Helen and Nate move from the city to a small rural town in Vermont, using money Helen inherited. To save money, they build most of the house themselves. The land they choose is purported to be haunted by a witch who died there (Hattie). The new house becomes a bit of an invitation to resident spooking.
The author braids the story - jumping between Helen and Olive -- Olive ("Ollie") is a teenage girl, a resident of the small town who likes to hang out in the woods on Helen & Nate's land.
I was drawn to the spookiness of the story. And yes, there was suspense, but my rating is 3 stars (out of 5) due to too much confusion.
- Chapter titles are dates. Nothing more, no day of week, no telling if the day has progressed to the next, or perhaps jumped a week or more. Nope. I had to keep turning back to previous chapters to figure it out .
- Lots of names sound too similar. Hattie. Helen. Olive/Ollie, Riley, Lori. I got confused more than once.
- Too much filler. I skimmed paragraphs and half-pages in the second half of the book. This book is 350 pages...about a hundred pages too many. And with all that, the end didn't surprise me...and something was left dangling (the doc that disappeared...this isn't really a spoiler, it's just...a loose thread ..and why??)
Read it or don't. The book is okay. You could do worse.
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