“The Good House” by Tananarive Due is a slow-build kind of novel that builds up into a solid haunted house novel that checks off most of the boxes you’re looking for when it comes to this kind of horror. If you want to read about evil spirits, voodoo, and some pretty memorable characters and events, you’ll genuinely enjoy this one.
This was the first novel I’ve ever read by Due as I love her writing style. All the characters are well done, places across Sacajawea were very descriptive, and of course, the center of this, the house itself, were all great. There is a ton of creepy horror here and even though I won’t ruin it for you, there are plenty of moments that will creep you out.
I also loved all the Stephen King novel references as that was a nice touch as he’s my all-time favorite author. Besides all that, I did feel this novel could have been trimmed down just a bit more as some of the dialogue and situations were a bit repetitive. It starts slow, builds up nicely, then starts to level out as I kept waiting for more horror and big events to happen. Once they eventually did, I felt it took a bit too long to get there.
The different layers to the overall story arc were all brilliantly written. I enjoyed how the chapters kept going back and forth from the past to the present with major events happening and then reading about what happened to fill in the important gaps. Again, it’s extremely hard to write this in a way that doesn’t feel confusing or annoying. I give much respect to Due for writing this to where it just all makes sense, especially with a wild, tension-filled ending that was fantastic.
Overall, I give “The Good House” a 4/5. It’s a memorable horror novel with the only knock on it being I felt this could have probably been cut by 100 pages and still delivered an amazing reading experience. Either way, I genuinely enjoyed it and would recommend this to anyone looking for a good haunted house novel with a voodoo twist.
by LTJ81