The Farmhouse on Cemetery Hill Rd

by Cynthia Herbert-Bruschi Adams

A young couple purchases an historic home in rural Connecticut near the University where the husband is continuing his academic career. He is obsessed with his research on multiple personality disorders while she is focused on restoration and the history of their home. But they have just begun to settle in when several seemingly inexplicable occurrences change their dream into a nightmare.Beginning with the grisly death of their pet cat and the discovery of a child’s tombstone in the backyard the wife has a cascade of mysteries to explore. She seeks assistance from one elderly neighbor, an antique dealer, and the local church that has its origins tied to the town. From the church she receives a diary begun in the early 1800’s which leads her to incredible and sometimes horrifying discoveries. The local woman also knows of deaths and curses inflicted upon her house due to the misdeeds of the original owner.Our protagonist explores graveyards and archaic police records in an attempt to answer many of the questions that arise. Some of the issues are long hidden lies told two hundred years before to protect the sins of a clergyman while others are contemporary involving the mental illness of a neighbor who remains at large in the area. At times it appears that the husband may be “gas lighting” his wife and could himself have a multiple personality disorder. At other times it appears that the husband’s graduate assistant may be out to do the couple harm.There is always an undercurrent of the supernatural at work in this home and a hatching of Goliath Bird Eating spiders, with the near death of a workman, helps to build this possibility. Between fires and the delusional thinking of a man living hidden on the property this book is a page turner that will either keep you up late at night reading or worrying about what will happen next.The story ends as the pandemic is unfolding.

Genres: Horror

230 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 19, 2020

Reviews

[Mindy Daniels · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not care for

Narrative is too long winded with too much emphasis on restoration. Misleading leads, which would be acceptable but
in end culprit was too easy. No tension from from supernatural as details in journal and Emily's and Ben's relationship is center stage for such a big part of novel. Cannot recommend.

[Joyce A, · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book must have a sequel!!!!!! I have to get the answers to my questions. This book was exciting, educational about features of old houses, eerie at times and just a good read. It would be fun to read to someone, as I often do. Kudos to Cynthia and may you give us more books to enjoy!

[henry smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was an ok book with a rather stupid ending have read better books but the ending was just a let down. Stupidly written ending. Could have finished a whole lot better.

[Moni Lusz · Rating 3 out of 5]

As it appears on my FB page, Moni's Reading Journey
The Farmhouse on Cemetery Hill Road
This book is set in my beautiful state of Connecticut. But I'm still trying to look for the perfect book that is set in this gorgeous-gorgeous state. This is a book about a young couple that buys a dilapidated house. This used to be a farm, and it comes with a lot of land. Of course, being almost 300 years old, this is a house that is rich in history, rich in memories of people that lived here and people that had happy or tragic lives. Honestly, it was very well written, but unfortunately, it had a rather anticlimactic ending, and because of the ending, this book actually lost two stars. I think it could have been done a little bit better, but I want to say that what I appreciated in this book was the writer's capability of illustrating a dual timeline story: present and past, without throwing you back-and-forth and back-and-forth, to give you a headache. Basically, the woman that bought this house, together with her husband, found a diary, actually more than one diary, where a previous owner talks about the history and the other owners of this house. So I think that that was done in a very clever way because it's not like it has the title "2018", and then it goes back in on I don't know "1770's" or "1800s" or something like that. No, she's a master of handling the timeline, the dual time action.
I don't know if this writer is new to writing, because I could see some trends in her writing more like struggling to find synonyms for words, like a beginner's course in English composition when they tell you, "try not to repeat the word, try to find a synonym for it" (for example"spider", then "arachnid" etc. So I found that a lot at the beginning of the book, but then I think she matured as she wrote this book and it became less and less obvious, and I felt that she kind of found her rhythm and ended up writing a very good book. I also appreciate a lot the fact that it talks about the 1800s and people in that era talk and think and behave like people in those times. She's not using her characters from 200 or 150 years ago and makes them talk like a teenager at Starbucks, like it was the case with "The Frozen River"... that book that just was so so bad.
I also feel that she left a couple of loose ends: she either threw too much into the story without further explaining, or those things didn't even need to be there. Like her husband was studying for his doctorate degree in multiple personality disorder. The writer is tackling that, but tries to link it to the story, but then she just lets it loose in the end, hung in the air. Also, her husband is trying to get tenure for the university that he is teaching (UConn), when he's all of a sudden sued by one of his students that helped him write the paper. The lawsuit is because he did not put this student's name as the primary author of that paper. So this was not very clearly tied to the story or was not properly explored to make it relevant to the story. So I think this was like a little something extra that didn't really need to be there, or if it was, it should have been a little better incorporated. But anyway, overall, it's a good book, not the best. I wish somebody wrote about Connecticut, like Louise Penny writes about her little imaginary town in Quebec, Theee Pines. Here, the action in the story happens in an imaginary town called East Apple Connecticut, but because of the close proximity to UConn, the University of Connecticut, I think that it actually talks about maybe the town of Storrs, because, you know, there they have so many farms and old houses full of history. So I think that's the real town that the inspiration behind this book is about.
I would recommend this book. However, I think it could have been so much better. Before the last chapter, I thought I would rate it about 4-4.5 stars, but the ending didn't live up to the rest of the book.
Happy reading, everybody. 😊

[Richard K. Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the WORST written story I have read in probably 5 years!

There comes a time when; if you cannot write a good and scary story about spiders invading an old farmhouse successfully......then you are really a poor writer! This story reads like the cheesiest 'wanna be Christian fiction' and STILL flopped terribly. Stupid, slow, and the most ignorant storyline, and then to top if off.......BAD narration too! Do NOT waste your time, as I have already done that for you. CANNOT ever recommend this snooze fest!

1 star for a slight attempt.

[LisaMarie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off as pretty decent haunted house story, which like many devolve into sheer idiocy once corpses reanimate. (I much prefer spirits manifesting.) Elena Maria was a feckless twit inexplicably prone to making cracks about people's looks.
I liked Emily, though, even though a disproportionate chunk of the book was spent on her story.
So was Matt another Sybil or what? Besides the cat I mean.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting read from beginning to end.

The thing I liked most about this book were the characters. Some of them were so likable that I found myself empathizing greatly with them. I felt their happiness, their sorrow. I didn't think it was scary at least not like I'm used to reading but some scenes were creepy enough.

[Matt]

Couldn’t finish it. Made it 50 pages, and it seemed like every page had multiple grammar and/or spelling issues. The one that sealed it for me was ‘Brown Universality’. The story seemed unfocused as well. I think there’s potential, but it needed a more rigorous editing and review process.

[Shannon O · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! I would really love it if there was a sequel!! I especially liked the "Sit-Around-The-Campfire-And-Tell-Ghost-Stories" feeling I got when I read this book. It was such a fun read for me.

[Courtney Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like it had potential to be a really good horror/thriller but in the end i had more questions than really understanding anything. Maybe this was the point for a second book but it didn’t leave me hanging on to the point to want to read a second.

[Byron Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title and beautiful cover really drew me in. The story stays true to New England history while providing a spooky story that makes me want to read part 2 and 3 of the trilogy. You have to suspend disbelief at times, but it's a perfect book for Halloween time.

[Stephanie Frederick Kierys · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Thought it would be interesting because it’s spooky season and I live in New England. Listened to on audio book and don’t really know what happened at the end because it didn’t keep my attention.

[Jessica Lopez-Ledford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I found it kind of boring with a bunch of useless information included. The author also spoke in a way that made the story seem a little funny. The main characters did not speak in a way that most people would. It was just ok for me.

[Heather Gadd · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so dumb.

[Susan M Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good

I really enjoyed the historical background of the book. However, I needed more explanation regarding Peter, Matt, and the elderly woman up the hill.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just good not get through it stopped halfway through.

[David Schwinghammer · Rating 2 out of 5]

When you read such horror writers as Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King, Lovecraft and others, they have a style that makes their shenanigans believable. These authors work on suspension of disbelief.The author of THE FARMHOUSE ON CEMETERY HILL Road doesn’t have that ability. She doesn’t even try.

Remember the spooky clown in King’s IT? You shouldn’t really accept that as a reader, but I did and you probably did, because it was Stephen King. FARMHOUSE starts with a 19th century Reverend and his church secretary, Emily, taking care of his illegitimate child. The weirdness starts when Will, the child, is bitten by a spider in the basement and dies. Emily always thought of Will as his child, and she never stopped pining for him, going so far as to sleep next to his grave. He’s buried in the basement, and according to Adams, the author, he’s not entirely dead. He makes occasional appearances as a spirit, which Emily welcomes, of course. But he’s a decayed corpse. The spiders also have special powers ordinary spiders don’t have.

Emily lives in the inherited farmhouse where she and the Reverend live after he retires. There are other people buried in the basement, and they haunt Emily throughout her long life which borders on a century.

We learn all about Emily from a young woman who moves into the rundown house along with her husband, bent on restoring the old house to its glory. It’s not as spooky as the synopsis insists, but there is a dead cat and there’s a boy who once lived in the house who resents the young couple for living in it, who throws eggs at their house and sets fire to their Christmas tree, but he’s only there as a foil for Will’s ghost. They young woman learns about Emily via her journal which she gets from a modern pastor. Most of the book entails the young woman reading Emily’s journal, along with the reader. That gets old in a hurry. I think it could have been cut with the young woman telling us the high points in her narrative.

The young woman learns she’s pregnant, but is worried that males born in the farmhouse will never live beyond the age of twelve, which is how old Will was when he died. That’s when the young woman’s mother makes an appearance, readily accepting what her daughter tells her about Will and the other spooks. I didn’t believe that either.

[Tina Abell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good scary tail with a cliff hanger!

Loved the slowly divulged mysteries. All good creepy stuff. Reminds me of when I read King’s earlier books as a teen. Good New England ghost story! Thanks C. Adams for a good read!