'Neath the pumpkin patch

Hello!

Today I am reviewing ‘The House Where Halloween Sleeps’ by J.D. Harris, which was an absolute blast to read and I am very much looking forward to checking out some of the author’s other autumnal/spooky books in the near future.

When sixteen-year-old Edie Marrow arrives at Wickerby House with her mother, she expects damp rooms, old furniture, awkward family secrets, and a few miserable days sorting through her late Great-Aunt Hester’s belongings.

But Wickerby House is not simply old.

It is waiting.

Behind a paper-chained door, a parlour remains decorated for a Halloween party from 1984. The streamers are still bright. The sweets are still wrapped. The gramophone still plays. And thirteen masked children are still trapped inside, forced to play the same party games over and over while a strange, gentle-voiced woman keeps trying to tuck them into a sleep from which they may never wake.

As Edie and her mother are pulled deeper into the house’s impossible rooms, they uncover the truth about the party that never ended, the child hidden behind the white mask, the pumpkin-headed guest who is not what he seems, and the old ritual that went terribly wrong beneath the floorboards.

But Wickerby House does not give up its children easily.

To free them before Halloween morning, Edie must play by the house’s rules, face the secrets her mother has tried to bury, and discover why the last guest was never meant to be a sacrifice at all.

Gravewick Hollow was the sort of village that looked as if it had been built for October and then abandoned there by mistake

The House Where Halloween Sleeps was one I stumbled across during a random scroll on Instagram, with the title immediately piquing my interest and I am so glad I picked this one on up. It’s fairly short and an easy read despite all the twists and turns, and secrets wrapped in secrets, and I devoured it one sitting – and will probably read it again on Halloween.

The story itself is a wonderful blend of local superstition (and I love how it was shown through the village even before we reached the house), older folklore, and even treads softly the line of fairytale – albeit I would say faery with an e, as one of the central elements is the importance of names and what can happen if they are taken and forgotten. Harris absolutely nails the village superstition element, and I was strongly reminded of the whispers that were rife in my own village growing up about the abandoned house at the end of the farm lane; tales that have no real definition, no one knows the truth, but everyone knows, and you very much get that feeling in Gravewick Hollow.

Right from the beginning you get the sense that something is wrong, a sour note between Edie our main character and her mother as they go to deal with an inherited house – and an order in the will to ‘put the house to rest before All Hallows’ Eve’; and you get a glimpse of the history that they already have with this house, one buried in secrets, half-truths and buried memories.

The House sells the rest. I said that Edie was our main character, and to an extent she is, but the House absolutely steals the show – and I tell you, if this was a haunted house game at the fair, you would be absolutely terrified. Reality is mutable within the walls of Wickerby House, space changes, rooms move, and there are many voices to be heard.

There are rules, that go out the window pretty much straight away, because there are games to be played. Games that have been underway for many, many years. And Edie and her Mum are pulled into the games, next to the children who have been trapped somewhere outside of time and place for many years, and The-Woman-Who-Tucked-Them-In (probably the most terrifying person in this entire book, at least until you understand). In many ways it felt like a game of truth or dare, wrapped up in the trappings of other traditional games, because as the night begins, secrets are shared and revealed, answers found and more questions asked. Both about the trapped children and the house, but also family secrets, between Edie and her Mum and Aunt/Great-Aunt Hestor.

I really liked how this was handled. The immediacy of survival and trying to solve the mystery, prevents an in-depth conversation that would probably border an argument if not fully devolving into one, but it is never brushed under the surface. It’s dealt with in touches, and quiet moments, glances and short exchanges; and in trust when it really matters; and it really makes the relationship between Edie and her mother both stronger but also very compelling and I like that it is talked about when there is time. That it doesn’t get buried with everything else.

The story also very much explores fear, and what giving into fear can result in. We see the terror of the children who have been trapped for so long, the fear of a mother who wants to protect her child, and beneath it or the terror that had led to this nightmare. Of a choice made out of terror, and slowly, corrupted into something far worse. And on the flipside, it is a story about bravery – not with the absence of fear, but in the face of it, in spite of it. Brave because of anger or desperation, rather than courage itself; and we get to see many different kinds of bravery, from facing forgotten memories, to buried truths, to creeping down into the dark to face the darkness.

“You don’t have to be brave in a tidy way.”

It also handled the mystery element beautifully, and there were twists and turns – some I saw coming, some I didn’t, with layers within layers, and the final game and the reveal were really well done. I got such Hocus Pocus vibes at the ending it made me grin; and I love that Harris took the time to deal with the aftermath. Both in the immediate aftermath, but also a while later, and it felt like the final puzzle piece settling back into place.

While this was marked as YA, I’d say it falls a little on the younger end of the spectrum. Some of the themes, especially with the Woman-Who-Tucked-Them-In are definitely leaning towards an older audience, and Edie is a teen herself, but at the same time, I could see younger readers enjoying this too, and obviously I enjoyed it a lot.

This is a delightfully spooky story for Halloween, with a dash of Hocus Pocus, a sprinkling of folklore and an old house with a lot of attitude.