The Spite House was an interesting read. I enjoyed the story though I did feel like it was missing a little something to elevate it up to the next level. I had never heard the term "spite house" before now and I like the concept quite a bit. If you like haunted house stories I would definitely recommend giving this one a read

Thank you NetGalley for the advance read. 3.5 stars. I've never heard of a Spite House before and what they mean and thanks to this book now I do. Eric Ross is running from his past with his two daughters. Leaving everything behind, including his wife. Looking for jobs on the runs is hard, especially when you can't really tell anyone who you are. In comes the Spite House and the horrors within. Definitely a job I would want to take on.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. This was a really solid haunted house story!

I personally enjoyed the first half with all of the build up and anticipation a bit more than the second half, but overall I had a really good time with this story. I really loved the family dynamics and following a father who would do anything (even willingly live in a haunted house) to protect his daughters.

There was also a really interesting reveal relating to a few of the characters, but I wish it would've been explored even more because it was one of my favorite parts!

There were more POVs in this story than I was expecting - you get POVs from nearly every character featured in the story - which I thought was a cool way to build the bigger picture of the story. I wish we could've also gotten journal entries from the previous tenants of this haunted house to add to the "creep factor."

This book also taught me what a "spite house" is, and I thought it worked out as a great device for a haunted house story.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me an ARC via NetGalley.

I have seen this book all over tiktok for MONTHS and it lives up to the hype. I read this slowly trying to take it all in. Get the ambiance of it all. Thank you so much for this ARC.

I really, really wanted to like this book. Then I spent nearly two weeks reading it in small chunks and the best I could say was that it acted as a terrific soporific. I set it aside at 58% without intention. I may pick it back up, or I may not. Then I listened to an interview with the author on the "She Wore Black" podcast. If you are a fan of horror/gothic fiction, I highly recommend it to you. The host, Agatha raved about this book and I enjoyed the insights from Johnny Compton. So many weeks later, having read 4 other books and watched multiple movies in the interim, I picked it back up and braced for a riveting conclusion. It never came. There are creepy elements in this book, but a whole lot of unanswered questions. The setup takes too long and it never really follows through with its promise of being creepy. I'd never heard of a Spite House before and agree that they are an excellent premise for a good ghost story, this one just isn't it.

I do love a creepy haunted house story! And this one was a delight... I wasn't familiar with the concept of a spite house before this book, so didn't initially know what everyone was talking about until I turn to Google - but what a brilliant concept to work into a haunted house tale!

This book had it all - creepy crawly unexplainable events, mysterious backstories, a blurring of the lines between life and death, curses, near misses and narrow escapes, and the love of a family underpinning it all. Compton has crafted a delightful tale that sent shivers up my spine and kept me furiously turning pages to see what would happen next...

I really enjoyed exploring the familial relationships here, and the way they did not play second fiddle to the underlying ghost story. Rather they were an essential part of everything that was going on, and I really think it made the story feel richer than your traditional ghost or haunted house story. I'm a sucker for great characterization and the combination of protective and fearful instincts in opposition to a never ending sense of curiosity about what was *really* going on was very dynamic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one!

I liked the Spite House, I thought it was a cool haunted house story. It had layers. I really enjoyed the writing style of having each chapter from a different characters perspective, up to around a dozen of them. The story moved along on a linear path but by having different characters tell different parts of the story it allowed the plot to be revealed in a slow and interesting way. And that was probably my favourite part of the book, was the slow drip of new information being added. You might miss it if you're not paying attention. It reads like a mystery in a horror book.

The only downside of the book for me was that there wasn't quite the payoff I was hoping for at the end. In fairness to the author though, I should probably re-read the book and there might have been some small details I missed that would have made the ending more satisfying. Good book. Four stars.

I went into The Spite House expecting a typical haunted house story, but Johnny Compton gave me so much more. The mystery of the Ross family's own history was gradually explained alongside the house's story, culminating in an ending that was simultaneously chilling and reassuring. The Spite House is a story about ghosts and family history, but also about grief and a father's love for his children.

Really enjoyed this one! Well written with engaging characters and a good amount of spookiness and complexity.

the spite house is a haunted house story exactly as i like them. it isn't simply a story about a mean house, trying to devour its inhabitants. there are layers.
eric and his daughters are on the run, though we don't know why. when they're offered a position to stay in the spite house and record any paranormal activity, it seems too good to be true. finally, no more motels and hiding in fear. but the owner of the house has impure motives. she herself is haunted, by a family curse that leaves her terrified of death. she is desperate to find out what comes next for her.
as the story progresses, i enjoyed all of the perspectives that added new info to the story. i found the ending to be sinister and satisfying.
the only comment that i have is i found there to be a lack of build up from when eric and his family arrive to the house and when the haunting started happening. i didn't think it took away from the story but it made me a little more aware of the pacing then i normally would have been.

I found very little interest in this book. The synopsis drew me in and I had high hopes, but I did not find it scary, which as a horror book is something that I feel should be there. There were a lot of components that went into this story and multiple POV showing back stories. But from all of that, I felt a little lost with too many stories combining. My rating: 2.5 stars out of 5, rounding up to 3 on goodreads.

Thank you to NetGally, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and Johnny Compton for providing me with these gifted copies in exchange for my honest review.

This book about a haunted house was exceptionally well written. This haunting was no ordinary haunting. The house, aptly named, Spite House was born from hundreds years of hate. Pure and simple. What was done to the land was not going to be forgotten. As the years passed, the inhabitants of the house wanted what was due to them. They were spiteful and nothing was ever going to change that. I know this was fiction but what if the premise of this book were true. Something to think about.

Firstly, thank you to netgalley for a copy of this to read and review.
When I started this book I had no idea what a spite house was and did spend a bit on google looking up real spite houses. I've read about haunted houses before but nothing like this book, there were so many unique ideas but I felt like I still had questions at the end. We start off with a family on the run and we don't find out why until about 50% through the book, and the activity in the house starts the very first day they enter it. I really enjoyed the creepiness of this book but also all representation of the black community by a black author.
Again this book was unique in its hauntings, taking a piece of you that it traps away in the house, while your physical body still continues on outside the house. No one knows but you and your "dreams".

I feel really fortunate to read this before the release date, and can't wait to see what else this author writes in the future.

Omg this is so good, a perfect haunted house novel. So spooky and atmospheric, tons of exhilarating shocks and reveals, and a throughline that's satisfying and earned.

This is certainly eerie and increasingly unsettling but there are too many POVs and so much is disconnected. Well written but poor execution (no pun intended). I mean, the house takes people, body and soul. But why?! The true source or motivation isn't really given. I wanted to hear more about the Renners and the surprise about Stacy was pretty shocking. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC

4.25/5

If you’re a fan of paranormal horror and haunted houses, definitely add this one to your radar! I finished this book in close to 24 hours because I just couldn’t put it down.

I personally love multiple POVs, of which there are many in this book - I immediately felt connected to all the main characters. I was extra invested in our little family of three and was terrified for them to entire time.

Aside from the haunted house, there are also multiple mysteries threaded throughout the book that you must uncover, which made it extra exciting (and harder to put down)!

This book follows Eric and his two daughters Dess and Stacy. On the run for a to-be-discovered reason from their Maryland home, they follow an advertisement to move to the Masson House in Texas. Eric's job is to record proof of paranormal activity for a huge payout that he cannot pass up.

This book succeeded in having a great, scary atmosphere, but I found it to be a little disappointing. Some of the dialogue is bloated, leaving me wishing they'd wrap up the conversations to get back to the action. The pacing is a bit off too, and the story of the house ends up a little too convoluted. I think it would've been more powerful had some of the details been left out.

The Spite House has been well reviewed, and I do like supporting new horror authors, as it's one of my favorite genres, so I think this is worth a read if you enjoy gothic horror, but I was a little let down.

This one sucked me in much like the spite house sucks in its unfortunate occupants. I love a good haunted house story and am even more intrigued when the living are just as haunting as the dead.

~ 3.25✰ rounded to 3✰ ~

This book had an amazing start. The author did a fantastic job setting up the story and characters + getting the reader invested in the Ross family. He drops all of these delicious breadcrumbs that really pulled me in and had me asking all kinds of questions + getting excited about learning the answers.
I also really loved what he did with the sisters in this story. Adore seeing positive sisterly relationships in my reads~

While the book started out strong, it didn't take very long for it to start to drag for me. I felt like there were too many exposition dumps that I wished were more organically woven into the narrative rather than dropped on the reader all at once. I was also surprised about how little time was spent in the titular house + felt my attention wavering in the sections spent away. Additionally, there were a lot of side character POV switches, and I felt like it really brought down the mood and the pacing.

All in all, it was an enjoyable read, but not something that I would revisit. And while this read wasn't a new favorite for me, I'm still looking forward to seeing what this author has in store for us in the future.

Would recommend this to readers who enjoy stories about haunted houses, generational trauma, and family bonds.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for providing the ARC for review.

The Spite House started off like a rocket, a father and two daughters on a mysterious flight across country from an unspecified danger in their old life and propelled towards a haunted house story. There a strong Haunting of Hill House vibes about it in the way that even looking at the very shape of the house causes people to feel bad. I was really hooked immediately and felt like I was being set up for a classic.

Unfortunately, the second half went off the rails. There were too many major plot lines that made no sense and were neither explained nor resolved.

If it wasn't for the start and the promise it showed, I'd have given this a 1.5-2 stars instead.

I can't really specify the issues I had with it so, here goes with the spoliers ...


///////////////////// Some fairly major spoilers ahead /////////////////



The old woman's aim was to put an end to a family curse that sees them die of heart attacks in great fear, it seems. But the woman is 80 and while you wish everyone a long life you'd wonder what she was fighting so hard against and risking other peoples life and minds. The fact that she was the last of her line meant that she wasn't even solving it for future generations.

We never find out why of how the little girl comes back from the dead.

We never find out why or how the WWI soldier - later the spite house owner and ghost - comes back from the dead.

We never get a sense of what this deep, dark, malevolent entity is that's behind everything and why it bothers with this cosmically miniscule situation.

We never really find out why Eric was so fixated on getting back to his grandparents' house and then why that was abandoned and they moved to California instead. Was it because he got his cosmic kicks in the house?

Too much going on, not enough care taken to tie things together. Feels like a strong editor should've worked this one over.