When Mouse’s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother’s house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?
Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants…until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.
Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors—because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale.
Genre: Horror & Ghost Stories
Number of Pages: 416 Pages
Date of Publication: 17/03/2020
Author/Illustrator/Publisher:
The author of this book is T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) and the book was published by Titan Books Ltd.
Rating: 4/5
Review:
While reading this book it was clear that the ghostly vibe present throughout the story makes it such a perfect read for the Halloween season. The quality of the writing is really good and very descriptive which is perfect for a horror story which relies on how the story makes you feel. Melissa (Mouse) is the main character of the story and who has been asked by her father to go and clean out her grandmother’s house after she passed away. She soon realizes that her grandmother was a hoarder and that there are secrets in the woods behind the house that she soon will find herself involved with.
There are so many horror elements involved and all are very well developed. The descriptions of the people, situations and places are very well written and it definitely makes you picture clearly everything that is happening. The build-up of suspense made the story exciting and I was definitely hooked to the story. I was really looking forward to a dramatic finale but ultimately too much was left unexplained and some of the motives of the characters seemed overly simplistic. Saying this I would still recommend this book as it is definitely a good read and I can testify that it will keep you awake at night.
The partially unexplained plot points are explained and somewhat justified by a post script by the author explaining that this book was based on her recollection of an earlier classic horror story recreated without reference to the original work.
This book was another great recommendation from a bookseller from Blackwell’s.
Availability: The book is available in all good bookshops.
Shelf Life 
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