Now that's one heck of a ghost story!

Love that the theme of anger over generations and how that learned behavior affects yourself and those around you without you even realizing before it's to late. So much anger in this novel!! There was a lot of sub stories with all the characters involved but I thought it all came together well and Eric has a good head on his shoulders and didn't take any crap from anyone. Just the type of character needed to survive everything that had happened. Now with that said, I thought there were a lot of characters but I didn't think they all needed POV's in the book. Like the story coming out could've been achieved without coming directly from that character, ya know?

I read another review that said we now need a story about Eric, Des, and Stacy at the house in Odessa and I AGREE! PLEASE PUBLISH THAT!!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Nightfire for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Spite House was a perfectly paced ghost story. The end left me wishing for a little bit more, but left room for the imagination.

A magical, extraordinary, unforgettable, debut novel! Already a favorite of my 2023 reading (and of 2023 releases). Resonating on themes Historical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, of bigotry reversed by compassion, rage overcoming demise, love overcoming death, devotion and determination: THE SPITE HOUSE is magical in many senses. All these characters (present and past) are rolling at 1000%, emotions, intent, and intellect wide open! So many layers of stories are wrapped up together and woven into one intense experience for the wide-eyed reader with imagination cranked to the max. Just perfect. Never forget.

Now can we please have a sequel in which Eric, Dess, and Stacy acquire Pa-PaFred's land/house in Odessa? And in which we learn more about Fred's life and secrets??

Gosh, this one had such a solid set up yet fell so flat in literally the last 25%. I genuinely enjoyed the first half of this book- the setting was super creepy, the mysteries were intriguing, and I had fun hypothesizing how it was all going to turn out. But the pacing of the second half leaves a lot to be desired. We spend so much time re-hashing the same moments out in different character POVs, and then all of the sudden it's a mad dash to get to the ending, where everything happens abruptly and very little is tied up.

My biggest gripe with this book was the truly excessive number of POVs we got throughout. Personally, I really enjoy a multi-POV book. But 10?? For why?? There are so many details and storylines weaved throughout this book, and while I do think that some were thoughtful and well-crafted, others were muddled and just plain confusing. Being left in the dark and trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together is a fun feeling in the beginning of a story, but when I've reached the last 10 pages of the book and I still don't understand wtf is going on, I start to get annoyed.

I feel like this book would have been a lot stronger if we focused on a few less storylines and really delved deeper into the anchoring ones. Either way, I wish I left this book with a better understanding of these characters and their motivations, because it's been almost a full day since I finished, and I'm still struggling to explain wtf even happened and why. Maybe this is a book better read and processed in 1 or 2 sittings, but ultimately I think this book bit off way more than it could chew, and it made for a really frustrating reading experience.

Eric Ross is on the run with his two daughters, Dess and Stacy. They've left their life in Maryland, including Eric's wife, and it's unclear what they're trying to escape. When Eric accepts a much-needed job to stay in a notorious Texas haunted house to observe and document paranormal activity, one's curiosity is piqued. And as the Ross family's secret comes to light, Eric and his daughters experience all the terror that the Masson Spite House has to throw at them.

This story is definitely creepy and has some scary, skin-crawling moments. The concept of a spite house is something I hadn't encountered, and to make it haunted seemed like the ultimate builder's revenge! The mystery of Eric's family history and the property owner's motives provided much of the suspense that kept me turning the pages.

If you're looking for a fast-paced, spine-tingling read, this will fit the bill. While it's not the most terrifying thing I've read, it has enough paranormal encounters to put you on edge and make for a satisfying scare.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of the Spite House.
For a debut novel, I felt like Compton did an excellent job creating dread in his scene building. He also kept me interested by deliberately not divulging what Eric and his family are running from.

I enjoyed the backstory of Eric's grandparents leading into a (possibly genetic ) paranormal situation.

I did feel like there was already quite a bit going on with Eric's storyline that including the Masson and Houghton drama as well as the previous tenants of the spite house caused reader fatigue. Plot wise I get it, but I felt like this could have been more streamlined.

Interesting concept with the house consuming its inhabitants spiritually, but would have loved to see this tie into the ability to return as Stacy did.

Eric Ross and his two daughters are running from their past, drifting from town to town, making their way to his ancestral home in West Texas. He’s had to live off the grid, taking questionable jobs to support his family. When he is offered the opportunity for a large payoff to stay in a haunted house and observe paranormal phenomena in a small town in Texas owned by a powerful scion, Eric cannot say no. For Eric, his past is a lot scarier than a haunted house, or so he thinks. The Spite House is hungry.

The Spite House is a contemporary novel with a Gothic feel. While it’s a ghost story, Compton carefully keeps the focus on the characters and not so much the strange happenings in the eponymous house. This novel is as much an exploration of human nature and what drives its characters to make choices, both desperate and deliberate, and the harm that results. Stories about characters who are African American and their part in the American story are still underrepresented and are highly appreciated. Eric is a protagonist that readers will feel invested in, along with his daughters, Dess and Stacy. While revelations abound and unfold as the novel progresses, there is still an element of mystery and unanswered questions that will leave the reader unsettled and wanting more. Johnny Compton writes with confidence, distinctively combining a beautiful eloquence with a down-to-earth narrative voice. Powerful imagery comes through in the writing, giving the novel a cinematic feel. Readers who want a straightforward ghost story won’t find that here, but instead it's a character exploration built on the framework of a haunted house story. Tense, unsettling, disturbing, atmospheric, and at the same time oddly hopeful in its portrayal of human nature, The Spite House will linger in the reader’s consciousness long after they finish this short, but effective novel.

Thanks again for the chance to review the book this one wasnt a favorite of mine.. I feel like it was just a miss for me in general.. I think the writing was easy to get through but there was just parts of the book that wasnt sitting right with me.. I do think that it is a book that would suit others.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I found the premise incredible intriguing, and I liked the introduction of multiple POVs. I think that having multiple POVs in a story like this can be very appealing to a reader, who is trying to unravel the mystery of what is going on in the house, and getting to see that through multiple characters' eyes is a great way to make that process intriguing and complex for the reader. However, I did end up DNF'ing this title as I had a hard time with the prose style. I also felt that the writing was sometimes difficult to follow in terms of who was speaking, where people were in the room, and other simple logistical issues. It made it very difficult for me to get lost in the story. If it was a purposeful disorientation, unfortunately for me it was too confusing to persist through. I'll be interested to read further reviews of this work.

The Spite House is an incredible take on family, and how far we will go to protect those we love. Johnny Compton breathes new life into the haunted house trope, and his characterization is off the charts good. Eric, Dess, and Stacy live on the page, and i would be happy to see them again in another book down the road. There's plenty of mystery to unravel, haunted history, and an ending that is inevitable but satisfying. Highly recommend!

The Spite House was an interesting book. I love haunted house stories and this one had a great concept though the execution faltered at times.

This isn’t my usual genre but I enjoyed it a lot. I liked the set up, the characters, almost all of whom are hiding things? Eric and his daughters are on the run, from what isn’t clear. There’s ghosts and curses and a lot of spooky happenings. I don’t know that I found it as scary as I expected but it was full of tension and I couldn’t stop reading. It had me hooked from the beginning.

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar

Even though humans tend to be good, to do good things, sometimes they also want to be mean. They are angry, and they are spiteful. But when all that energy is fed to an object or place, it can take over and grow.

The Spite House starts with Eric Ross looking for a job request where it’s asking for a group of people to live for a period of time on the Masson house a.k.a. the Spite house for $100,000. Given that Eric and his daughters are traveling through Texas, they need the income, and he applies for it.

The next day he and his daughters Dessa, 18 years old, and Stacy, 7 years old, make their way to the Masson House to interview the current owner, Eunice Houghton, who is a tech billionaire and owner of most of the town.

As soon as they set foot in the Masson house, all three of the Ross family feel something off. But the Ross are running away from something else, and they need the money. Eric will do all he can to make a future for his daughters, even if he must fight the entities that live in the Spite House.

The Spite House was a very interesting story, which I really liked. It was refreshing to read a horror/thriller ghost story with a side of mystery to understand the reason why things are happening in the world and to the Ross Family. All of the characters have a secret agenda, for most of them is to stay alive.

The Ross family is peculiar, Eric, Dessa, and Stacy. Each of them hides something from the other but does try to help and keep the rest of their family safe. Eric and Dessa are keeping a greater secret from Stacy, the reason why they are moving so much. Stacy being a young girl, has been having dreams where she can communicate with other people far away and see people that have died. Eric, while trying to provide for his daughters, makes the decision to live in the Masson House, but he has already seen something similar to what is happening in the house.

The Spite House has many characters, some of them alive and others dead. One character that I didn’t trust since first meeting her was Eunice Houghton, the current owner of the house. As we read the book, we learn about her reasons to have people living in the house and the lengths she will go to get the answers she wants. With Eunice’s work other women, Dana and Lafonda, who are starting to wonder if the intentions of an 80-year-old woman are the best and if something evil is really happening in the house. Meeting the Ross family is the last straw, and they will try to save them if they can.

The spite house itself has many things going on. The description of it being a four-story tall house but with a small width makes it hard to imagine someone living there, and even more for a family of three. One part I couldn’t imagine was the bulbuls outside the corridor that it mentions. Just given the summary of the book, the reader knows this is a ghost story and the spite house has a ghost. Specifically, the ghost of the owner who built the house, Pete Masson who himself lived and died twice, and his niece and nephew that disappeared in the house.

One of the things that I liked most of this story was the description of the cold temperature people feel near spirits.

“Well, the second thing to happen, immediately following her heart attack, was that the temperature dropped. This was not a cold spot. It was not a chill. This was like the sun had retreated…”

“How deep is the cold they carry with them? I’ll tell you. Imagine your bones turning to ice so fast you don’t have time to scream. Imagine a cold so deep it makes the day grayer without a cloud in the sky. Hard to imagine, isn’t it…”

“No, actually. It was cold as hell. Cold as I’ve ever been, and I’ve lived up north, as I told you. I’ve been through some ugly winters, but that room in West Texas, of all places, in the summer, was the coldest place I’ve ever been in. It was like being on the dark side of the moon or something…”

The Spite House was a wild ride and if you like ghost/horror stories, then I recommend it to you.

Sometimes the only thing we can do is be spiteful.

3.5 rounding up. This had a really great premise and some creepy moments. However, I felt like the ending didn't quite come together and I was a bit lost (could be a me problem). Overall, I enjoyed the characters and the story, including the historical elements that made me think.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
More of my review can be found in my February Wrap up video

I felt this book started out promising, but didn't quite deliver...

Haunted house story, sign me up! This was an anticipated read of mine, so I was excited when I received this ARC. I loved the premise of this and the meaning behind the Spite House. I really liked Eric and both his daughters, but wish I had more time to connect with them. There were way too many additional POVs for me. I felt they could've been left out or told within our main characters POV. This made things a bit confusing and threw me off from fully getting connected to Eric and his daughters.

From the start, I became invested in finding out what Eric is running from and the house. There was so much history behind the reputation of the Spite House and suspense surrounding the two (the hour and Eric's story). I really like the concept of the Spite House, however I felt it was just creepy and not scary. As a fan of horror, I wanted more time in the house. I wanted to fully experience this scary house that everyone is scared of and runs away from, but unfortunately I didn't quite get that. As for the plot, several were brought up in the story, but they really had no impact or resolution. I also was left confused by the ambiguous ending and so many questions were left unanswered.

All in all, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good haunted house story with a twist. However, if you're a diehard horror fan (like me), then this might not be the scare you're looking for. Needless to say, I would definitely read something else from this author, as this was an impressive debut.

There’s just nothing like a good haunted house story to keep you up reading late into the night, jumping at every little nighttime noise. But there’s more than just a little haunting for the family hired to live with the ghosts of a long-haunted home in The Spite House by Johnny Compton.

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery.

A masterful debut. Gothic horror that kept me turning the pages from start to finish. Well written and evenly paced, spine tingling and suspenseful. The action gets going from page 1. A father on the run with his two children, a haunted house story turned on its head. This novel was a good time and I can't wait to see what the author delivers next.

A truly delightful haunted house novel. It takes all the way expected elements of this kind of story and spins them around a bit to make it all something new and novel feeling. Once I got into this book, it was genuinely impossible for me to properly put it down until I finished it!

Eric Ross and his two daughters Dess and Stacey are on the run from people who could cause irreparable harm to their family and now they are quickly running out of money. When Eric happens upon a strange employment advertisement that sounds too good to be true but he calls and sets up an immediate interview. The owner of The Masson house in Degener, Texas is looking for a caretaker (of sorts) to live in the most haunted house in Texas so they can document any and all paranormal activity within the house and when the owner is satisfied the payout will be enough for Eric's family to stop running and settle down since the girls have been emotionally suffering although they never voice their negative thoughts out loud. Apparently the house is so haunted that none of the people who were hired previously lasted more than a few days before they left except for the last couple who were supposed to be paranormal investigators who stayed for a couple of weeks but something horrible happened to them. The wife seemed to lose her mind and had to be hospitalized and the husband didn't fare too much better and they were never able to tell about their experiences so now it's time for Eric to take over this haunted horror known as "The Spite House". Will this be the lifesaving venture that will save Eric's family or will this become the worst mistake of their lives and doom the family forever?

This book had all the makings of a great horror story although it just didn't really work for me. There were many spooky elements which sounded very good but when they came together there were too many pieces of the puzzle missing and I was left with so many questions that were never answered and that was a major disappointment for me. There was wonderful atmospheric and many creepy stories surrounding the house which really had all the makings for a good haunting maybe too many scares promised and not enough frights delivered. There were several multilayered stories in the background which sounded great but they never followed all the way through. I loved the characters of Dess and Stacey but I didn't care for most of the others even the father (Eric). I appreciated how much Eric loved his daughters but I felt he was impulsive and immature and put his children at risk especially with this house. There was a major story about Stacey that was good and very creepy but when I finally found out the backstory there was never any resolution to what, why and how her story came to pass and I felt very let down. Although this book didn't work for me I would still encourage readers to give it a try since I noticed many people really enjoyed this book.

I want to thank the publisher "Macmillan Tor/Forge" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this digital copy and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I have given this horror book a rating of 2 1/2 QUESTIONABLE PLOT 🌟🌟🌠 STARS!!

Started out quite promising, but didn't quite deliver.

Billed as a haunted house Souther gothic, The Spite House didn't hit either note. Yes, there's a haunted house, but the haunting hardly has a chance to build up the atmosphere before all hell breaks loose. It's a bit too, I don't know, on the nose? I wanted to be spooked and never really got there. There's also not much here in the way of a gothic atmosphere - there's a curse, and it's set in the South, yes, but when I think of Southern gothic I think of creeping dread with languishing heat under a sheen of small-town hospitality and while that's there in theory I didn't feel it.

We're not told the nature of the job Eric takes on because he never bothers to really ask before, y'know, moving his family into a violently haunted house with a history of tormenting its inhabitants. Lazy writing and poor communication are my biggest pet peeves when it comes to storytelling pitfalls, and unfortunately this is it here. If Eric had just bothered to figure out what his responsibility was beyond "keep a journal" we wouldn't be in this mess and we wouldn't have a story, and I think a story built on a lack of communication is weak. We're also not really told the nature of the Houghton family curse except that "it kills people" but Eunice is well into her 80s and, well, she's made it this far, it doesn't make much sense for her to be terrified of the curse since she's had, y'know, a pretty long life.

The whole 'people coming back from the dead' angle is just superfluous and doesn't add anything to the story. It would have been interesting to explore that aspect more in depth, but as it stands it felt unnecessary.

I'd recommend it for hardcore haunted house/horror fans as the writing is good and it's a quick and fairly entertaining read. I just wished the novel was more streamlined and, well, spookier.