Book Review - How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Title: How to Sell a Haunted House
Series: -
Author: Grady Hendrix
 
Description: When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best.
 
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market. But some houses don’t want to be sold, home has other plans for both of them…
 
Review: I got to know Grady Hendrix’ books this year and this is his newest release. Hendrix is known for his quirky, strange horror stories and “How to Sell a Haunted House” is not any different. It’s not your typical haunted house story, it involves puppets and dolls. And it’s super creepy.
 
The book is, besides having regular chapters, divided in sections. Each represents one of the stages of grief. Because that is its main theme. This doesn’t fully come into its own, but I really love this idea. What I loved most about this book was the brother and sister relationship. I haven’t read books often where this was such a big part of the story. I’ve read many stories about sister bonds and brotherly relationships, but not the brother-sister sibling relationship. And the characters are well fleshed out, we get to know them very well. At first you like Louise and hate Mark, you switch sides at one point. And there is also a moment where you hate them both. But eventually, because you know them and their history better, you get to understand them more.
 
The one problem I had was the pace. It took a long time to really get into it, before it got interesting and something started happening. I understand if people would DNF it because of it. I don’t do that very often, so I’m glad I continued reading. Because once the spooky bit starts, you can’t stop reading.
 
I’ve never given Grady Hendrix a 5-star rating, but always a high score. He’s a very solid writer who became an auto-buy author for me.
 
Rating: 4/ 5