The Spite House is a great read for spooky season - or if you are a fan of ghost stories in any season. This book has a lot going on: a father on the run with his two daughters, a wealthy benefactor who is deeply afraid of a family curse, a small town with secrets, a super weird looking haunted house, a dilapidated and abandoned orphanage, paranormal researchers and skeptics, and some deeply intertwined spite and rage. Personally, I found the book to be more unsettling and mysterious than scary. There were several plot points that were teased for a long time before they were explained. The point of view shifted frequently and often overlapped a bit with the previous chapter. Definitely worth a read if the synopsis sounds like your kind of story.

This was a 3.5 for me, rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley for early access to this spooky read.

A spite house is a building constructed or substantially modified to irritate neighbors or any party with land stakes. -Definition coming from Google.

I have seen Curb Your Enthusiasm and know that you can do all things through spite. I didn’t realize that Spite Houses were real. After learning the definition, I became to remember houses that had no purpose but to annoy the neighbors.

I was immediately drawn to The Spite House after reading the synopsis and seeing the cover. I love haunted houses and gothic stories so this was perfect for me.

Every ghost story is going to come with a balance of belief and disbelief. Compton does a great job of adding scary ghost stories while still doubting existence. I loved parts with characters sharing their personal experiences.

The story is told in different perspectives which allow the story, background and more without lengthy chapters. We are able to see the events from all angles.

The Spite House is a classic ghost story that sheds light on the loss of loved ones. If you grew up reading scary stories and scouring the internet for footage of real ghosts caught on film, this is for you.

Thank you NetGalley for providing a copy. I have written this review voluntarily.

Gothic horror is one of my favorite sub-genres, so I was really psyched for this. So psyched in fact that I skipped over many 2022 arcs to read this 2023 one. Plus I needed a Black Horror read for my Book’s in the Freezer challenge!

Now onto the book. I found the plot intriguing, the setting chillingly atmospheric, and it wasn’t as slowly paced as some other gothic horror books I’ve read. A small town, a generational curse, a family on the run with secrets, a father so desperate for money that he stays in a haunted house. So many good things going on! To compare, this was like the absolute opposite of The Haunting of Hill House, another GH that I gave the same rating to. Whereas that one captured a character’s slow descent into madness with more of a psychological angle than a pure ghost story (it’s different from the show y’all), this was 1000% about ghosts with a focus on grief and rage. Now, a book full of ghosts and grief is not at all a bad thing. Quite the contrary. I just found some of the writing to be clunky, there was way too many POVs, and I had some unanswered questions that I was really hoping to see resolved by the end. Overall, I thought it was a solid read! Not my favorite gothic horror but definitely not my least.

3.5 ⭐️

Thank you, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire, for allowing me to read The Spite House early!

I liked and simultaneously disliked this novel. It was an interesting exploration of grief, but it lacked that je-ne-sais-quoi to make it a standout.

I love a good haunted house story, particularly a southern/Texas-centric haunted house story. This story was ok, though the writing was a bit clunky for my taste and made it hard for me to immerse myself in the world.

The Spite House by Johnny Compton was freaking phenomenal!
Where to start with this one. It was creepy, atmospheric, and amazingly written.
A brilliant gothic thriller that had me glued to my Kindle.
This book is extremely dark, creepy, and absorbing.
Compton does a great job of keeping the reader on edge for the entire book,
I read it entirely in one sitting, and loved all its strange twists and turns.
Absolutely loved this book and Johnny Compton's writing!

Tor Nightfire,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

3.5 stars
This is a great haunted house horror novel. Super creepy, with high tension. Nice medium pacing and fun reading.

Eric has left his entire life, including his wife, behind in Maryland. He’s taken his two daughters and is desperately looking for somewhere to live and a way to make some money. In his current situation, he can’t provide any information about his past, so he’s thrilled to discover that the Masson House in a small Texas town needs a live-in caretaker. Well, kind of. It turns out that the Masson House is rumored to be the most haunted place in Texas, the owner of the property wants Eric to keep a log of any and all paranormal goings on. Eric finds it nard to believe the stories about previous caretakers going crazy after spending time in the house. All he knows is that he has a place to hide with his daughters and he has the chance to claim a big monetary prize if he can provide the evidence, But that’s a big if, in this super creepy haunted house thriller