How to Sell a Haunted House has been one of my most anticipated 2023 reads! This horror book explores themes of family secrets, strained relationships, puppetry, and troubled pasts. Overall, I enjoyed this one! All the characters are deeply flawed and it was interesting to learn more about each one. I’ve always thought that puppets were creepy, but Grady Hendrix definitely took the puppet creep factor to another level which blew my mind. I loved how complex the story was and how the subplots came together. I also couldn’t guess any of the twists in this one which made reading this fly by. Highly recommend picking this one up if you’re a Grady Hendrix fan or love horror books!

Review will be posted on my blog on pub day. Review has already been posted on Instagram and GoodReads.

This is my third Grady Hendrix book and dare I say, my fav?
Familial drama. A creepy haunted house. And a twist that me actually gasp out loud. This was such a good read!

It's been a very long time since I've had to put a book down because of its creep-factor, but How to Sell a Haunted House made me do just that. This book has a healthy dose of supernatural horror, mixed in with some complex family dysfunction that takes place at a break-neck speed.

Grady Hendrix has done it again! Louise Joyner has a life with her daughter on the West Coast. But when her parents die in a car crash, she travels all the way to Charleston to make arrangements. Louise's estranged brother Mark also returns to their hometown, stressing the family out even further. The siblings must agree to get along, clean out the house (full of eccentric puppets), and sell the house. Then, weird stuff starts happening...

Hendrix is a great storyteller and How to Sell a Haunted House is no different. If you weren't scared of murderous puppets, you sure will be now. This book is full of truly horrifying gross-out scenes mixed with surprisingly poignant reflections on grief and generational trauma. Fans of My Best Friend's Exorcism will especially like this return to Charleston.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the digital advanced reader's copy.

I kind of loved this one. It's my favorite Grady Hendrix since My Best Friend's Exorcism (the book, not the disappointing movie).

It's wildly bizarre, genuinely horrifying in spots, hits all the right horror tropes, and it genuinely moved me. Those ending paragraphs were perfect, in my opinion.

Trigger warning: Loss of parents

Louise has returned to Charleston following the sudden death of her parents in a car accident. She hates it. She hates her brother. She just wants to get in and out and be done with it.

Yet, somehow she becomes ensnared - with selling the house, with cleaning the house, with facing the house and all it contains, including creepy dolls, puppets, and a squirrel nativity.

Louise just wants to go back home to her daughter, but the house and her brother won't let her.

Of course, things go from bad to worse, and soon Louise is uncovering both the horrors in the house and the horrors her family has been hiding for years.

So good. The relationship between Louise and her brother Mark is spot on, and I love how my perspective on each of them changed throughout the book, and I loved how their relationship with each other changed.

Somehow, Hendrix has managed to mash together dysfunctional family dynamics, deep grief, parental fears, super creepy puppets, and familial love all into one novel.

Yep. I kind of loved it.

Even if you don't like horror give it a try.

*language, graphic violence

Louise and Mark may be estranged siblings, but they need to clear their parents’ house out to sell it. As they begin, they notice some oddities that show it may not be as easy as planned.

This book was awesome!! It has just the perfect amount of spookiness, sentimentality, family drama, and even humor. I am finishing 2022 with over 350 reads and I can tell you this will definitely be in my top ten list! In the beginning the readers not sure where it’s going, but stick with it; everything has a purpose and comes together.

“A puppet is a possession that possesses the possessor.”

How to Sell a Haunted House comes out 1/17.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book is creepy. Louise receives a from her brother Mark that their parents have died and they need to sell their house. One small problem, the house is haunted.

This books strong point is the relationship between the siblings. Or should I say the tension between the siblings.
The one problem I had was puppets. I never realized that puppets are so creepy, but this book solidified that.

I adore Grady Hendrix. He's one of the authors changing the face of horror fiction, and for that I am eternally grateful! This book, while fantastically written with his trademark wit and horrific moments, is a great read that centers on sibling dynamic and coming together when it counts. Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC.

Grady Hendrix never disappoints. I always am thoroughly disgusted and horrified, which I’m sure it’s the desired effect he wishes to convey with his descriptions of mundane activities such as eating Chinese food.

This book is a great horror read. The premise is uniquely Hendrix. A family home haunted but not by the usual ghosts were used to, a disfuncional dynamic between older siblings who hate each other, and puppets, lots of puppets.

I will say that there were some moments I lost interest such as Mark’s chapters about college but I was always able to get sucked back in.

Overall I really enjoyed this book!

This was my fourth book by Grady Hendrix. As a bit of a horror movie buff, I loved Horrorstor, Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, and The Final Girl Support Group; however, How to Sell a Haunted House was a very different reading experience. The previous three poke at the horror tropes and fall more in the horror-comedy or meta-horror genres. How to Sell a Haunted House is more true horror. This is the first book I have read in years that truly scared me.
The writing is, of course, incredibly true to Hendrix, but lacks the distance from the plight of the main characters that allows the reader to hold the scares at arm’s length. There is something all too relatable about dealing with your parents’ estate after their bizarre and unexpected deaths. And something deeply unsettling about realizing your childhood home was never as safe as you thought it was.
For all the elements that make this book so different from Hendrix’s others, there are so many more similarities. As with all of his other works, he uses the horror tale medium to point to real horrors in everyday life. As Southern Book Club’s Guide and My Best Friend’s Exorcism showed the dangers we allow by allowing society to trivialize the plights of entire groups of people, How to Sell a Haunted House urges us to examine generational trauma.
If dolls and puppets creep you out, you may want to skip this one. I love the haunted house subgenre, but dolls and puppets are a different kind of frightening, so buyer beware. If you can or want to muscle through a genuinely scary adventure with a brother-sister duo that are terrible at communicating with each other, then you will find this tale gives you the chills and makes you want to go have all the hard conversations with your family.

Thank you to the publishers at Berkley and Netgalley for this e-ARC of How to Sell a Haunted House!

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔
😱 love horror stories
🧍🏻‍♀️think dolls are creepy
👻 believe in ghosts
😂 like to laugh

• 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄

After Louise’s mother and father both die in a car accident, she returns to her childhood home in Charleston to plan their funeral with her brother, Mark.

• 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓

Louise left South Carolina years ago and never looked back, but after her parents both pass in an unexpected car crash, she returns home to get her parent’s house and things in order. Her brother, Mark, and her have never gotten along, and now with their parent’s wills in the air, things are more tense. Louise has also felt ill at ease as she goes through the house. Someone, or something, is haunting their house, and Louise and Mark will have to battle it together if they want to get out alive.

• 𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒

This was my first Grady Hendrix novel, so I’m not sure what his earlier works were like, but I enjoyed this mix of fantasy and reality! If you’ve ever seen the movie Kraumpus, you’ll understand what I mean. Pupkin was absolutely terrifying - a puppet that talks and moves of its own accord? No thank you! I also loved the banter between Louise and Mark. Hendrix created some fun characters for us to relate to. I also liked the final twist at the end concerning Pupkin. Overall, a great horror novel that makes you laugh and think! I can’t wait to read his other books soon!

Louise and Mark are in a longstanding battle for their mother's approval. When their parents die in a car accident, the brother and sister duo have to come together while their grief is still fresh to coordinate their inheritance: their childhood home. But the home just isn't...right. Their mother's doll and puppet collections seem sentient at times, and the vibes inside the house are creepy at best. Buckle up for a novel full of campy possessed doll horror, taxidermy nightmares, and enough gore to make you feel as cringey as your favorite '80s slasher film. An homage to "Child's Play," "How to Sell a Haunted House" has all the bloody camp you need to put you in a spooky mood!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

The beginning of this book is maybe one of the most profound portraits of grief I've ever read. And then it got a little bit goosebumps ish so for that i dock one star.

Wow this was off the rails! I had read one other Hendrix (final girl support) and wasn’t sure if I’d read another but so glad I took a chance on this one. The book starts a little slow with a woman who has lost both parents. She is joined by her estranged brother and they fight over the house their parents have left. Things go nuts when we flash back to the daughters childhood where she shows us how her moms evil puppet has directed her to do nefarious deeds. And then all hell breaks loose: I won’t spoil it but woah. It’s a mix of Chucky/Cujo and it’s campy and weird but fun. If you like campy horror definitely check this one out: there’s fun dialogue and totally weird shenanigans with some old school nods to Stephen King.

I meeeeean! How do I even begin to summarize my feelings on this? It was straight bananas!

This was my first every Grady Hendrix book; his covers always scared me away (LOL) so I had no idea what to expect, but I knew his writing got a little out there!

I was actually surprised by how normal and tame the book started out and thought maybe I misunderstood him...but that rapidly changed! The story got CRAZY, mostly in a good way, but CRAZY!

I really liked all the brother/sister relationship aspects and how they worked through their past and their issues. I think he did a great job portraying a relatable brother/sister bond (besides the whole, ya know, fighting off evil puppets together part)

Definitely don't read if you're scared of dolls or puppets or Chuckie!

I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this one, but want other people to read it so they can understand how truly strange it was!

Thank you so much to Berkley for the ARC! This will be available on Jan 17th!

Creepy and strange! The puppets? That's when it became a bit too much for me. Some parts in the story were confusing. It made me rethink all the stuffed animals I had as a child. Some parts were just a bit too unbelievable, even for fiction. More family drama than I expected, and I wasn't really fond of the characters, in general. It was quite long and could've benefitted from a tighter edit. Not my favorite Hendrix book, but I will likely continue to check out future books.

Wow, I was not expecting the evil puppets.

That's my fault, because if I'd checked Hendrix's twitter I would have been duly warned about the terrifying evil puppet. But, on the other hand, sometimes it's better to be surprised. Because I got to have the joy/horror moment of realizing that, yes, our main villain was a seriously freaky puppet. A genuinely terrifying puppet, with the ability to control other dolls and puppets around it which: yikes. Why is it always dolls?!

I should always expect the unexpected from Hendrix. Just as I should always expect a deeply emotional blend of horror and humor that will utterly disarm me. Buried family secrets, "we don't talk about bad things" familial trauma, loss, grief ... and puppets. How to Sell a Haunted House is a perfect example of what haunted house horror should be, and I honestly couldn't love it more.

Puppets and all.

This delivers the campy, fun horror I've come to expect from this author, this time centered around a creepy haunted house. Thematically, this deals with grief and generational trauma, but in terms of scares, it also delivers (CW for some seriously creepy dolls and puppets 🙃). My main critique is that the pacing felt off in comparison to some of the previous books from this author - it felt too long and did not have the same compulsively readable quality. Still, overall, this gave me what I wanted from this kind of haunted house horror & would definitely recommend

4/5 stars -- So this might be the best Grady Hendrix book I've read so far. While it's not quite what I expected -- less spooky haunted house and more "Chuckie" -- it was still legitimately a wild, spooky ride. I've generally not enjoyed Hendrix' books, though Horrorstör was nuts, so I'm pleased to finally land on one that connects with me. Theaters the book divides itself into stages of grief was smart, and I also didn't expect to cry in the 2nd chapter while reading on my lunch break, but there you have it! What a ride.

I feel like I never know where a Grady Hendrix novel is going to lead me. Let me just say, I did not see it coming this time. I really don't want to spoil anything for anyone, After their parents die suddenly, siblings Louise and Mark must work together to empty their childhood home and prepare it to be sold. Loiuse and Mark have spent their lives resenting each other and finally begin to understand where it all went wrong, while battling a home filled with a lifetime of their parents stuff.