Perfect read for “spooky season”! This is an atmospheric and sinister book inside a book story about a haunted house filled with monsters. Boo!

Thank you NetGalley, Hyperion Avenue, and the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Malice House is a place long rumored to be haunted. The former homeowner, a successful author, suffered from dementia before his death and made claims about fantastical creatures within his house. It sounds like a familiar setup, and to some extent it is. However, Shepherd brought a fresh, fun spin to the haunted house story and soon moved the plot beyond familiar haunting territory and into an otherworldy mashup of thriller, gothic horror, dark fantasy, fairytale, and magic.

I adored the setting! The fog, the unabating rain, the oceanside cliffs and dark forests of the Pacific Northwest were a perfect, eerie backdrop for the mysterious goings on in small town Lundie Bay.

The characters were intriguingly secretive and suspicious acting and nobody seemed trustworthy for long. Motivations and allegiance were constantly being called into question. I was fully invested in this group of complex characters, though some patience was required since most answers weren't revealed until the final 25% of the book.

I loved the excerpts from Bedtime Stories For Monsters! Those passages set such a creepy, unnerving tone and led me down the path of questioning what was truth and what was story.

This story ended up being very different from what I expected, but exactly what I didn't know I wanted to read until it was handed to me. I loved it from the first to the final page! I thoroughly enjoyed visiting this world and meeting these characters and can't wait to see what the author has planned next.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Hyperion Avenue for providing me a copy to read and review.

This is a twisty and good book. It took me a bit to get into though but overall enjoyed this book! The author did a great job of adding detail and the characters were likable.

I was lucky enough to read an advanced readers copy of this book, perfect timing in preparing for spooky season.

I loved the creepy and spooky feeling of the book and really enjoyed the premise.

I did struggle to form character attachment as I felt there wasn’t very many character descriptions or personality quirks, which made it hard for me to feel “in” the story.

This book is definitely more of a slow burn, which I enjoy at times but my ADHD sometimes prevents. Overall, it’s 3.5 stars for me!

**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

Actual rating: 3.5

Megan Shepherd's latest book Malice House combines the haunted house with the book about books. Haven Marbury goes to Malice House after her Pulitzer-winner father dies. Haven is left to get the house in order to sell or keep, with no other inheritance. As Haven is fleeing domestic violence, she has no other place to go and no other funds to use. Haven knows about the rumors surrounding Malice House and about the bear attack deaths in the surrounding woods. Soon, Haven begins to suspect bears didn't attack anyone and there are more deaths than ever to explain.

As with all horror and thriller type books, please seek content warnings if needed.
I will be doing my best to give this review without spoilers.

Shepherd's writing is accessible and well-paced, particularly for a thriller. I did find the twists to be a bit transparent, but they did make sense for the story being told. As such, there was never a real sense of tension or a particular thrill for me. Haven and Kylie's friendship was welcome, as was the character of Rafe in general.

I did like seeing a more horror/thriller take on the book on books trope that is very common in fantasy. I was glad that Shepherd leaned all the way in to the developments surrounding Haven's family rather than trying to explain them away later. I did find that several things were left unresolved, which was a bit unsatisfying for me and made me question whether this book is intended to stand alone or if room was deliberately left for later exploration.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Malice House even if I was a little lukewarm on how things played out. I would not hesitate to pick up another book by Shepherd in the future.

I wonderfully chilling, thrilling and horrifying novel of utmost suspense. Shepherd has done something truly great with this one.

💀👻💀👻💀
Awesome horror novel!
Haven Marburys father dies who was a famous author and she starts cleaning out his mansion. She finds old horror manuscripts never published then the trouble begins.
This is a Gothic, eerie book full of monsters. Kept me up at night!
Thanks NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for this ARC!

Like a modern-day Grimm’s fairy tale (the scary kind for grownups), Malice House, by Megan Shepherd, takes readers on a fun-house ride through the dark side of art and literature.

After a mysterious fight with her husband, Haven Marbury returns to her father’s creepy house in the Pacific Northwest, hoping to start her life over. But very early on, she is drawn into the mysteries of Malice House, and before she knows it, she has been drawn into something darker even than the ultra-dark horror movies she summarizes for a meager living. Bathtub slashers don’t faze her, but whomever—whatever—is lurking in her fathers house is all too real—and it wants something from her.

Isolated and unsure of whom to trust (her handsome neighbor? The persistently-friendly young woman at the local bookstore? The Ink Drinkers club her father has been a part of?), Haven must make her way through mysteries on top of lies, on top of nightmares as she delves deep into her past in an attempt to get out of Malice House alive.

I, for one, hope this isn’t the last we see of Haven Marbury, as dangerous as that may be for her—and for us.

What a creepy, creepy tale! Haven Marbury, is a struggling illustrator and recovering from a failed marriage. Following her father's deaeth has come to his house to clean it out and determine it's worth. Her father was a famous, an author of dark and ghoulish stories - some so good that he was awarded a Pulitzer. However, very little of his fortune is left due to mismanagement and Haven is doing her best to clean out the house and find a way to stay afloat. In the attic she finds an interesting and unusual manuscript of short tales that compels her to illustrate them. She is hoping an illustrated companion book may be just what she needs to start again. But there is something very wrong in the Marbury Mansion and the people in town seem well aware of it. Was Haven's father suffering from dementia or was there something much more sinister at work?

This premise is VERY UNIQUE and highly recommended to all horror lovers. It was creepy and grotesque and may just keep you up all night. If you like a good (great!) horror story, like an unusual plot and maybe just want to stay up all night reading - Malice House is for you!
#HyperionAvenue #MaliceHouse #MeganShepherd #Netgalley #Netgalleyreads

My sincere thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this ARC.

Imagine mixing the dark dreamy world of Coraline with a plot line of an estranged daughter’s return to her father’s house upon his passing. Only once in the home and beginning the cleaning out process, the daughter, Haven, discovers some of her father’s writing that was never published. But it is distinctly different than the works he is best known for. Children’s stories, in fact. But these are children’s stories that are dark and filled with monsters. And Haven is forced to reflect on if there are any similarities between these monsters and those that her father, sinking into dementia, swore were haunting his home during his final years. Malice House never used to seem haunted…but something is certainly different and it isn’t just these writings. Is the house truly haunted or did Haven’s father begin dark imaginings as he got more and more ill?

While not a perfect book, the ending alone clinched this as a fantastic read. I did not see that end coming and I loved being surprised!

Reasons to Read
-Girl returns home - After her father’s death, Haven returns home to clean up her father’s house.
-Short stories - she finds some short stories he has written filled with monsters and she decides to try to turn it into a graphic novel
-Monsters come to life- But then she begins being haunted by the same monsters her father wrote about. So Haven starts to wonder if her father was writing about his experiences or if his dementia was worse than she thought. This book is super creepy and if you get scared easily, I do not recommend reading this at night.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Malice House is the story of Haven Marbury, daughter of acclaimed author Amory Marbury. More than that, Malice House is the story of the power of the art you put into the world.

Haven inherits her father's house after his death. Soon after arriving, she discovers an unpublished manuscript hidden away in the attic. Seeing dollar signs and inspired by her laye father's work, Haven takes to illustrating the stories her father penned, hoping to publish them together. She could never understand the forces her work was about to unleash onto the world.

Malice House, while conceptually scary, was not scary at all. It lacked that suspense and perceived stakes necessary to shine in the horror genre. I know this is Shepherd's 1st adult novel, but I was expecting a bit darker tone with these themes.

I found the human characters a bit flat. The monster characters were written well, but they only got a few pages to really shine. I wish we would have gotten more of these characters outside of thwir description in the manuscript. Interweaving passages from the manuscript (each chapter starts off with snippets of short stories from Bedtime for Monsters) was clever, and gave a bit more life to the characters and experiences in the novel. I honestly found these passages much more intriguing and well written than the main plot itself.

There were some pretty big inconsistencies that took me out of the story at times. One example Shepherd even notes in the acknowledgements at the end of the book that she knew nothing about firearms, yet chose to make a shotgun a central part of the 2nd act (the recoil of a shotgun does not send you flying a foot backwards). Writing a character that knows nothing about guns does not excuse doing improper research. This example coupled with other inconsistencies (Haven saying she forgot her phone and lost track of time and simultaneously knowing it is 3am, etc.) made the experience a bit less enjoyable.

The concept was extremely intriguing, but the execution was a bit lackluster. I wanted to love it, but I found it a bit of a slog to get through in parts. That said, if you're down for a unique concept and some philosophizing on the power of art, it might still be worth a read.

Crossposted to Goodreads at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4958197421

Thank you Netgalley and Hyperion Avenue for this arc.

This book started off so promising and it was a big disappointment for me. I thought about DNFing it many times but I was very curious whether I was going to change my opinion at the end.

Here we follow Haven Marbury who inherits her father’s estate, known as Malice House. Her father, Arthur Marbury, was a Pulitzer Prize winner author. They did not have the best of the relationships but after his death Haven goes back to Malice House to try to figure out what to do with her father’s estate. While exploring and cleaning the house, she comes across a manuscript, unlike anything Arthur Marbury has published before.

Haven decides to illustrate and publish the manuscript, and that’s when weird things start to happen. I was very much enjoying the mystery of the plot but suddenly the author started to insert everything that possibly crossed her mind and the narrative ended up sounding like a crazy ride, a circus, or better said, a freak show. It was just too much! The protagonist seemed very interesting and perceptive of her surroundings, catching all the hints and comprehending what was about to happen, but I started to dislike her immensely by the second half of the novel.

And to make things worse, the story dragged soooooo much, I thought it would never come to an end. It definitely could have been reduced by about 100 pages. When the book finally came to an end, it could not be a more uninteresting ending. I am sitting down here thinking: “Was it fantasy what I just read? Why did she insert many elements in a novel? Why, really why?” With all the crazy unbelievable things going on in this story, I think I am unable to define and categorize this novel.

And I will not, because I refuse to do it. I refuse to spend more time thinking about Malice House.

First off, thank you so much to #Netgalley, the publisher and especially the author for this ARC!
This book was a lot of fun to read- I read it in one sitting! I agree with others that the first half felt like it went by much quicker than the second half but that’s not to say the second half dragged…. The creepy atmosphere in this book was amazing, I felt like I could see and smell the ocean and there were some seriously creepy moments with the monsters that kept me reading with a light on 🫣

How much power to we give a story in the telling of it? Does writing about haunted houses suddenly make you feel as if there is something lurking in the dark, and once you have a picture of it, do you see it everywhere you look?

When we first meet Haven she is running from something, and toward the home that was left to her by her father. While trying to clean it up, and looking for some liquid courage she comes across the yellowing pages of a new manuscript. A story unlike anything her father had ever written before, full of monsters of all kinds, that would have you peering under your bed every night before you sleep, and second guessing everyone you meet. Her fingers are itching to illustrate this story and bring it to life, which leads her into a whole lot of trouble. It seems everyone is after that manuscript, leading to Haven being hounded by her fathers so called friends, and to people breaking into her house. When other strange things start happening inside of the house, and people she knows start ending up brutally killed Haven wonders what how its all connected. Could it possibly have something to do with what her fathers written?

This book took me by surprise on how much I enjoyed reading it. It was creepy, and atmospheric, and between the main story and Bedtime Stories for Monsters it had me second guessing every strange sound and shadow. This book was absoutley perfect in how it was told and Haven was a very compeling charater to follow. I loved her job, she watches obscure horror movies and writes summaries for them.

I think the only things that would have made this book even better for me would be if we got to see Haven's illustrations of her fathers stories, and if she would have ended up with the guy in the end. He is all kinds of problematic but I am hopeful he could be redeemed, and I think they are perfect for each other.

I can't wait to read more by this author!

Sigh. I want to start off by saying not only did this book seem to take forever to read but it also put me in a severe reading slump.

I hated everything about Malice House. I hate nothing more than when an author tries to create the imagery of an unreliable female main character by making her an extreme alcoholic who doesn’t eat and herself and everyone around her thinks she’s insane. All of the characters were extremely unlikable and hardly any were really fully developed besides Haven. So many storylines and sub plots were started and many were rarely fully developed. Many were just dropped or poorly attempted to interweave during this unnecessarily long novel. I felt there was so many instances where there were pages upon pages of descriptions of a room or a setting, all for a brief event to occur or none of it to even matter in the long run.
One of the greatest offenses is Malice House is categorized in the horror, mystery, thriller genre. None of which it belongs. There was a poor attempt at a romance. No real horror unless you consider imaginary monsters that only really had imagery and no actual persona to fear. And needless to say any thriller reader would be severely disappointed.

I’m annoyed I wasted so much time reading Malice House but alas I felt I needed to read it in its entirety to give it a fully honest review in exchange for the ARC copy I received from Hyperion Avenue via Netgalley.

This book was incredible!!! I was hooked from the beginning. Highly recommend! There were so many twists and turns that I was guessing until the end. Thank you so much to Megan for an ARC of this book I really enjoyed it.

Malice House had what I was looking forward to in a thriller/horror like read but it fell short for me. While it is a very well written book, I was missing the tension build up needed. Instead what I got was a very mundane start and slow moving plot. With this said, there was one plot twist that stood out because it was very unexpected and I enjoyed discovering that part there. There was definitely a unique idea for a story but I think it needed something more to push it to be more interesting.

I will say the manuscript, Bedtime Stories for Monsters, that our main character finds is what got me the most and I would have loved reading that story. I really liked the little plots sprinkled in at the beginning of the chapters because it was creepy and I wanted more of that. I found those short blurbs to be more horror than the main story itself.

I found it hard to care for the main character to the point of almost disliking her. Her knee jerk reaction to having her work criticized to her dialogue with others wasn't my favorite part. She always felt like she was on the defense and while that was understandable, it was hard to get any character growth. I'm also not the biggest fan of the other characters, they felt very two dimensional.

For the plot, again it was slow. A lot of mundane events with not enough horror. The horror parts weren't the strongest and I wanted more of it. Close to 60% through the book and that's where the story started to pick itself up and I was getting excited. There was more action happening and I finally felt like the plot was moving. But after a while, I was getting bored with the events and ready for it to end. It felt like a laundry list with the author throwing as many characters and gore in as possible. The plot wasn't well balanced.

Overall, Malice House was very well written but the pacing and characters were off for me. I wanted more horror and stronger characters and storyline. It was missing the tension build up and I wasnt terrified of the events happening. Just wasn't a book for me.

Loved this book! Truly suspenseful. I felt like I was guessing the whole time, and the ending was perfect!

A unique yet comfortable tale of a haunted house, a world-weary grown adult orphan with a secret (and a rich ex-husband, always a nice touch), a reclusive novelist, people getting they hands cut off, etc. A winning entrant from I guess, "Disney's Hyperion Press"? We will see how that works out.