Title: In the Shadow of Spindrift House
Author: Mira Grant
Publisher: Subterranean Press 2019
Genre: Horror
Pages: 197
Rating: 5/5 stars
Reading Challenges: Spooky Season; Read Around the USA - Maine
Where I Got It: Library
Nature abhors a straight line. The natural world is a place of curves and softened edges, of gentle mists and welcoming spirals. Nature remembers deviation; nature does not forgive.
For Harlowe Upton-Jones, life has never been a straight line. Shipped off to live with her paternal grandparents after a mysterious cult killed her mother and father, she has grown up chasing the question behind the curve, becoming part of a tight-knit teen detective agency. But “teen” is a limited time offer, and when her friends start looking for adult professions, it’s up to Harlowe to find them one last case so that they can go out in a blaze of glory.
Welcome to Spindrift House.
The stories and legends surrounding the decrepit property are countless and contradictory, but one thing is clear: there are people willing to pay a great deal to determine the legal ownership of the house. When Harlowe and her friends agree to investigate the mystery behind the manor, they do so on the assumption that they’ll be going down in history as the ones who determined who built Spindrift House—and why. The house has secrets. They have the skills. They have a plan. They have everything they need to solve the mystery.
Everything they need except for time. Because Spindrift House keeps its secrets for a reason, and it has no intention of letting them go.
Nature abhors a straight line.
Here’s where the story bends.
This short novella packed a serious punch! The book dumps the reader right into an unsettling, confusing story full of mystery and horror. We meet our four characters, learn a bit about their past, and then are thrown into a very scary house. The imagery sucked me into the atmosphere. I had the sense of drowning throughout the entire book, exactly what Grant intended. As the story unfolds, you just know that things are not going to end well. But I loved seeing just how badly this situation ended. A quick read that only took me two settings, but I loved every page of it. Extra points for not belaboring the story, but telling it in the time that was needed.
Next up on the TBR pile:
