‘The Spite House’ is one of the strongest horror debuts I have read in a long time, if not ever. The structure and narrative are so well crafted, and the atmosphere is almost reminiscent of the slow-build dread of horror classics like ‘The Grudge,’ ‘The Wicker Man,’ or ‘The Elementals.’ Compton expertly builds his story’s foundation with a deliberate, character-driven mystery before pulling the rug from under readers’ feet the moment the anticipation of the nightmare-inducing haunting reaches a boiling point. This is as good as southern gothic and haunted house horror get. Not to mention the emotionally fraught themes of how far a parent will go to protect his children— from threats both alien and familiar— and the way traumas can continue to haunt us long after we think we’ve escaped them.

If you have trouble committing to a slow build but love a good haunted house, I very much recommend the audio version of this novel. Adam Lazarre-White’s narration infuses the pace with an emotional suspense that might draw in readers more accustomed to an early hook. However, if you love a well executed slow burn horror with an incredible and harrowing payoff that will stick with you long after closing the back cover, any format will suit you more than fine. ‘The Spite House is one hell of a debut and Johnny Compton has immediately become an instant-read author for me.

Thank you so so much to Netgalley, Johnny Compton, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and Tor Nightfire for the opportunity to experience both an advanced e-galley and an advanced listening copy of ‘The Spite House’ in exchange for an honest review.

What a debut! THE SPITE HOUSE is a totally uniquely spin on the haunted house trope and I loved every minute of it! Compton’s prose gives the best feeling of impending dread and I’m so happy the gothic horror renaissance is going strong!

It's shocking this is Compton's debut novel. The structure is great, showing us multiple POVs throughout the story. It's creepy and unsettling but not grotesque.

Im struggling with this review for one BIG reason. I really really didn't like the narrator and therefore only made it 30% of the way thru the book. I might feel differently if I had an actual physical copy and my own inner voice was narrating it. So my best review is skip the audio and try the actual book

There is something so effective and simple about a family centered haunted house story, and something so elevated about the plot device of coming back from the dead a little bit wrong, so this book down to the most essential level spoke to me and delivered just what I wanted. Such a fantastic debut and I look forward to anyhing Compton brings out in the future.

Eric and his daughters, Dessa and Stacey are on the run. Bouncing from hotel to hotel, trying to find work off-the-books while leaving no trail.

The more we learn about the three, their deep love for each other, their seriousness about their situation, their need to protect each other, the more curious you are about what they are hiding from.

Eric learns about a job where he needs to stay in a haunted house and document any activity. He is cautiously hopeful this will allow him to make enough money to be safe and protect his girls.

The Masson House, a spite house built as a reminder of wrongs, has a generational dark history. Eunice, the owner and employer, has her own dark need buried within the house. Eric has questions about his past and the darkness in his grandfather, and Dessa and Stacy have a secret they are protecting.

Compton’s introduction to the spite house and the family’s first nights staying there were the most tense, frightening chapters I have read in a long time. This is real deal haunted house terror, and done VERY WELL. I loved it.

This would be a total 5⭐️read except for the POV changing too often to minor characters, such as Eunice’s two assistants or the local reporter. These side stories distracted from the building tension and the darkness creeping in from all angles.

If you like haunted house stories, especially with a modern southern gothic twist, you will love being terrified by The Spite House.

Eric and his two daughters, eighteen-year-old Dess, and seven-year-old Stacy are on the run. His youngest daughter has been counseled to run and to hide if he says so. What trouble could they possibly be in? Has he stolen away his kids without custody? Was it an unsafe home life? One thing is for sure, he is a father looking for a safe spot for them to land after the transient life they've been forced to endure. After seeing an opening for a position at Masson House in Degener, Texas advertising a tidy sum of money, Eric packs up his girls and drives to apply. The rules given to Eric by the very wealthy Eunice are simple; live in the house and report anything that happens. What trouble the trio is in is left as a mystery until close to the end.

Spite houses, if you are unfamiliar with the term, are houses that are built in the way of something else, like a neighbor's view, or as part of a land disagreement. (My personal favorite is The Equality House in Topeka, Kansas built across the street from Westboro Baptist Church and painted in the pride flag colors.) The Masson House is weird, both in architecture and history and I applaud Compton for choosing such an unusual setting, diverting the typically dark and stormy haunted house tropes.

While I loved that it held its secrets tight until almost the very end, I wanted more from The Spite House. I enjoyed the characters and the mystery of both their past and that of the spite house, but it felt like it was forgetting something. For a house billed as one of the most haunted in the state, there wasn't the gothic atmospheric dread and buildup that I expected. The characters themselves were excellent and I was invested in their story but the jumping timelines didn't do any favors to my drifting attention span. It often felt like an info dump with more tell than show. While the origin story of the house was crucial to the ending, the deviation from the characters I was already invested in stalled the read for me at times. When a book leaves so many questions unanswered in the beginning, I expected an ending showering all the information out in a downpour. However, there were still a lot of questions that didn't feel answered after the last page.

I did experience this one via audiobook and must say Adam Lazarre-White was the perfect narrator for the job. Johnny Compton's writing could drift a bit on the tedious side with the multiple viewpoints and numerous timelines. The narration brought vibrancy to the characters that might not have been there otherwise.

A layered gothic horror with an old-school feel, The Spite House reminds me a lot of horror novels from the 80s, such as The Elementals by Michael McDowell, and Maynard's House by Herman Raucher, where the story starts out as a character-focused slowburn, then nosedives into a horror that's more psychological and fantastical (like a drug-induced nightmare rather than the typical ghosts and spirits). It also has a very consistent undercurrent of dread throughout, which is a tone mainstream horror literature has moved away from lately. Its departure from trends makes The Spite House a standout read.

The audiobook has noticeably elevated my overall experience; Johnny Compton's writing is sharp, but leans on the stoic side, which can make the story coming across like a news report, rather than a passionate telling. But Adam Lazarre-White's performance infuses a lot of humanity back into this material, and makes the characters come to life. If you find the physical read is too dry and clinical, I would highly recommend giving the audiobook a try.

The Spite House is surprisingly complex, with the integration of American history and architectural terminology (spite house is a real thing!), alongside the fictional familial drama (there are like 2–3 family histories we're following throughout). Even though nearing the end it does get a little convoluted trying to wrap everything up, I appreciate the effort in trying to compose something different, rather than just a straightforward haunted house story.

The lore of J-horror The Grudge is another work that comes to mind; playing with the theme of a place being 'cursed' by all the extreme emotions from the people who have resided there prior. The Spite House is an acquired taste — it's purposefully slow (but not aimless), constructing its horror upon an intangible concept, and vague on giving answers in its closure. Readers expecting a page turner might be taken aback by how much threads need to be untangled in this shortish book, but this is 100% a memorable read.

The Spite House was intriguing, original and chilling! What started off as a seemingly basic "family moves into a haunted house" story quickly becomes so much more with all of the twists. I really enjoyed the characters, and thought that there was equal balance between a character and plot-driven story. Parts might have felt a little slow, but the need to know what is going on is overwhelming, so I read this book very quickly.

slow burn horror
it had some good parts and some really slow parts and I am more of a fast paced type of reader
I get impatient sometimes during the slow parts (this is just a me thing and u might like it)
ok so I never heard of a spite house before and its very interesting, so i learned that lol
We have a haunted house type story with other included paranormal vibes
This made it fun, because i love ghost stories and all things horror
The creepier the better
This book went on and on about a lot of things the i felt like didn't really need all that time spent on it and on the things that needed explanations we were left with still more question
well-developed characters with pretty good backstories
there were scary parts but not til closer to the end and that made me sad :'(
I would have liked it throughout the book here and there more leading up to the big stuff
There were a ton of POVs and that was at times difficult to keep track of but this could have been just me because it took me sooo many days to get through this book
The end was def interesting, and not really expected

I was able to get an ARC of this book in audiobook form from NetGalley and would like to thank them along with the publisher. My review/opinions above are honest, voluntary and my own.

Maybe this wouldn't have struck me so hard had I read the physical book instead of the audiobook narrated by Adam Lazarre White, but DANG the audio is soo00 good! He did every voice so well, every character was so vibrant! But really, |loved all the characters. They each had distinct personalities and flaws. love the themes. It was suspenseful, eery, intense, complex, twisty, and emotional. Thanks to netgalley and MacMillan audio for audio copy to read and review.

Eric is on the run and with two daughters in his care. He’s a man that wants nothing but to provide for his girls and keep them safe. When an ad pops up to live in a haunted house, take some notes and get a huge pay out, he’s instantly curious, and maybe a little too eager. Desperation often leads to some questionable behavior and this case is no different.

Told through many POV’s it is a ghost story unlike any other. The story is unique but also woven with some pretty deep topics. A gothic horror with a generational curse, paranormal activity and a chilling atmosphere.

I listened to this one (often while reading) and the audio was so good! I was able to get fully invested - even if I was a tad confused sometimes 😂 I’m so glad I read this with Jess, because together we were able to figure out all the many things going on!

The question remains; do the spirits lurking at the house cause it to become evil or was the house evil and lure souls in to eat? 👀

When I listened to this book, I could not believe it was by a debut author! I am hoping that he's working on another book because I will be first in line to buy it! I loved everything about the book and thought the author did an amazing job!

I had a tough time getting into this book and found the beginning to drag on a bit for me. It did get better as the story picked up, but I didn't enjoy the narrator so that had an impact on my overall enjoyment of the book. I would like to give reading it myself a try and see if that produces a different result.

First of all, the narrator for this is perfect. His voice is absolutely mesmerizing and it lends itself well to the Southern Gothic Genre.

The book itself is a creepily perfect combination of Get Out (2017) and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, both of which I am a fan. That said, this novel brings the theme of family and fatherhood into the fold in a way that haunts as well as it holds. It’s definitely a story that will stick with me.

I will admit that the child endangerment (this is not a spoiler as there are children and this is a horror novel) made me squeamish, but it was handled with grace and maturity. Moreover, the children never felt like plot devices as is so often the case in this genre. These were fully fleshed-put characters, and I applaud the author for his effort.

I’ll be reading his work again!

This audiobook had me hooked from the start. I loved the eerie and creepy vibes of the book, and never knowing what would come next. Highly recommend.

#TheSpiteHouse by @comptonwrites is my most recently read #audiobook read very awesomely by @realadamlw ! Many thanks to @macmillan.audio (who always has killer performances in their audiobooks) and @netgalley for providing this in exchange for an honest review.
This book is a gothic horror set in a town that’s epicenter is a #spitehouse. I had never heard this term before but apparently it’s a phenomenon that occurs when a person in town takes out all of their spite and malice on their neighbors by building an eyesore. In this Spite House there’s more than just spite behind it’s walls but also the ghosts of people done wrong. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
An African American man traveling with his two young daughters, trying desperately to keep off the grid (why is revealed later) - a man desperate for a job with a quick large payout finds an ad to stay in Spite House a job to prove of the existence of spirits and the afterlife by his written observations. As you can imagine all types of ghost chasers come out of the woodwork for this type of job, but the old woman interviews this man and senses two things: experience in the nature of things unseen & a whiff of desperation. The old woman knows something’s up In the house (hence why no one lives there) and this ISN’T the first time people have been given this task, only to leave seemingly scared out of their wits.) The last couple who stayed there couldn’t finish the time frame or the assignment and left weeks early with the woman claiming, “The house has something of me, and it won’t give it back!!!!” #Creepy #soCreepy
I really enjoyed this story and the telling of it. Time reveals so much in this story via flashbacks on the history of the man and his family as well as the Spite House’s history. Set in modern days, it really was an unique ghost story that spoke to life, death, and the spitefulness of humans, a nasty trait that apparently spans the ages and slips with us into the afterlife, creating hauntings and hatefulness that can ooze out of the (literal) woodwork! Check this book out, highly recommend the audiobook, loved the narrator’s voice, this book is out for sale now!

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5

This book felt largely unfinished to me. There’s no reason or explanation for why certain things happened, or how they happened. The idea behind the story is interesting but I wish it had been more fleshed out.

I listened to the audio version of this book, and there were a lot of things to really love about it. I adore a good haunted house mystery, and this one was eerie enough that sneaking downstairs for a drink of water in the middle of the night made me nervous!

I appreciate and love how Compton gives us a really fantastic sense of geography--not just the land the eerie house is built on but also the town in which it is planted. We get to know a desperate family, but we don't know the reasoning behind the desperation. There were some choices (the mom) that weren't fully fleshed out, but the twists were good.

If the prose were more literary, this would have gotten a higher rating, but as an escape book, it's fabulous.

While I was not a huge fan of the narrator's voice for this audio book, I think that's a personal hang-up. He was an excellent choice to add to the creepiness factor for others. This book is just the right blend of atmosphere, family secrets and page turning drama. Definitely one to leave the lights on for!