I have reviewed Samantha’s work before. (See: Clairvoyant.) I don’t want to repeat myself with things I’ve already said, so summary: Samantha is an amazing writer with an amazing imagination whose stories never fail to draw you in. Editing and formatting are both great.
So, I’ll admit something. I actually bought this book on January 8th, 2025. I have a problem, okay. I go long periods where I don’t read at all or I’m swamped with Netgalley books. I’m also a mood reader and who ever knows what my mood is going to be? I also have a pretty big Kindle library at any given time, so sometimes things just get buried. Point is, I kept meaning to read this book and failing to get around to it. But I covered Clairvoyant and I liked it enough that I wanted to read more of Samantha’s work.
And here we are.
I’m not usually a fan of YA books, but this never felt like a YA book to me. It was just a horror book that happened to involve teenagers. It felt just as high stakes and gruesome as any adult horror book would. I really love when an author can do that. Like, yeah, it’s technically meant for this audience (young adults in this case) but anyone can read it and feel a connection to the story.
Anyway.
The main character in this book is a teenager named Claire. I found Claire to be very likable and very, very relatable. You see, there’s a huge estate in town where very awful things have happened over the many years that it has existed and Claire is flat out obsessed with it. (Uh, you and me both, Claire.) She wants to know everything about it, she wants to explore every nook and cranny and when the last Montgomery dies, leaving the estate empty and unclaimed…
You’d think life couldn’t get any better for Claire, right?
Wrong. She finds out that her favourite ghost hunting crew is going to be exploring the Montgomery Estate. She’s watched everything they’ve ever done, they always seem like such great guys and she is more than just a little eager not just to meet them, but to offer the wealth of information that she has on the estate. She likely knows more than anyone else in town, so that should be helpful, right?
… except the ghost hunting crew are not good guys. Well, at least their leader definitely isn’t. He can’t stop at just telling Claire no, he makes it a point to humiliate her in front of a group of others and really drive home the point that he doesn’t care about her or her knowledge. Definitely a never meet your heroes moment.
Like anyone would be, Claire is beyond devastated. All she wanted to do was help people she really admired and what did it get her?
Insert the other main character, her best friend, Lizzie.
Lizzie doesn’t really seem to understand Claire’s obsession and was on very thin ice for a bit in her pushiness about being more ‘normal’ and trying to fit in more. But when Claire is humiliated? Lizzie does not hesitate to cement herself as a very good friend who would do anything for Claire.
Anything, in this case, involves sneaking into the estate whilst the ghost hunting crew is there and playing pranks on them. It’s easy enough to get into the house since Claire knows the layout like the back of her hand and at first their idea works, but… yeah. They’re quickly caught. And if you thought the lead ghost hunter was a jerk before, just wait until he finds them in the house.
Setting that aside, it turns out that Claire and Lizzie didn’t really need to go through all the effort of pulling pranks, because the house is haunted and boy is it haunted by some characters. Samantha pulls no punches when it comes to the scares in this, from the bloody details of the ghosts to the horrific things that they do to anyone that they catch. It actually caught me off guard, which was delightful.
No spoilers here, but I think it’s obvious the quest becomes to escape the estate without getting killed. And since the place is practically dripping with ghosts, it seems like an impossible task, but Claire is really left to shine here. All the studying she’s done, everything that’s learned–this is a puzzle that no one else would be able to figure out. Reading her working through things was very enjoyable and I found myself going, “Oooh, smart!” a lot. There were a few moments where I had literally no idea how Claire could possibly figure out whatever situation they had found themselves in, but she never let me down.
I really wound up liking this book. I liked that staying alive was written like a puzzle and it wasn’t just luck or convincing the spirits to go rest or figuring out how to destroy them. It was a unique take on the haunted house story. I would absolutely love to see more of Claire (and Lizzie!) Maybe Claire should start her own ghost hunting show, hahaha. I would definitely read that.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys haunted houses but wants to see some changes from the usual formula. Or, y’know, if you just want to see the nerd girl wind up as the hero of the story.
