The Haunting of Blackwood House
Darcy Coates
Could you survive a week in a haunted house? Mara is the daughter of spiritualists. Her childhood was filled with seances, scam mediums and talk of ghostly presences. When Mara finally left her family's home, she vowed she would never allow superstition or false religion into her life again. Now she's ready to start over with her fiance, Neil, in a world based on rationality and facts. But her past isn't ready to let her go just yet. Mara and Neil purchase Blackwood House, a derelict property outside of town. They're warned about strange occurrences in the crumbling building. Doors open by themselves, voices whisper in the night, bloody handprints appear on the walls, and cold spots linger in the basement, where the house's original owner was murdered. But Blackwood was dirt-cheap and came with a large plot of overgrown land. Mara loves her new home, and disregards the warnings. Because ghosts aren't real... ...are they?
No posts yet
Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update
Your rating:
4.25
Cover 4; characters 4; Plot 5; Pace 5; Intrigue 4; Logic 3; worldbuilding 4; Writing 5; Enjoyment 4
This was one of my favorites of Darcy's haunted house stories with one caveat that I cannot let go of that ruined the logic and worldbuilding scores for me. Blackwood House doesn't have electrics. Not just that they're turned off, electricity has never been run to the building. And yet... it has a laundry room with a washer and dryer. In the 80's the family that lived there had a television set. I just... sure, generators exist but the idea that a family would have lived there for a decade and it would have been more cost effective for them to run a generator for all of their electrical appliances vs running electrics? I just... couldn't let it go.
Otherwise, this had all of the super creepy things about Darcy's books that I love. The atmosphere was chilling, the backstory was interesting and I enjoyed getting to follow along with the story to see where things were going.
A lot of the negative reviews of this book talk about our MFC and her attitude and I think the fact that *mild spoiler* the house affects people's personalities. It's been known to cause people who live there to be incredibly angry and violent without prompting has a lot to do with why she acts the way she does throughout the novel. I did find her a bit annoying at times but also understandable due to her past and the above mentioned reasoning.
0
© 2024 Pagebound