Absolutely outstanding discussion of grief told through horror tropes and imagery. Hendrix excels at detailing horrific events and body horror in particular interspersed with comedy and run through with genuine heartbreaking emotion.

Siblings Mark and Louise Joyner must come together and sort through their parent's affairs after their unexpected death. The two can't agree on anything and continually argue. When family secrets come to the surface and a creepy cursed puppet begins to take over, the two have to mend their fences and join forces before the Pupkin their mother's childhood puppet harms anyone else.
Hendrix's book is both entertaining and unsettling. When you relax and get a chuckle or two, the terror amps up.
I enjoyed this book and can see adding this to a display of books about haunted houses and local ghost stories.

A strange book, even for Hendrix, but another win nonetheless. Thematically rich, laugh out loud funny, heartfelt, and downright creepy. Hendrix knows how to send you on a ride where you aren't sure where things will go before he expertly ties it all together in the end. Well worth the wait, and an excellent read that should be put in the pantheon of iconic haunted house stories.

Grady Hendrix really isn't messing around.

I'm not usually someone who scares easily, particularly when it comes to horror books or movies. Haunted houses will have me screaming and running, but if I read it or watch it? Usually I'm fine.

USUALLY.

How to Sell a Haunted House was TERRIFYING. I mean it in the best way humanly possible, but it was really scary. It's that scene from the Poltergeist with the clown doll. It's the scariest parts of Annabelle and Goosebumps and the Conjuring all in one.

It's the feeling of your foot being outside of the protection of your blanket when you're trying to fall asleep.

It's TERRIFYING.

Which really is a testament to just how good of a writer Hendrix is. He can evoke the precise mood he wants you to feel, and knows exactly how to hit you where it hurts--or scares you.

I don't want to say too much about the plot of this one, only because I think the description that the publisher provides is perfectly vague and sets you up really, really well. I kind of want everyone to experience the absolute craziness and horror I felt when the story started coming together, so I can't wait until it's out and people are reacting to Hendrix's latest masterpiece.

Thanks Netgalley and Quirk books for the advanced copy!

Thank you @berkley for the gifted copy of this book.

Um...wth did I just read???? This book was BONKERS, and I kinda loved it! Books don't scare me, but this one gave me the creeps. Puppets, dolls, PUPKIN...I can't even.

I seriously don't want to say too much because I don't want to give a single thing away to anyone that might read this. The gist is that Louise gets a phone call from her brothers that their parents were killed in a car accident. Louise leaves her 5 year old and goes back home for the funeral and to deal with the house and all that jazz. Once home, she realizes that the house is full of her mom's puppets and dolls, the attic is boarded up, and things just don't seem right. The house is giving off weird vibes, and things start happening that terrify Louise, and eventually her brother Mark. The more they discover about each others pasts, the weirder things get, and the last half of this book is flat out terrifying, bizarre, disturbing...all the adjectives.

I think my face was a combination of what the hell, ew, and holy sh*t for like 90% of this book, especially the end.

It's demented brilliance. Not many books can make me react like this. And honestly? I'm not sure how to rate it. I keep going between 4 and 5 stars.

Excuse me while I purge my house of any puppets, and spray holy water on all of my daughters dolls.

Louise Joyner has spent her whole life being the responsible one, so OF COURSE when both her parents die in a tragic car accident, she's the one that has to take care of everything. It's what she and her dad had discussed, in case anything happened to them, because her younger brother Mark can't be trusted with that kind of responsibility, or any kind of responsibility for that matter. So Louise flies home to Charleston from San Francisco, leaving her 5 year old daughter with her father. When Louise arrives, she finds that her parents' will actually leaves everything to Mark except her mother's art. Mark wants to gut the house and put it on the market as quickly as possible, but Louise decides to take her sweet time gathering her inheritance, which is vast but not exactly valuable. Her mother was a member of a Christian puppeteering group, and had a roomful of homemade puppets. Oh, and tons of creepy dolls too. While Louise and Mark bicker about their parent's estate, strange things start to happen in the house, strange enough that even Louise wants to get it all over and done with quickly. Unfortunately, no realtor wants anything to do with it, because guess what? It's haunted.

I have to say, Grady Hendrix never disappoints me. I LOVE his writing style and vibes, and he makes this book CREEPY. He also really nails familial relationships, especially between brothers and sisters, and I enjoyed the depth that this gave to the story. If you're the kind of person that gets the heebie jeebies from dolls, this book takes that and runs with it, so be warned...

I recieved this ARC courtesy of NetGalley in return for my honest opinion and review.

I have enjoyed Grady Hendrix's other books, but this one... woof. It was another level! Personally, this one wasn't my cup of tea. It was made up of everything nightmares are made of - puppets, haunted houses, and taxidermy... oh my! Definitely a unique book and not your average haunted house story. Of course not! It's Grady Hendrix after all. Definitely will recommend it to others, just wasn't quite for me! Read during the day time lol!

This was my first foray into this author's books and WOW it was crazy...and yet enjoyable.

Hendrix has a really odd sense of humor that just seems to work. And let's be real - dolls and puppets are creepy as ever. I was instantly sucked into this book and had to see what would happen. There was a point about 3/4ths of the way through where something happened and I thought to myself...how is this book not over? (Not that it was long, just that it "felt" like an ending) and then he turned it around and I just loved it.

It's a bit ridiculous, there's some gore, an odd demonic element that's pretty downplayed (mostly), and a twist you don't really see coming...but if you can get past the dolls I think you'll enjoy this one.

!There is language and violent scenes (mostly done in a detached way).

My rating: 4*

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Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this gifted copy. All opinions are my own.

"How to Sell a Haunted House" was not the haunted house full of ghosts story I was expecting. It's more in the category of horror that the film Annabelle falls under. It's still a Grady Hendrix book so it's certainly enjoyable but it's not what I expected.

I have such mixed views on this book.

This book is about 2 siblings who are attempting to sell their parents house in the wake of their sudden deaths. Before the house can sold, strange events begin to occur that cause the siblings to revisit their decisions, their past, and their relationships with each other and their family.

Ultimately, this book is about grief. In that regard, it succeeds very well. My mom had just been in a wreck (and she was fine!) right before I started reading this, and I found that it made me tap into that deep-seated knowledge most middle aged people carry. The most interesting parts of the book for me the ones that delved into the conflicts and history of the family.

The horror unfortunately only partially worked for me. Some parts I found cheesey, others fascinating and terrifying.

This was a propulsive read that gripped me from beginning to end. One could say...it possessed me. I have long been a fan of Grady Hendrix' writing and HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE is peak Grady. What I admire most about his writing is his uncanny ability to balance energetic, efficient prose with raw examinations of trauma, grief, and family disfunction. He uses repressed memory and flashback in ways that make you radically reconsider characters, relationships, and narrative possibilities. There are images in this book that made me laugh out loud while simultaneously scaring the pants off me. What's next, Grady???

Grady Hendrix knows horror and it is so very refreshing. He is great at bringing a classic vibe to a new story. With that every horror author deserves their own haunted house story, but this isn't just a haunted house. I couldn't say more without ruining fun surprises.

I thought this was going to be a haunted house book, not a possessed puppet story. It was creepy. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

Grady Hendrix has skyrocketed to the pinnacle of great horror novelists in the last few years, so I was eager to read his newest book, How to Sell a Haunted House….or at least I thought I was. Let me preface this by saying that Hendrix’s novel, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires was the most exciting thing to happen to horror in decades. A novel that made you laugh, delivered genuine chills, reinvented the vampire mythology and had some important things to say about the treatment of women and minorities in the society we live in. However, his follow up book, The Final Girl’s Support Group was a huge disappointment for me and is the reason I approached this novel with a lot of trepidation.

This books begins with the sudden deaths of Louise’s parents and her flying back home to Charleston to make funeral arrangements and clear out the family home with her ne’er do well brother, Mark. Where this novel shines is in the depiction of a dysfunctional family. The sibling relationship rings especially true. Also, the portrayal of such a family dealing with the aftermath of death was especially well done. Anyone who has ever had to watch greedy relatives fight over a loved ones estate like five year olds will relate. And Hendrix gets Southerners right in a way few novelists do.

Where this novel missed the mark for me was in the actual horror story. Louise and Mark’s mother had been a puppeteer and doll collector and as they soon find out, the puppets, one in particular, are not about to let the house go without a fight. Now I love a good and spooky doll, but Hendrix goes overboard with the sheer amount of them here. He goes straight to Grand Guignol campiness that is much more laughable than frightening- Although I did find the taxidermic squirrel nativity scene come to life hilarious. I supposed if you have a serious fear of dolls or puppets you will find this scary, but I just thought it was overblown silliness. Still, I can’t completely write this book or Hendrix off. His portrayal of sibling rivalry and love had an unbelievable amount of heart that ended up making it a worthwhile read.

It's always great when there's a new Grady Hendrix novel in the world. Taking place in moder-day Charleston, this follows two estranged siblings who have to come together to handle their deceased parent's estate. This had scenes that resonated with me emotionally, scenes that cracked me up, and gave me a bit to think about. A great modern haunted house story about how the secrets we keep might hurt our children if we don't confront them and deal with them.

Grady Hendrix has a distinct way of infusing scares with sentimentality, which continues with his latest. Before we're even introduced to the eponymous haunted house, Hendrix instills foreboding anxiety through protagonist Louise and her endless string of domestic stresses compounded by her parents' death. The tense, deeply estranged sibling rivalry, the missteps of motherhood, and unearthing sometimes painful family memories drive the narrative. The terrifying puppetry and haunted house shenanigans are compelling confetti.

While I've never read Grady Hendrix's earlier work, I was a huge fan of Southerners Guide to Slaying Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group, but this one was definitely more reminiscent of what I would expect his earlier and farther out there work to be. This one had a bit more supernatural elements and got really weird after the first 30% in more a Stephen King way. Hendrix is a great storyteller, but this one wasn't my favorite. I'll definitely check out more from him in the future.

The nitty-gritty: Domestic drama, a vengeful puppet and a family mystery come together in Grady Hendrix's latest, a fun and bloody must-read for all Hendrix fans.

I can always rely on Grady Hendrix to come up with a highly entertaining story that veers into the absurd, and his latest is no exception. How to Sell a Haunted House went in some unexpected directions, but it ended up being a blast to read.

Louise Joyner is surprised one day by a phone call from her estranged brother Mark. He tells her their parents, Nancy and Eric, have just been killed in a freak car accident. Devastated by the news, Louise leaves her five year old daughter Poppy behind to attend to her parents affairs and help plan the funeral. But when she arrives, she’s shocked to find out that Mark has already had Nancy and Eric cremated (against the family’s wishes) and planned a funeral themed around Nancy’s love of puppetry. And when Louise and Mark meet at the house to talk about selling it, they’re confronted with their unconventional past: Nancy’s beloved puppets and dolls are everywhere, spilling off of bookshelves and crowding the sewing room where Nancy created them. 

But there’s something else off about the house. Louise hears odd noises coming from the attic, and Nancy’s lifesize “Mark” and “Louise” dolls keep moving around the house. Is Mark playing a trick on her? Or is the house haunted? Louise is also suspicious about the accident. Why was a hammer found on the floor, and who boarded up the attic? And when Louise is attacked by Pupkin, Nancy’s favorite puppet and the source of many of Louise’s childhood nightmares, Louise and Mark decide to team up to cleanse the house of whatever spirits might be living there, because as their real estate agent Mercy tells them, you can’t sell a haunted house. With the help of some quirky friends and relatives, Mark and Louise delve into their past to confront what really happened that long ago day that Mark nearly drowned in the pond, and what it has to do with what’s happening in the present.

There are so many layers to this story. On one level, it’s an emotional look at two estranged siblings and how they must repair their relationship in order to overcome a childhood enemy. When the story opens, Louise is faced with the unpleasant task of going home to deal with her parents’ deaths, which includes interacting with Mark, the brother she hasn’t spoken to in years. I’ll admit I hated Mark in the beginning. Not only does he do awful things, but he’s a serious jerk. He gloats over the fact that Nancy left him everything (except her horrible art collection), and he refuses to share any of his inheritance with Louise, who could really use the financial help. From Louise’s point of view, we learn that Mark got away with all sorts of things as a child, while Louise was the “responsible” one, graduating from college and getting a job. 

It isn’t until we get a chapter from Mark’s perspective that my opinion of him began to shift. And wow, what a chapter it was! Hendrix introduces readers to the concept of a “radical puppet collective,” a group of performers he meets while attending Boston University. The performers immerse themselves in the puppets’ personas in order to convey their political beliefs in the form of outrageous puppet shows, and it’s at this time that Mark becomes heavily involved with his mother’s puppet Pupkin. This is also the point where the story really took off for me.

And of course there is the “haunted house” layer of the story, which was very well done. Poor Louise has some horrible experiences in the house, mostly involving Pupkin, and in typical Grady Hendrix style, the calm before the storm doesn’t really prepare you for the unhinged, violent action that seems to come out of nowhere. I’ll admit I wasn’t prepare to read a story about creepy puppets, but Hendrix does some unique things with the trope, including Nancy’s obsession with the Christian Puppet Ministry, something I thought the author had invented until I started Googling it! Apparently there is a whole subculture that revolves around puppets, and I’m sort of glad I didn’t know about it until now.

The author adds in lighter moments with some of the female relatives, like Aunt Honey, Gail and Constance. Hendrix is so good at dialog—I think I mention that in every review I write—and some of the exchanges among the family members were laugh out loud funny. If you like your humor black, then you really can’t get much better than this. And underlying the humor is a somber tone that never completely goes away. There are way too many secrets in this family, harmful secrets that must be kept at all costs. This balance of humor, poignancy, thrilling action and introspective reflection is one of the author’s strengths, and Hendrix once again nails that balance perfectly.

The only thing that didn’t really work for me was Poppy’s role in the story. I feel like the author only needed her for the big finale, but up to that point she’s mostly kept off-page. Also, Louise comes across as a horrible mother (you’ll understand when you read the book) and I don’t think that was necessarily the case.

Hendrix explores different types of “hauntings,” the ones with actual ghosts, and the ones that involve inescapable childhood memories. Certainly the Joyner family has been haunted all these years by Nancy’s puppet obsession and everything that occurred after Pupkin was “born.” I loved that the author used The Velveteen Rabbit as a touchstone for Louise’s childhood, a book that her mother insisted on reading to her, but one Louise hated. Later in the story, the tension surrounding Pupkin and what’s happening in the house ramps up to almost ridiculous levels, and even though the author telegraphs one particularly nasty scene, I was still surprised when he actually went there. 

All in all, I had so much fun reading How to Sell a Haunted House, even though my favorite of Hendrix’s books is still The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. Grady Hendrix fans will not be disappointed.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

This is the best book Grady Hendrix has written. I was horrified and enthralled, and all I want to do is read it again. It’s living in my head rent free, and everything else that I’m reading isn’t holding my attention or measuring up.

At one point I was under the covers, with one hand splayed across my face to protect myself, rocking back and forth, and I considered waking up my snoring husband so that he could make sure my 40 year old Care Bear didn’t jump on my back and murder me in my sleep. Yes, Grady Hendrix literally made me scared of a pink stuffed Care Bear that’s been my comfort animal since childhood.

We meet Louise, living in CA on the opposite coast from her family. After an awful accident kills both of her parents, she flies home to work with her estranged brother on the details of what comes next. As family bickering turns ugly, the dolls and puppets in Louise’s childhood home come to life in the most horrific ways.

This is more than five stars, but that’s the highest praise available, so that’s what we’ll go with.

Seriously, read this book. If you live Grady’s work, you’re going to love this. If you’re scared of puppets and dolls, you’re going to be horrified in the best ways.

I literally want to scream from rooftops about how much I love this book. I cannot wait to get my paws on a physical copy.

**Huge, huge, HUGE thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the digital ARC of this amazing novel. My gushing opinions are completely my own**

I did not enjoy this book because the twist felt a bit corny. I am choosing to not review this book on my social channels because I respect the author’s previous works.