This horror novella didn’t entirely work for me, though I appreciated a number of things about it (the setting, the tension, the fact that it didn’t give the reader too many answers too quickly). The structure kind of annoyed me, with the order of events jerking around. It’s hard to describe, but first you get the frame story, the “present day” if you will. Then you jump back in time to the crisis point of other characters’ story… then forward just a little to how those characters got into that situation. Then forward back to the present day, and then a new set of characters.

It feels like the story tried very hard to come full circle, bring things together and find a way to end the story — but it felt like it missed a step. How did a certain character figure things out? Why is she so eager to save people she doesn’t know?

It’s an interesting novella but I didn’t find it wholly successful.

This was just... not for me. I'm afraid I don't have much to say about this one, and a large part of that is because the story felt strangely clinical and emotionless. I found it difficult to connect in any way with the characters, which left me detached from what was going on. A really cool concept, but the execution was a miss for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Folk horror is one of my absolute favorites sub-genres of horror, and this book has this in spades. While I definitely had to look some of this up(just as I have with other books in the past), I wasn't disappointed in what I found. Mombauer creates a rich world, rife with danger and apprehension at each turn. I do wish there had been more detail on who had the home designed the way it was. I really feel like knowing who did it and why would have added rich details to an already well written tale. I know some people say there are too many characters, but honestly I love character rich stories and I feel like there was just enough information given with each to tie them into the story well.

With such a limited amount of entries into the horror world that are firmly based on the climate crisis, I feel like The House of Drought is one that cannot be overlooked. It has a lot to say, and we should all be listening.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! I really enjoyed this one. The writing was fully immersive and the setting was relatively new to me in horror. The overarching themes of climate really worked for me, and the horror hit home! Definitely one I'll be keeping in mind for customers!

This is an interesting novella about a peculiar house which has the misfortune to have been built in a forest it should never have been built inside. Having been built, it acts as a sort of shadow place where others are trapped and still others are haunted by the weight of lack created by its very existence. There are layers here, time gets fluid, mythology gets blended in, and people are the ones who pay the price as the balance of nature is thrown into flux by their blindness to the need for it. I felt like it might have been better as a fully realized novel, but the novella we have here is quite nice in its current form as well.

Review - The House of Drought by Dennis Mombauer

I was expecting more from this. The story had a lot of promise—a colonial mansion in the Sri Lankan woods is watched closely by a mysterious and potentially angry entity that lives in the woods called the Sap Mother. The story has several characters, but I’d say the main focus is on Jasmit. She discovers the hidden house within the house-called the dry house (it involves a sink). Sort of haunted house-y but not really.

The way this book jumped between timelines without any headers was really difficult to follow and definitely took me out of the story. The book is billed as “a haunted house for the climate change era” and that sounds awesome but in my opinion doesn’t describe this book very well.

Overall, a unique story idea, but fell a bit flat for me. Thanks to @netgalley for the e-arc. This book is out now.

The tagline of "A haunted house for the climate change era" isn't incorrect, but nor do I feel it's wholly accurate either. For example, that doesn't give you a hint of the folklore (!!!) style of this novella, which was my favourite aspect of this story. I loved how the different acts felt almost like folktales in a lot of ways; I maybe would have read an entire book of just different vignettes like this.

The last act and chapter both had some tension, which was nice to see how the entire book culminated in a clear action climax. And the author's writing lended itself well to this - I found his writing pretty simple, and this is absolutely 100% a personal preference but: I like my horror or my folktales to feature really atmospheric, visceral writing. So the writing didn't quite work for <i>what I personally wanted.</i>

I think there were some very unique and interesting ideas in this - haunted house that has a direct connection to water and thirst! Pretty cool way to tie it into modern climate change, right? But I feel like a lot of the ideas could have benefited from more page-space, as there was a LOT to explore in a short novella. I don't know if a novel-length expansion of this would have been for me, but I think it could have led to more exploration of the house's history and mythology, as well as a deeper connection to climate change and more character development - actually, I think I've talked myself into thinking that it could very well be for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Overall, this wasn't quite like anything I've read before, and in a fairly good way!

I wanted to love this novella - a ghost story that ties into climate change. It's not often that a horror story attempts to tackle such large scare issues, but there was too much going on through the story. I do realize that with a novella you don't get all the answers you're hoping for - but sometimes less is more and I think if the author had pulled back a little it would have been a more fulfilling, more cohesive story.

Thank you to NetGalley and SFWA for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Stelliform Press titles never fail to be interesting. The House of Drought is no exception. Its use of creepy surrealism and vivid descriptions of both natural and unnatural scenery create a spooky and immersive environment for its vignettes about climate change and colonial history.

I did struggle a little with the ethics and optics of a white European author telling Sri Lankan stories. While Mombauer does try to sidestep this issue a bit through the framing story about a film crew of extraction apparently similar to his own, I would have liked to see more engagement with the complexity of telling stories about places and people one doesn't belong to. He gestures at this, but, perhaps due to the book's brevity, doesn't quite get to a place that fully worked for me.

The best parts of this book, for me, are the ones that depict the sheer strangeness of the house the many characters pass through. The air of mystery that permeates the disparate stories woven together by their interactions with the house and the local history around it helped the separate sections avoid feeling disjointed. Between the Dry House and the frighteningly alluring Sap Mother who waits in the woods--and, sometimes, does not wait--there are plenty of eerie and uncanny moments to give summer readers a pleasantly shivery reading experience.

I really wanted to like this book. The topic is great - a gothic novel set in Sri Lanka just called to all the things I love! Add in climate change, and post-colonialism and I was really looking forward to this. The cover puts you in the atmosphere too. The problem is the main character is the house & forest... and I would have preferred it to be about the people.
I am very much a fan of characterization and fleshed-out intriguing fascinating heroes. Truthfully, I read any genre as long as I like the people in the book. Here it just jumped from one to another without giving you enough to know anyone or care. I guess this wasn't the point. But it made it hard for me to be invested in the story and I just rushed through. I think I would have liked it much better if it had just stuck to one of the groups, hinting at the history.
Great ideas, but I think I would have liked them treated a little differently.

I'll give this book credit for a really cool cover and a good idea for a plot that links a mysterious mythical presence in an old, abandoned house in Sri Lanka to the consequences of climate change and global warming - a climate thriller, so to speak.

The execution of said plot, however, left much to be desired: The mystery was not nearly adequately explained, there were quite some plotholes and logical discrepancies throughout the story, and I only made the connection between climate change and the events happening in the novel because it was loudly announced on the blurp. What's more, the characters were flat and for the most part badly fleshed out, and the overall inner structure of the novel was deeply flawed and often rather incoherent.

This book had a lot of potential and I was really excited to read it, but in order to live up to its potential the novel would have had to be at least double its lenght, and a lot more attention should have been given to how climate change shaped and influenced the events in the story.

House of Drought was a short horror novella that covered climate change, but more than that it talked about colonialism—which I found to be a larger theme than climate change.

I think the story was well written. It was a great novella. However, I feel the themes of the book were inadequately addressed due to the length of the book. I believe that it would have been more impactful had it been a full novel, where we would have been able to get fully engrossed into the world and see how it was changing and be moved by the change.

2.5

Thank you NetGalley for giving me an ARC in exchange of an honest review

I was attracted by the concept of a horror, set in Sri Lanka and with elements of local folklore, connected with climate change and colonial expansion.
I found interesting the changing POVs, but they changed so fast an always at the climax. The narrating voices were also a tad flat, it seemed like it was always the same voice narrating.
Maybe because it was a novella, but there was not a lot of tension build up, everything happens so fast and “painlessly”, like ripping off a plaster. A lot of questions are left unanswered, like: What’s the link between the Sap Mother and the Dry House? Why would the house keep people trapped in there?
The premises were intriguing, but the story left me a bit confused and high and dry (no pun intended).

I was incredibly excited by the idea of ecological horror. The concept and the premise were absolutely exciting, and there are places throughout where the plot really hits that mark and sticks it to you, however much of the plot moves just a little too fast. There are number of stories told as a group of filmmakers aims to make a climate change documentary about the region. I wish that the individual stories told about the House of Drought, as the plot seemed to move once I became invested in a character. That said, the plot is pretty fast paced, and this made for an easy, thought-provoking afternoon read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

What I really liked about this book is that, this was a unique ghost tale in Sri Lanka. It worked perfectly in the context and it was really well written. The characters are great and I really enjoyed the authors writing.

The House of Drought has a very strong premise and theme, however suffers a lack of time to delve into these with its novella length. It doesn't give enough time to breath and let the reader absorb it's story and character. The POV changes can really take one out of the moment and hurt the momentum a scene was building up. This ultimately detracts from the interesting ideas on display.

I didn't realize that this was not a full length novel. I read it quickly regardless. I really enjoyed the perspectives of this story. The children's perspective and then the documentary crew's perspective. It's really great to weave the story. Also like the magical thread that runs through it.

“Humans change the world around them, no?”

I was intrigued with the description of this book but a little apprehensive because I’m not a huge science fiction fan. Still, the idea of a haunted house mixed with a deeper message about climate change helped me make the decision to read it.

The book is not very long at 106 pages so it is a very quick read. But the story is complex moving between different times and characters. I’ll admit I felt like I wasn’t fully grasping the entire message.

I really enjoyed the idea of The Sap Mother/White Woman. The story reminds me of Princess Mononoke and the forest spirits being angered by the humans.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book. I have written this review voluntarily.

Thank you to NetGalley and Stelliform Press for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Marketed as "a haunted house story for the climate change era" I was instantly intrigued to see where this novella would take me. It is a non-linear story following a German documentary film crew in Sri Lanka, exploring the impacts of climate change on the local farmland. During their filming, the crew comes across an abandoned colonial mansion and in between this main narrative we see glimpses of those who inhabited the house before and the forces within the house and the bordering forest that threaten those within it.

I thought it was a really interesting exploration, using Sri Lankan folklore, into the consequences of colonial expansion through the neglect and disregard for the land, people, and traditions being encroached upon, however with the story being so short it left much to be desired. The intersections between colonialism and climate change are vast and complex and I feel it is just too difficult to really be able to flesh out those nuances in such a short story as this. That's not to say I did not enjoy it, because I did, I just think it could have benefited from allowing more room to expand upon the ideas it presents the readers with as I feel it would have made the story far more impactful. Additionally, as this is a horror story, I wanted more horror. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be afraid of and there was not a lot of tension built up that allowed the ending to be satisfying.

Overall, it was an interesting read that I would recommend for lovers of haunted house stories, however, it falls short in a number of areas that would have turned this story from a good one into a great one.

I requested to read this book because it was marked as “A haunted house story for the climate change era”. I liked the concept of grappling with large scale issues through the lens of horror, especially through the haunted houses trope, as they’ve always freaked me out. It’s something about the contrast of home as (supposed) sanctuary with home as a place of foreboding.

It turned out that this novella was much more than that. This is a story about imperialist expansion and colonial imposition, that details the horrors of taking too much, and the ramifications of and ignoring the people, the land, and traditional knowledge.

Set in Sri Lanka, this novella grapples with these complex topics through multiple periods of time and POVs. However, the perspective and timeline changed so much I often felt lost in the story. I normally like fluctuations between times and POVs, but it was just too ambitious for such a short novel. I needed more time to find my bearings to really feel immersed in the dread.

As well, while the author does explain that he’s not from Sri Lanka and these are not his stories to tell, I feel like this is a theme that should have been further explored in the novel. There were many points (e.g. the German filmmaker Bernhard’s POV) in which this could’ve been broadened and expanded.

Ultimately, I think the ideas were just much too large to be grappled with in such a short novella and the storylines should’ve been either edited down to a novella form or expanded into a full novel.

Check out this book if you’re looking for a story:
* That’s Pan’s Labyrinth-esque
* Has an atmospheric, descriptive setting
* Incorporates elements of gothic dread

While this book wasn’t really for me, I am still hoping to check out future books pubished by Stelliform Press, whose mission is to share Earth-focused fiction and stellar stories to shape conversations around our climate change to world and our place within it. Climate fiction is a burgeoning genre that I’m hoping to explore further.

Notable quotes:
“The forest never forgave those who built the house.”
“This place is quiet. It shouldn’t be here, and neither should we.”