It´s a suspense novel with lovely descriptions of the Irish coast.
It's a slow-paced but it is a good ghost story.
I enjoyed this book and if you are a thriller/ghost story lover you will enjoy this.

The Dead House left me cold. I find I enjoy first person stories less and less as they don't feel honest. I like an unreliable narrator but sometimes it feels very forced. I really like the idea behind the story but I don't feel some of the decisions taken were the right ones.

Billy O'Callaghan’s debut novella is literary horror in the vein of Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House set on the windswept shores of his native County Cork, where history is “a stew of fact and fable”. It is not the jump-in-your-seat horror that we have come to expect from movies but a slow-moving sense of dread that haunts your dreams and stays with you long after you have set it down. This kind of horror comes in large part from a deep drilldown into the hearts and minds of the story’s characters combined with a mysterious setting, something this prize-winning shanachie has nailed, deftly pulling the reader across oceans to a cottage on the shores of the Atlantic. “Here the world had simplified itself down to rocks, ocean, sky, wind and rain; these because everything else was fleeting, and you felt overwhelmed by such a sense of permanence all around, by the realisation that what you could see in any one moment and in any direction had always existed and always would. Holy men built monasteries in places like this, trying to capture part of the alchemy that coaxed time into standing still.”

O'Callaghan’s tale is woven throughout with strands of Irish gods, Irish legends, and Irish history, but in essence, it is a ghost story and he uses his mastery of the storyteller’s art from the start to pull us out of our comfort zones by posing a simple question at the outset.

”Do you believe in Ghosts?

“Because that’s really where it begins, with belief. We glimpse or experience something that defies explanation and we either accept the stretch in our reality or we choose to turn our heads away. It’s a question that torments even philosophers: Do you believe? There is little about life as we have come to know it that can’t be explained away on some basic scientific level. Yet when the wind howls, and we find ourselves alone with only the yellow pool of a guttering candle to hold back the darkness, our instinct, perhaps our innate need for something above and beyond, still screams otherwise.”

If this book has a flaw, it is one that is common for short story authors making the switch to novels. At times it seems as if there is not enough happening to justify the additional word count. It also seems to lack some of the resolution that readers of novels have come to expect. In the end, though, I see a lot of promise in this author’s work and look forward to reading more of his books.

*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.

FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star – The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.

Set on the beautiful, foreboding west coast of Ireland, this contemporary ghost story will grab you with its strong female protagonist, Maggie, who is a wonderful and fully fleshed character, strong and smart--an artist who has been through the wringer. When a party celebrating her renovation of a Famine-era cliffside cabin turns into a gathering around a Ouija board, the past comes to haunt the believable characters in searing and unexpected ways. Ghost story, love story--an original tale that I won't soon forget. Highly recommended!

I read this through Net Galley - thanks Net Galley!

Iwould give this book a 3.5 stars (when will Goodreads let us give half stars?!). This story read like a ghost story someone is telling you over a campfire. Despite it being told first person from the point of view of the character that isn't (initially) haunted, I still felt extremely spooked while reading this. The ending especially had me creeped out.

Sorry, I found this book difficult to get into. Loved the description, but it didnt immediately grab me.

First of all, I loved the writing of this book. The author's voice was reminiscent of classic literature and his descriptions of the place and characters was captivating. For this reason, I can't wait to take a look at another Billy O'Callaghan novel.

As to the development of the story, it never really quite got there for me. The start was fantastic - an art dealer's bestselling artist buys an old home on a cliff. She invites him and some friends for the weekend and they combine Scotch with a Ouija board for the most interesting scene in the entire novel. What happens next builds ever so slowly, but the conclusion just didn't satisfy me.

I wish it had been a bit creepier and climaxed with a really terrifying ending. It was satisfying in many ways, but just didn't quite lift off.

I wanted a scary ghost story. I did not get that. This had potential to be great, however, this author likes his words. Holy descriptions, Batman! Pages upon pages of scenery descriptions which takes any type of suspense or tension your trying to build and chucks it right out the window. Also, there aren't any chapters - GASP! - which was truly the scariest part of this book. It's a quick book that I finished in a day but that was with the help of the skimming of several passages. I can see why so many people loved this but I am not one of them. This was a slog! 2 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for providing me a digital ARC - over a year ago - which I finally just got around to reviewing. My bad!

This story was told from an unusual POV. Instead of staying close to Maggie, the woman haunted in her new old cottage on an isolated Irish cliff side, we follow Mike, Maggie's art dealer and friend. He tells of her breakdown after being beaten almost to death by her boyfriend, afterwards fleeing to the secluded rough west coast were she immediately falls in love with an old cottage and stays there. After necessary renovations are finished, Mike and a couple friends visit Maggie and find her happy again. But after a night of too much drinking and fooling with an Ouija board, things take a downwards spiral, and fast. When Maggie stops calling, Mike decides to check on Maggie, only to find the cottage in total neglect and Maggie obsessed with her new-found painting style. But things get even worse...

At the base of this book lies a solid ghost story, but buried in endless layers of portraying the landscape, art and Mike's blooming relationship to Allison. While Maggie is the main character of the story, she takes a backseat to Mike, and mostly we witness events through Mike's eyes instead of first hand. Learning what happens to Maggie only through phone calls, or what happened to her by seeing the damage done only afterwards - it is frustrating, and that's exactly how Mike feels: clueless, helpless, being to late, and therefore feeling guilty as well.

A very atmospheric, unusually but cleverly constructed ghost story, but without the edge necessary to really challenge my goosebumps.

I started skimming The Dead House at 20% and DNF'd it at 40% for several reasons:

The book began with a solid wall of backstory and useless information. There was zero action whatsoever for at least the first 30 pages, and any that I was subsequently treated to was very sparse and deeply submerged in paragraphs of the narrator's verbal diarrhoea. So of course there was not even a whiff of tension or plot during the section of the book dedicated to hooking the reader. I have no idea how it got published.

The 'prose' was insufferable. Nothing but page after page of pointless, pretentious drivel and intricate description of things that had no impact on the story at all - as an example, the narrator gave an in-depth monologue dedicated to the colour of a random woman's painted toenails. This at first bored me, then it began to drive me round the bend. I get the distinct feeling this author is the sort of person who likes to inflict all of his inane and mind-numbingly self-absorbed thoughts onto hapless bystanders in endless streams, because he can't get enough of his own voice.

I hated the characters.
The narrator was a creep.
One of the characters bought the rotten shell of a house with her last few pennies, expecting her friend to just hand over £50k of his own saved money to make the place habitable for her and acted like she was entitled to it.
Her friend was emotionally manipulated into giving her the money (without even being consulted prior to the purchase of the house), because the buyer had just come out of an abusive relationship and insisted on using her friend as an ATM instead of living within her means.

This obviously made me want her to die from the very start, so I had not an iota of emotional investment in her and therefore no reason to continue putting myself through the torture of the narrator's endless boring thoughts.

Another one of the characters willingly invited a spirit (potential demon) into her friend's house while playing an ouija board that she'd brought over unprompted, without consulting the homeowner on the decision first. By this point, I wanted the house to get swept off the cliff by a tsunami of lava, with all the characters still inside it.

Lastly, the characterization was awful. All of the characters had the same personality and spoke in exactly the same whimsically stuck-up way as the narrator - even the centuries old evil ghost!!!

The fact this book apparently won an award makes me laugh. It's ironic that the narrator blabs on and on about his obsession with fine art when the story reads to me like the literary equivalent of a Rothko. The best thing about it is the blurb. Shame the blurb bears not even a sniff of a resemblance to the actual content of the book.

This book drew me in and held me delightfully-captive from beginning to end. The palpable tension held me in thrall. The plot kept me guessing. The characters were realistic, likable and identifiable. And, every settings was described in such a way as to make me feel like I was an actual bystander in that scene. Once I started reading this story, I knew this was a book I wasn’t going to be able to put down!

I really did enjoy this book. The description of the Irish landscape was fascinating, especially as someone with an Irish background. The story was chilling, suspenseful, eery, and a wonderful read. 3.5/5

The Dead House by Billy O’Callaghan is high on atmosphere and silent menace and manages to keep the tension high right up to the end.
The book is written from the first person past tense point of view of Michael Simmons, an art agent, married to Alison and the father of Hannah. Michael gets pulled into the drama of Maggie Turner, an artist-cum-friend, for whom he cares deeply.
Getting away from an abusive relationship, Maggie buys an old dilapidated house in a scenic locale and spends a fortune, borrowing heavily from Michael, in renovating it. Once done, she invites Michael, an art gallery owner-friend Alison, with whom she wants to set Michael up, and Liz, a poet, for the housewarming. That weekend, Liz brings out an Ouija board, and for the fun of it, summons spirits to get in contact with them. A spirit calling itself The Master asks permission to enter in Irish. Only their Irish language skills being weak, they mistake the question for permission to join.
Slowly the joy leaves Maggie as she lets the house go to seed, living with the stench of death and the real presence of the Master in the house.
Michael and Alison decide to drive down and make one big effort to save her. Will they succeed? Will the evil release its hold on Maggie? Or will it consume all their lives?

This, to me, was horror of the worst kind, the horror of watching a loved one lost forever to something inexplicable rather than just things going bump in the night. This book will really terrify you, once you imagine something as terrible as this happening to someone you care for.
The Dead House is not a typical ghost story. The book ends on an unsettling note. There is a sense of something terrible waiting to happen. The horror of it is like a sword dangling on our heads. We know it is going to fall. The question is when.
When the horror appears to want to take little Hannah into its fold, Michael and Alison realise that their worst nightmare has invaded the present. For us as readers too, this is a disquieting realization. The fact that the author makes no promise of an upcoming sequel in which the horror might be put to rest makes the situation even worse.
Part I shows us Michael in the present, telling us of his friendship with Maggie. Part II takes us to her obsession with the house and the summoning of the spirit. Part III is back in the present, 9 years later.
The physical descriptions of that part of Ireland are hauntingly beautiful, and reading these passages gave me gooseflesh. It’s almost as if the place doesn’t exist on the same plane as the rest of us do. "In a city with its crowds and traffic noise, reality is a sheet of thick glass… Out here, just like the ocean, it pulls to tide and current. And, just like the ocean, its surface can be easily broken."

The descriptions give us a glimpse of the generations that have existed, centuries ago, never knowing of other lives. Of places where time stood still, where nothing had changed, where rocks, ocean, sky, wind and rain were the only things that weren’t fleeting.
Michael is a pragmatic man, who comes from a belief system that doesn’t subscribe to anything not of this world. "The stains of skepticism are just as hard to scrub away as those of faith." But living through the horror that engulfs Maggie, he changes his mind. "We glimpse or experience something that defies explanation and we either accept the stretch in our reality or we choose to turn our heads away."
In a book beset with bad men such as Maggie’s abusive ex-boyfriend Pete and Alison’s ex-husband Laurence "who modelled the term ‘selfish bastard’ at professional catwalk level," Michael comes across as an inherently good man.
But even he admits that he could have done more to save Maggie, to prevent the nightmare that happened to her, or even to make some attempt, futile though it may have been, to rescue her. "We all think that we’ll walk through walls for the people who matter most to us, that we’ll willingly push ourselves against the muzzle of a gun for them. But we can’t know. Not until the moment arrives."
His experiences give him a new perspective on places that are supposed to be haunted, an explanation that he clings to because the alternative would drive him crazy. "People talk all the time about haunted places… But I’m not sure it has much to do with ghosts. I think it just means it’s held tightly by the past in ways that other places aren’t."
We receive no clear answer about what happened to Maggie or to what the Master did to her. We can only imagine how horrible the consequence may have been, given that the reveries summoned to Maggie’s mind during the Ouija session are so deeply disturbing. We are reminded of issues such as mortality and the beyond and what reality is, and how much of the other world presses down on us.
The Prologue seeks to introduces the subject to us in a philosophical vein. By the end of the book, neither Michael nor we have much use for the philosophy. So strong is the sense of terror conjured up.

A night of fun and games... that is all it was. Just a little bit of harmless fun, at least that is what the group gathered together thought. After the weekend is over and everyone disperses back to their homes, things begin to change, and not for the better.
Maggie bought the house looking for some peace and quiet after a horrid relationship went very wrong. Healing from her wounds, both physical and mental, she throws herself into painting. But after the Ouiji board, her life begins to spin out of control, and she begins to lose contact with her friends.

Mike is doing his best to keep busy, but his fear for what Maggie is going through continues to grow. When he goes to look for her and finds her very changed, his fear becomes something more. After discussion with his girlfriend, they go back to check on Maggie, only to find her house in ruins...

But the master has not forgotten the rest that was there...

This was a great book! I loved it! I sat and read through it in one sitting! Perfect for a rainy afternoon!

I did enjoy the novel and O'Callaghan certainly knows how to create a magical sense of time and place. His descriptive writing of Irish landscape and climate is beautiful and real and this was one of the strongest elements of this short novel.

The author's well written words describing Ireland made me feel as if I were there. I enjoyed the descriptions of the cottage and the beach. Even the cover was eerie with the darkness of the cliffs.

I expected it to be a bit more of a horror story and more paranormal. But still it was an enjoyable read. It was a bit of a shock to see how the cottage and Maggie changes. This is a new to me author and I'd like to read more of his works.

* I was provided an ARC to read from the publisher and NetGalley to read. It was my decision to read and review this book.

I’m really not sure how I feel about this book. On the one hand, the author does a great job of creating a sense of place and a sense of menace that hangs over the entire tale. It’s unsettling, and well done. However, there’s no real conclusion to the narrative. The sense of unfinished business is almost as unnerving as the haunting presence that is brought to life by the Ouija board. I’m torn between feeling that the author wanted to leave the reader with this sense of menace and danger, and the thought that he just couldn’t figure out how to effectively end his story, so he didn’t.

I think, overall, I have to say there’s some great writing, but it feels ultimately unfinished, which is disappointing. 2 1/2 stars.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

First I have to say that the first 30% of this book was somehow slow for me. For this kind of genre and a short length book, I have expected to get into the action faster. However, I have to say that the next 70% totally compensates the slow pace of the start. The writing is beautiful and suspenseful. The story might have been said before in different ways but the way the author has presented it makes it unique and chilling. This book has a great horror atmosphere to it.

I don't want to spoil much of the story and I don't want to reveal a lot of details here so I will just say the main important synopsis is that friends meet one night at an isolated cottage owned by their friend Maggie. That night they play Ouija board game for fun. But not knowing that all this changes their lives forever. Maggie never becomes herself and the main protagonist Mike who is telling us the story will live all his life to ask questions that has no answers!

I have chosen to read this book from the Read Now section on NetGalley and this is my honest unbiased review.

A very frightening story about a young female artist who has escaped an abusive spouse to relocate to a very old Irish cottage where an evil man once lived, and died. It is told through her benevolent friend who is consumed with guilt and feels responsible to recount her tale.

**TRIGGER WARNING**
It is not recommended that anyone read this novel who was ever raped or molested, or who is uncomfortable with descriptions of such a scene from the perspective of the rapist, or with mentions of suicide or domestic abuse.

Do you believe in ghosts?
A derelict cottage with breath taking scenery in a remote area shows tremendous potential.
Maggie is an artist needing somewhere to recoup after a traumatic event in her life. Mike is a friend who deals in fine arts, single and always comfortable in the presence of women. With financial assistance from Mike Maggie purchases what the locals call The Master cottage. When she has a few friends, stay for the weekend a presence soon makes itself known. A strange incident with the Ouija board is the start of things unnatural if not supernatural.
Time passes and Mike becomes concerned about Maggie’s erratic behavior. During a business trip, he decides to do a welfare check to ease his concerns. What he discovers is very alarming.
I thought this book was going to be a love story. That was before events started to turn the cogs in a subtle way. At times, it felt like the author was creating a bigger picture than the words themselves portrayed. It has a Wuthering Heights feel to it and seems set in a different era even though its only pre mobile phone days.
I shivered as I read the last few pages and even had a sense of foreboding. It is rare for a book to have such a great effect on me.
My rating for this book is 12 out of 10. I am amazed how some authors can create such great reads first time round. Their stars will shine brightly in Book Land.
I would describe this as a love story, gripping and haunting with a supernatural thread running through it. This one will take you by surprise and leave you feeling eager for the next.
I get the impression the author’s grandmothers were very special people and great storytellers. Surely, they would be impressed with this.
A very big thank you to Negalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of the book in return for an honest review.