half really picks up. We get to know a lot about the history of the house, our three main characters, and the spirits that also share the house. To me, you really need that to get to the second half and what happens. Overall, I think this is an excellent book that has a great plot, characters you really get to know, even if they aren't always likable, and a plot that wows in the end.
Thank you to Crooked Lane, author Jo Kaplan, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
November 27, 2020
Once the house has you, it doesn’t let you go.
They say Wakefield Manor is haunted. They say monsters might be lurking in the shadows of its walls. Or are those only the phantoms of the past residences? Just echoes of history?
But what if one can also encounter the ghosts of the future? And what if one of those yet unborn ghosts is evil incarnate?
Can one change the future?
They say in Wakefield Manor you should not directly look into the mirrors. Terrible things will happen if you do.
If you do, the Witch of the Swamp may come through a crack. She will come from a place you could never imagine.
It Will Just Be Us is a chilling and nightmarish, albeit excessively voluble and descriptive horror story with a shocking ending.
October 31, 2020
This seemed like a no-brainer choice for Halloween, but it was a bit too much for me: too much dramatic performance in the audio, too much flowery language, too much rambling, too much repetition. That being said, this definitely had a cool premise and an atmospheric, creepy vibe throughout the story, but it needed better editing to get a higher rating from me. It seemed to get lost in its own descriptions and perhaps forgot that it already talked about that...many times. Disorienting, but with a bit too much going on. 3 stars
October 22, 2020
(4.5)
This was so so close to being a five star read. And it has ultimately turned out to be an all time favorite haunted house story.
This is the kind of haunted house story where the house is almost a character on its own. And probably my favorite character in the book at that. The atmosphere that the house created made this such a dark and creepy read. I also really loved the writing style, which, also added to the atmosphere of the book. It wasn’t flowery writing but almost like lyrical writing and I loved it! This authors work has truly left me at a loss for words...
I’d recommend this for anyone who liked ‘we have always lived in the castle’ by Shirley Jackson as this book has similar aspects and vibes to it. And also to anyone who has a love for haunted houses and ghost stories. Please consider picking this one up!
Thank you Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the Arc!
This was so so close to being a five star read. And it has ultimately turned out to be an all time favorite haunted house story.
This is the kind of haunted house story where the house is almost a character on its own. And probably my favorite character in the book at that. The atmosphere that the house created made this such a dark and creepy read. I also really loved the writing style, which, also added to the atmosphere of the book. It wasn’t flowery writing but almost like lyrical writing and I loved it! This authors work has truly left me at a loss for words...
I’d recommend this for anyone who liked ‘we have always lived in the castle’ by Shirley Jackson as this book has similar aspects and vibes to it. And also to anyone who has a love for haunted houses and ghost stories. Please consider picking this one up!
Thank you Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the Arc!
August 3, 2022
This is horror done right. I’ve read a million and a half haunted house stories and this has to be one of the coolest and most original hauntings ever!!! The writing was top notch and the imagery portrayed creeped me the F out. The way the swamp setting was used and the history of the house added to the fun as the story was not just about what was happening in the present but showed what went down in the past and what might in the future, I don’t want to give too much away but like I said it was very cool and very original. Loved this one immensely and I can’t recommend it enough! Read it!!!
September 15, 2020
IT WILL JUST BE US by Jo Kaplan is a gothic horror haunted house story that I was completely immersed in. The writing was absolutely incredible that slowly enveloped me into this haunting story.
Sam and her mother live in the Wakefield Manor, a decaying ancestral mansion situated right in the middle of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. The house has labyrinthine halls that were built by her mad ancestors, which reminded me a lot about the Winchester Mystery House I once visited in San Jose, California - a haunted mansion built to confuse ghosts and spirits with its odd configuration of rooms and hallways. Houses like this really gives me the creeps and the Wakefield Manor with phantom ghosts and memories present in every room, was absolutely terrifying. When Sam's sister Elizabeth shows up pregnant after a fight with her husband something suddenly changes. This causes a shift in the house, and a sinister faceless boy soon makes an apparition and starts causing havoc with disturbing acts and behaviors.
Jo Kaplan is a master of atmospheric and tense writing that was suspenseful and wonderfully creepy. Slowly revealing the secrets and mysteries of the house from the past and the new apparition was really spine tingling and chilling. This had everything I wanted in a gothic horror - a character so sinister and evil, a haunted house that never forgets, and an ending so shocking and twisted. I recommend this!!
Sam and her mother live in the Wakefield Manor, a decaying ancestral mansion situated right in the middle of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. The house has labyrinthine halls that were built by her mad ancestors, which reminded me a lot about the Winchester Mystery House I once visited in San Jose, California - a haunted mansion built to confuse ghosts and spirits with its odd configuration of rooms and hallways. Houses like this really gives me the creeps and the Wakefield Manor with phantom ghosts and memories present in every room, was absolutely terrifying. When Sam's sister Elizabeth shows up pregnant after a fight with her husband something suddenly changes. This causes a shift in the house, and a sinister faceless boy soon makes an apparition and starts causing havoc with disturbing acts and behaviors.
Jo Kaplan is a master of atmospheric and tense writing that was suspenseful and wonderfully creepy. Slowly revealing the secrets and mysteries of the house from the past and the new apparition was really spine tingling and chilling. This had everything I wanted in a gothic horror - a character so sinister and evil, a haunted house that never forgets, and an ending so shocking and twisted. I recommend this!!
March 31, 2020
What is it about things that horrify us that simultaneously attracts us? Like moths drawn to their own demise by candlelight, unable to look away from the burning beauty even as we draw closer, so close our flesh melts and sloughs off. The swamp, the shrouded in heavy mists and the odors of decay that conceal lurking predators and invisible quicksand, should warn all to stay away.
This is a bad place, the swamp communicates to us. Do not enter.
ARC requested on and provided by NetGalley.
I picked this randomly, read a few pages just to get an idea of what I was getting into before I decided to give it a real go and add it to my current readings. Those few pages slowly turned into dozens and now I wish it was October and that it was storming outside because this book was so spooky, sad and so deliciously gothic it deserves its own Halloween-ish atmosphere.
Really, I can't remember the last time a book got me so shaken and on the edge.
It Will Just Be Us is not just a little, terrifying and heartbreaking festival that promises way less than it's going to give, but it's also a little bleeding gem that's not afraid to tear you apart and make you wish, even if just for a moment, that you could turn your emotions down only to unfeel the pain.
Kaplan's writing is magnetic and nostalgic, filled with dread and so much pathos you're basically there, separated by the Wakefields' world of ghosts and darkness only by a thin veil of printed words and the weak pull of reality.
It's a read that kept me captivated and glued to the pages from start to end, and not always for the happiest of reasons.
I also can't help but feel like Kaplan's and Maggie Stiefvater's writings are somehow not so distant cousins. You know that kind of writing that works with and through feelings instead of with and through facts? That.
Add it to the fact that some aspects of this book really sound like something out of a 300 Fox Way's tale, and I'm a goner.
This book is beautiful in its own particular way, one that might not appeal the faint-hearted, and it'll definitely scare the shit out of your bones if you give it the chance to steal you away.
I'm glad I did and I recommend you all to do the same. Even if it means I'll have nightmare for years after reading it.
June 22, 2020
WOW! I knew from the very first paragraph this book was going to be very good and special. Jo's writing is so beautiful, I really, really liked it. The characters are good. The setting is bewitching. An old mansion that may or may not change the layout whenever it pleases, with a big old haunted swamp in the backyard. The interactions between living characters are ghost of the past creates a dream like atmosphere. Sam reminded me a lot of Merricat in We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Both have little rituals they do for good luck, protection and so on. Both may or may not be unreliable and they float around in a dreamy existence. I would say fans of that book would love this one. I am adding this to my "best reads of 2020 shelf. This is the first thing I've read by Jo Kaplan but I can not wait to see what is next for her!
Thank you so much NetGalley for the opportunity to read this amazing book early.
Thank you so much NetGalley for the opportunity to read this amazing book early.
March 24, 2020
4.5 rounding it to 5.0 stars! Full review on my blog soon.
It took me awhile to finish this. I would be lying if I say it didn’t scare me because it really freaking did! I’ve never read a Gothic/horror/mystery/thriller book in my entire life but this one is really good! I thought I wouldn’t like this but the end really amaze, surprise and enlightens me.
This story is about a mansion, which is near a swamp, with a “weird & scary” family as what everyone calls them. There are ghosts, a swamp witch, and a faceless boy. The story is somehow fresh on me as I have never read a book like this. It’s really good.
The first parts has a mix of third point of view and one point of view which is Samantha’s. In the later parts of the book only Samantha’s point of view is focused. I love the scary thoughts of Samantha. She has a wide unfathomable vision and opinion of things which is fascinating. Her way of thinking is fascinating.
The whole book is a great read. It’s mostly suspenseful to me as it took me some time to finish because I just can’t read it at night. Lol. I love the story. It’s unique, new, rare, scary & adventurous. I love the idea of seeing memories of past and future. The ending is epic! I love it & never did I expect it to happen!
It took me awhile to finish this. I would be lying if I say it didn’t scare me because it really freaking did! I’ve never read a Gothic/horror/mystery/thriller book in my entire life but this one is really good! I thought I wouldn’t like this but the end really amaze, surprise and enlightens me.
This story is about a mansion, which is near a swamp, with a “weird & scary” family as what everyone calls them. There are ghosts, a swamp witch, and a faceless boy. The story is somehow fresh on me as I have never read a book like this. It’s really good.
The first parts has a mix of third point of view and one point of view which is Samantha’s. In the later parts of the book only Samantha’s point of view is focused. I love the scary thoughts of Samantha. She has a wide unfathomable vision and opinion of things which is fascinating. Her way of thinking is fascinating.
The whole book is a great read. It’s mostly suspenseful to me as it took me some time to finish because I just can’t read it at night. Lol. I love the story. It’s unique, new, rare, scary & adventurous. I love the idea of seeing memories of past and future. The ending is epic! I love it & never did I expect it to happen!
September 18, 2020
I love ghost stories, especially haunted house ghost stories. So this one was a must-read for me! But I ended up with very mixed feelings about this book.
I did appreciate that this is a very unusual novel with different ideas about ghosts and hauntings than you usually find. But there might have been just a bit too much story here; the book felt overcrowded with different plot threads, some of which are important to the main plot and some of which just felt like extra fluff.
The writing is extremely descriptive, sometimes overbearing to the point of choking out what is being written. I am the first person to stick up for high-falootin' writing, but this was extreme. I sometimes had difficulty just figuring out what was going on because there is so much extra description of EVERYTHING. Adverbs do indeed pave the road to hell.
For me, the book was a bit too on the nose with its influences. It obviously draws heavily on Shirley Jackson's gothic novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. There were a few parts describing the Wakefield home and Sam wandering through it that felt almost ripped from Hill House. Additionally, the sisters' relationship is very similar to Merricat and Constance in Castle, as is the nearby town full of people who dislike their family. I especially saw Merricat mirrored in the quirky outsiderness of Sam with her paranoia and little rituals to keep her and her family safe. There is a difference between being inspired by something and copying it, and I think this book veered into the latter sometimes.
Additionally, though the hauntings themselves were really interesting to read, it did feel extremely similar to the ideas brought up in The Haunting of Hill House Netflix series (that has little to nothing to do with Jackson's work). The layering of time with past, present, and future haunting the house and the inhabitants did not feel like a novel idea, even if the hauntings themselves were unique.
I did appreciate that this is a very unusual novel with different ideas about ghosts and hauntings than you usually find. But there might have been just a bit too much story here; the book felt overcrowded with different plot threads, some of which are important to the main plot and some of which just felt like extra fluff.
The writing is extremely descriptive, sometimes overbearing to the point of choking out what is being written. I am the first person to stick up for high-falootin' writing, but this was extreme. I sometimes had difficulty just figuring out what was going on because there is so much extra description of EVERYTHING. Adverbs do indeed pave the road to hell.
For me, the book was a bit too on the nose with its influences. It obviously draws heavily on Shirley Jackson's gothic novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. There were a few parts describing the Wakefield home and Sam wandering through it that felt almost ripped from Hill House. Additionally, the sisters' relationship is very similar to Merricat and Constance in Castle, as is the nearby town full of people who dislike their family. I especially saw Merricat mirrored in the quirky outsiderness of Sam with her paranoia and little rituals to keep her and her family safe. There is a difference between being inspired by something and copying it, and I think this book veered into the latter sometimes.
Additionally, though the hauntings themselves were really interesting to read, it did feel extremely similar to the ideas brought up in The Haunting of Hill House Netflix series (that has little to nothing to do with Jackson's work). The layering of time with past, present, and future haunting the house and the inhabitants did not feel like a novel idea, even if the hauntings themselves were unique.
October 13, 2024
It Will Just Be Us is about a house that is haunted by echoes of the past. At any time or place within the house you can see a past memory play out right before your eyes. But then our protagonist Samantha sees the boy who has no face…
This gave me big Shirley Jackson vibes - beautiful writing, a gorgeous gothic building called Wakefield Manor, a chilly atmosphere and a slow burn that just notches up the thrills and scares as you go deeper and deeper. The ending was fab too! A great contender for spooky season ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.
This gave me big Shirley Jackson vibes - beautiful writing, a gorgeous gothic building called Wakefield Manor, a chilly atmosphere and a slow burn that just notches up the thrills and scares as you go deeper and deeper. The ending was fab too! A great contender for spooky season ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.
August 14, 2023
4.5 out of 5
Listen, I almost gave this a 5/5 because I haven't read a novel this deliciously spooky and emotionally impactful in a very long time. Complicated family relationships? Interesting characters? Moody atmosphere? Ghosts? A house that's an actual character? You can find all of this and more in It Will Just Be Us. Add this to your Halloween TBR this year, if you haven't read it yet!
Listen, I almost gave this a 5/5 because I haven't read a novel this deliciously spooky and emotionally impactful in a very long time. Complicated family relationships? Interesting characters? Moody atmosphere? Ghosts? A house that's an actual character? You can find all of this and more in It Will Just Be Us. Add this to your Halloween TBR this year, if you haven't read it yet!
February 2, 2020
I requested and received a Copy of this book from NetGalley, the publisher and the author in exchange for an honest review.
This is the first novel to me by Jo Kaplan.
To be honest I am not big fan of horror stories but this one is good for me because it not contain a lot of scary scenes so I enjoyed it, especially this is debut for Jo .
This is the first novel to me by Jo Kaplan.
To be honest I am not big fan of horror stories but this one is good for me because it not contain a lot of scary scenes so I enjoyed it, especially this is debut for Jo .
November 19, 2021
This is an entertaining We Have Always Lived in the Castle-flavored haunted house story with a very cool conceit; that the memories of events that have taken place in the house play out randomly as they happened, so one could be walking down the hallway and see the ghosts of playing children, long-dead, running towards you, or you could find the key to the ominous locked room upstairs and watch the death that took place there transpire over and over again. I am a sucker for tightly-knit, creepy family who sticks together out of mutual dislike and shared past trauma and haunted houses with a hundred rooms that seem to move around when no one is watching them, so there was a lot here for me to like, plus while I was reading this I found that I had to keep peeking over the edge of my covers while I was trying to fall asleep to make sure that the faceless boy wasn't standing next to my bed, so that was nice.
January 25, 2020
Second book back to back I am first to read and review on GR. Lovely. This one had me at gothic something. Just seems like a pleasantly spooky read, even going by the cover alone. But apparently one mustn’t judge the book by the cover, even though it’s so easy and often accurate, so let’s judge the innards instead. Let’s say We Have Always Lived in this Castle And the legend of Winchester mansion had a baby. Weird, sure, but go with it. This is that baby. It’s a scary creepy kid, much like the boy ghost that haunts the book. So now you know what to expect…two sisters (and their mother) live in a giant rambling haunted old mansion that was built gradually and systematically until the floor plans abandoned all pretense at logic and coherence. The mansion has a built in Netflix of sorts, projecting memories in 3D at random. Past and now future generations of Wakefields’ lives play out for the current Wakefields, day and night. It was challenging enough when it was just Sam and her shut in mother, living quietly away from the world at the edge of the awesomely named Great Dismal swamp. Sam even got to play around with their witchy reputation on her brief excursions into town. But now Sam’s heavily pregnant sister, Elizabeth, left her abusive spouse to stay with her family. And now there’s a new ghost, a young faceless boy, to contend with. And that’s all before Elizabeth’s betrothed comes to stay, bringing his own irascibility and violence into an already combustible mix. So there you have it…a story about a family and their ghosts. A well told story, as atmospheric and eerie as you’d expect from a modern gothic. Very well written and all that, but you can’t give it any high ratings on the originality score. In fact it borrows juts too heavily from two iconic sources, too much to be offset by the author’s own embellishments and touches, however clever and interesting those might be. This is especially noticeable because both of the other stories have been recently made into movies, so they are really fresh in my mind. So maybe this one should be read as a pastiche of sorts. That might work. Or if you are not familiar with either of the either stories or watched the movies, that would work too. The story is striking and would be appropriately haunting had it been a genuine original. Still, a nice read for a dark night. Fans of quiet slow literary scares should enjoy this one. Thanks Netgalley.
September 26, 2022
I found my new favorite gothic horror novel! I'm so lost for words after finishing it that I probably won't be able to write a cohesive review. So I'll just list all the things which were done amazingly well and made me love this book:
- beautiful writing
- eerie heavy atmosphere
- old haunted house with too many rooms and a disturbing history
- scary things happening from the very beginning
- chilling story about a swamp witch
- creepy evil child
- complicated family relationships
- protagonist thinking she's going insane
- satisfying ending
Thank you to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the gifted eARC.
Sep 2022 reread update:
Just as creepy and chilling on reread as was the first time reading this book. The gorgeous and sometimes even poetic writing stood out even more this time, every sentence full of vivid imagery and melancholic atmosphere. Such a gem in the gothic horror genre. I’m even more excited now to check out the author’s new release When the Night Bells Ring!
- beautiful writing
- eerie heavy atmosphere
- old haunted house with too many rooms and a disturbing history
- scary things happening from the very beginning
- chilling story about a swamp witch
- creepy evil child
- complicated family relationships
- protagonist thinking she's going insane
- satisfying ending
Thank you to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the gifted eARC.
Sep 2022 reread update:
Just as creepy and chilling on reread as was the first time reading this book. The gorgeous and sometimes even poetic writing stood out even more this time, every sentence full of vivid imagery and melancholic atmosphere. Such a gem in the gothic horror genre. I’m even more excited now to check out the author’s new release When the Night Bells Ring!
June 24, 2024
Y’all are sleeping on this perfect gothic haunted house horror book!
Thoughts: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNF1PGsG/
Thoughts: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNF1PGsG/
January 29, 2021
3.5 Stars
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