Thank you to @netgalley and @berkleypub for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to @prhaudio for a free download of the audiobook.

I love Grady Hendrix, but this book was something else…I did not enjoy it, but I also did not dislike it. I gave it a shot. Horror is not my normal genre, but I wanted to try something different. I would rather try something different with an author I enjoy. This book was weird and creepy. Dolls and puppets should NEVER come alive! But if you are into that stuff, then this book is definitely for you!

Overall, I am glad I got the opportunity to read How to Sell a Haunted House. If you are a fan of horror and haunted things, pick this book up!

3.5 stars – Rounding to 4 stars for Goodreads

#books #bookishlife #booklover #readingisfun #iowabookstagrammers #iowabookstagram #netgalley #berkleypub #berkleybuddyreads #prhaudio #ltbreaderteam #berkelywritesstrongwomen #howtosellahauntedhouse #gradyhendrix

Emotionally poignant, riotously funny, and delightfully terrifying all at the same time!

After the sudden death of her parents, Louise is forced to work muddle through a strained relationship with her brother in order to plan a funeral and decide what to do with their home. Upon arriving home, she is surprised to learn that her brother isn't the hardest part of this, rather is dark memories and haunted dolls and puppets.

I absolutely love Grady Hendrix and was so excited to dive into this one! It gave me every element of weirdness that Grady Hendrix continues to surprise me with. This was such a wild and weird setting and I could not get enough. The concept of this story line was different and kept me enthralled until the very end!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital arc!

This one was weird for me because puppets and dolls are easily my biggest fears, but I found I hard to suspend my disbelief. Maybe the house needed more detail to it to make me be able to place myself into it, maybe the dolls needed to be slightly more maniacal. That being said Pupkin will haunt me forever and I never want to see a puppet reminiscent of him as long as I live.

A solid 3 for me - read really quickly and kept me turning pages but something was missing, though still very enjoyable!

This book is about a pair of siblings who lose their parents under a mysterious circumstance and have to work to sell it despite strange happenings and a lot of creepy puppets. I wanted to really like this book, and with the bare bones I would say I could have really liked it. The ending was good and the overall message was solid however I just couldn't stand the characters and the pacing was very off.

Growing up I had, what I would describe as, a healthy fear of the murderous doll Chucky. How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix did nothing to lessen those fears. Cue in also how I started to read this around Halloween – a great mix. Read down below to get a more in-depth look at my thoughts on this new release.

Characters and Family
Part of the depth of How to Sell a Haunted House is the apparent intergenerational trauma and fractured familial relationships. Family ties, duties, and shared experiences are the backbone of this book and drive the plot and conflict. The two main characters, siblings Louise and Mark are not very likable initially, but I think that as the story goes along, many things are brought to light that helps to develop and explain their characters.

Plot and Tone
I would say the plot was compelling and, as a reader, I felt very invested in seeing how things turned out. How to Sell a Haunted House certainly utilizes many different horror tropes and plot points, but it did not in any way diminish my experience of reading it. If anything, it helped with the tongue-in-cheek aspects that kept popping up. There were plenty of slightly unexpected moments of comedy throughout the book that I enjoyed. (Note the absurdity of being attacked by a taxidermied squirrel nativity scene.)

Pacing
How to Sell a Haunted House really did feel like a horror movie in how it just kept going. You know when you are watching a movie and are like “oh good, everything is solved!” but then you are also like “I know there is half an hour left in the run time”? That is what Hendrix was able to encapsulate in the second half of the book. I would say the pacing was good overall. The beginning was slower and eventually picked up, but there was one flashback scene that seemed to be very long and lost my interest for a time.

Overall
How to Sell a Haunted House was a proper creepy book and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to read it. If you are a fan of horror, hauntings, and other similar descriptors that start with “h” that I cannot think of at the moment, you need to get your hands on a copy of Grady Hendrix’s book. For some, it might be a haul to read it, but I would say it is definitely worth the length of the book.

Meh. If you are a child's play fan, you might like this. It just wasn't anything I wanted to read about at all. I skimmed through and finished because I received an advanced reader's copy from #Netgalley. If you could find whatever is happening in this book believable, it might be really suspenseful, but I found it more goosebumps-ish than anything. And somehow the brother was dealing with everything his whole childhood without the sister actually believing it? Seriously? And the name Pumpkin? There was just so much about this that I found nonsensical.

Grady Hendrix does it again! I first discovered Grady when the cover of Horrorstör caught my eye in my local Barnes & Noble. The idea of a haunted IKEA knock-off in Cleveland, OH immediately appealed. This time he's spinning us a tale of a classic haunted house, with his usual style and flair.

Louise has a great life in San Francisco, a great job, a darling daughter, but all of that changes when an accident kills both her parents and she's summoned home to deal with the aftermath by a brother, Mark, that she hasn't really spoken with in years. Now the two of them have to decide what to do with their parents house, and everything inside it, including their mother's creepy collection of dolls. Do they keep it in the family? Do they sell and split? It seems straightforward, until unexplained things begin happening.

This one kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end. I hope you enjoy even half as much as I did.

I've seen a few Grady Hendrix novels floating around on Booksta, but this is my first foray into his world, and it won't be the last.

I'm always wary of new authors because I know some will be an acquired taste, while for others, it takes time to get used to their writing style, but Hendrix had a writing style that made it easier for me to get into the story.

What I liked:
-I didn't find the novel scary at all, which was surprising, but I enjoyed the concept.
-The relationship between the MC, Louise, and her brother was at times comical and, at others, contentious. Maybe some siblings never have issues, but some of the interactions were reminiscent of ones between me and my sister (not to that extent). I think no matter how old you get, when you're together, you revert back to your childhood roles. Despite some of the levity, there were some heartbreaking moments between them.
-The character arcs for the MC's brother, Mark, and the siblings' relationship.
-I was not expecting the twist to be THAT.

What I didn't like:
-There was an exposition in the middle that felt a little long-winded to me.

3 stars

Mark and Louise were raised by a church puppet ministry leader mom. Their home was always filled with puppets and dolls that their mother made, each with a unique name and backstory. Louise grows up and moved across the country to raise her daughter, Poppy, away from her parents and her estranged brother Mark. But one day her brother calls with the horrible news that their parents have been killed in a car accident.
Louise heads home to sort things out, visiting her parents home for the first time in many years and once she's there things get weirder and weirder until she realizes that she's not alone in the home.

This was my first Grady Hendrix novel and man, was it crazy! I don't really read horror, but the blurb on this one sounded too good to pass up. I also hate dolls, clowns, puppets, etc. and so this one really creeped me out, but I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be funny or serious! It took me a little while to get through this book. I didn't love Mark and Louise's relationship at the beginning. It was quite frustrating for me. When I got to the middle and read about Mark's experience with the puppet, then it started making more sense and I did enjoy the relationship during the second half of the book when they started working together.

I do think this was a good story and will probably pick up another Hendrix novel in the future.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

4.5 ⭐️ rounded up

I give up on books easy. If I wasn’t expected to give a review of Grady Hendrix’s How to Sell a Haunted House, I might have given up on this one in the first half, but I’m so glad I didn’t!

HTSAHH starts slow, but halfway through, it becomes a pulse-pounding, oh-shit!, freaky-as-hell horror show that I couldn’t put down. Things are not as they seem, and if you think it’s weird from the get-go, just wait. The groundwork Hendrix lays in the first few hundred pages are essential to what follows.

It is *both* whackadoodle ridiculousness in the form of more scary-ass puppets than I signed up for *and* a powerful story of family, grief, the toxicity of generational secrets, and the difficulty of complicated sibling relationships.

Typical Grady Hendrix. Some horror, lots to think about. Hendrix is a master at building suspense and his knowledge of Southern society is unparalleled.

This ended up being a DNF for me. I tried...I really tried. I love many of Grady Hendrix's books but I could not make it through this one. The puppet was just too much for me. It started out great, I enjoyed the characters, the writing is well, and so on. But when it came to the actual haunted house and everything that followed, the author lost me! I do greatly appreciate an ARC provided by NetGalley and the Publisher.

Super appreciative to have been given the opportunity to check out How to Sell a Haunted House! I really enjoyed Horrorstor and the Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, and so I thank you tremendously.

What I liked:
- the characters
- the dynamic between the siblings
- creepy puppets !!
- the brother's story/perspective

I did feel that it was bit... young? Or safe? for my personal preference. I'm used to really feeling more emotions more intensely in my recent horror reads, even in YA or campy-horror/horror with humor, and this didn't quite get past the surface for me. Perhaps a great read for those enjoy horror-lite or are dipping a toe into the genre :)

How to Sell a Haunted House is a fantastic, humorous horror novel. Louise finds out her parents have died and most return to her hometown to figure out the situation with the house and her brother. The brother she has been avoiding for years because of the strained relationship. As the siblings are forced to work together to deal with their parents' death, they soon start to reveal secrets about their parents, their house, and their history.
This was a wild ride. I loved how creepy it was while still having some really funny moments. It feels like classic 80's horror movies.

Wow, this book was very emotional! The first few chapters almost had me in tears! I wasn’t expecting that but I welcomed it. I didn’t read the synopsis for this one. I thought the cover along with the title sounded good so I requested to read it. I did expect a spooky book and that’s not exactly what I got. However, that didn’t bother me because this book was well written and had good pacing. Overall, I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it.


Thank you so much @berkleypub for the gifted copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE by Grady Hendrix (My Best Friend's Exorcism, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, Horrorstör)
We included this book in our February 2023 Night Worms package!

Release Date: January 17th, 2023
General Genre: Adult Horror, Grief, Psychological, Humor, Suspense/Thriller
Subgenre/Themes: Haunted House, Mind-Bender, Mystery, Reads Like A Thriller, Religious Stuff, Possession, Ghosts, Demonic activity, Haunted, Creepy Dolls, Family, Domestic Drama, Stages of Grief
Writing Style: Character-Driven, Brisk Pacing, Cinematic, Intricately Plotted

What You Need to Know: Going in, all you need to know is that a brother and sister that have a complicated relationship are tasked with dealing with each other and their parents' estate after they die in a car crash. This situation is a catalyst for an overwhelming amount of personal discovery. The two must painfully work through family secrets in order to sell their haunted house.

My Reading Experience: How to Sell A Haunted House is officially my favorite Grady Hendrix novel now. I love this book. I enjoyed every, single minute I spent here. The way everything unravels both slowly (methodically) at first and then fast & fiercely toward the end is genius. Hendrix introduces readers to the main protagonist, Louise, giving us careful insight into her relationship with her brother, Mark. We see everything through the lens of her experience and worldview.

And this is where the genius comes in because we develop this relationship with Louise, right? We get everything we need from her perspective. And this is a lot like real life too, the people we are close to, friends and family, co-workers, etc. their experiences and their narrative about what's happening in their life is filtered to us the way they tell it. They can decide to spin a story the way they choose to influence our perception of how we see it. They can leave out some details, they can add to it a little, or they can outright lie to make us believe they are the hero of the story and someone else is the villain.
But if we wanted to, we could ask the other person, the "villain" how it all went down and the narrative would be a little different, wouldn't it? Depending on what's at stake.
Hendrix reminds us that there are two sides to every story. Maybe even more.
Every complicated situation or event could be told from multiple POVs. The truth is in there somewhere, but getting to that source of information is complicated and in this case, dangerous. I love the way we get a lot from Louise and Mark but we don't get the fuller picture until the circle widens to include other family members, and holy hell, I love this family. Aunt Gail, Mercy, Aunt Honey... it's a powerful thing that only Grady Hendrix can do and that's his ability to give fictional characters all that quirk and weirdness. SO GOOD! So laugh-out-loud funny. Sometimes I feel like authors don't really *see* or *hear* their characters and so I have a hard time seeing them or hearing them too--they all kind of look or sound the same right? Not in a Grady Hendrix book. These people ARE REAL. The dialogue is REAL. Cinematic. That's some bookish magic.


This is possession horror.
Yes, there are puppets, dolls, and a haunted house. And two jump scares.
BUT
There is also the possession of truth. How it is decided who knows and who doesn't get to know. That gravitational pull some families have where everything is centered around one person, or one event, or a secret, a lie. And everything is centered around that whole thing like a rotten core of an apple spoiling the family from the inside out.
Generational dysfunction passed on from one cult of personality to the next.
Goddamn. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time. Because honestly, the only way some families can heal from a bad thing is a catalyst of destruction. A disruptor. In the case of this book, How to Sell a Haunted House, the journey of discovery is EVERYTHING.
Broken relationships.
Haunted people.
A haunted house with a haunted past.
MY FAVORITE GRADY HENDRIX BOOK!! I laughed, I cried, and I was terrified.

Final Recommendation: If you are looking for an intricately plotted haunted house story infused with a tale of possession and mixed with a domestic drama complete with suspense and mystery, you will love this book as much as I did.

Comps: The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig (kind of), I don't know! I can't think of anything quite like this with the family dynamic and the humor, the fun, and the scares.

🤡 How to Sell a Haunted House by @gradyhendrix

Thank you @berkleypub for my #gifted eARC!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
👻 genre: horror
🏚️ read if you like: dolls, clowns, haunted houses, Home Before Dark, Lock Every Door

Thoughts 💭

My first Grady Hendrix did not disappoint!

When Louise’s parents die unexpectedly, she heads back to the home she left for their funerals and to workout their estate. Louise and her estranged brother need to figure out their parents house, which is filled with creepy dolls.

I’m not going to say anything else about the plot because this is a great book to read blind.

I didn’t think I’d love How to Sell a Haunted House as much as I did. I thought I wouldn’t be able to believe all horror, but I totally ate up all the craziness of this book.

I think the end was a bit long, but the book was so fast-paced that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

How to Sell a Haunted House is CREEPY! I rarely get scared from a book, but this one definitely wasn’t one I wanted to read before bed.

First line: Louise thought it might not go well, so she told her parents she was pregnant over the phone, from three thousand miles away, in San Francisco.

Summary: Louise is going back to her childhood home after the tragic death of her parents. She has rarely returned and is dreading the reunion with her brother, Mark. The two have never gotten along and from the moment she arrives in Charleston it appears that nothing has changed. As they prepare their parent’s home for sale they have to clear out years of memories and hundreds of dolls and puppets. Her mother spent years creating puppets for her ministry work and now they have been left to Louise.

However, the cleaning out of these items is trickier than she expected. Dolls keep reappearing after being thrown away. Eyes seem to follow her as she walks through the house. And the appearance of Pupkin, her mother’s oldest puppet brings back nightmares from their past. It appears that the house has other plans for Mark and Louise.

My Thoughts: This book was frightening. Dolls and puppets are creepy! And this helps reinforce that belief. I plowed through this book in just 3 days. I was splitting time listening to it and reading it. I found that I kept wanting to listen/read just a little bit more. At one point I thought the story had come to a natural end but then Hendrix throws another twist into the mix making it even more sinister.

Even though I really enjoyed it there were some parts I found a little odd or annoying. Some parts of the brother/sister relationship made me angry especially after their experiences together in the house. And the very end was a little underwhelming. I don’t want to spoil it but I kind of wished it had finished a little earlier in the story or in a different way.

If you find dolls scary then this may or may not be the book for you depending on if you want to be scared or not. It gave me chills at moments. Enter at your own risk.

Another amazing book club pick! I really do feel like spreading this out over several weeks and discussing what we thought every few chapters made it so much more immersive. I spent so much time thinking about these characters and this family until they felt like people I knew, who'd been in my life for a long time.

Two estranged siblings reunite to take care of their parents' estate and clean out their childhood home in How To Sell A Haunted House, no easy feat due to their mom's lifetime commitment to puppet ministry. The house is filled to bursting with homemade puppets and dolls, and siblings Mark and Louise have very different ideas about what to do with the whole macabre collection.

Unfortunately for them, but amazing for us, the puppet collection has some ideas of its own.

This manages to be both a crazy, rollicking story about haunted puppets as well as a brutal look at the way childhood trauma follows you into your adult life. Mark and Louise react very differently to the same traumatic events. Louise moved across the country after college, threw herself into her work, and tried to make herself so busy she wouldn't have time to dwell on her traumatic childhood. Mark never moved out of their hometown, dropped out of college, and built a lifestyle where he could avoid risk and avoid being hurt. They each judge each other harshly and attempt to use each other's choices to claim the other got off easy, that the other doesn't really know what it's like to suffer, that if the other had truly been traumatized they wouldn't have reacted like THAT. It isn't until they can stop competing over Whose Trauma Counts that they're able to compare notes and work together to get back at what hurt them.

I laughed, I cried, I was bombarded with far too many memories of people bringing their deceased parents' novelty collections to Half Price Books for lack of a better place to take it. Grief is all-encompassing but grief is also ridiculous, and it transforms the silly little objects our loved ones held dear into an insurmountable problem. I really can't think of a better metaphor for that feeling than mowing your way through a wall of possessed puppets with a shovel.

Grady knocks it out of the park again! For best reading experience, take it to Waffle House.