It was an interesting take on the Haunted House genre. The house being in the Middle East and soldiers are the ones being driven crazy by entering it. The ending was a fun cliffhanger of "is he safe now or not?"

This is the type of horror I enjoy. A mix of hardcore reality mixed with a creeping atmospheric haunting that stalks in from the periphery.

The audiobook is narrated by Davis Brooks. He was an excellent voice of MC Corporal Loyette. Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment when they learn of the Soviet-era barracks and its haunted history. After a brief visit each unit member starts experiencing the unexplainable. Changing images, sleep walking, sleep chanting, words that won't burn, disappearances... Seems light but with the backdrop of war in hostile Afghanistan territory its extra layers to the mounting tension.

Milas expertly combines different levels of dread, anxiety and stress that feeds from the war riddled area the unit is in and from the increasing hauntings. This novel is noted as a mix of Stephen King and Tim O'Brien, but I'd go even farther to say this gave me Hollow Places vibes from T. Kingfisher (loved that book). Haunted spaces with a history and an almost parallel dimension feel.

Even though this is a gothic type horror it also examines the rougher edges of war zone life. The political and unquestionable expectations of soldiers. The last few sentences of this book hit in a way that left me in a personal 'oh shit' moment. The perfect ending that will sit in my thoughts for a long time.

I want to thank @henryholtbooks for the ability to win a @goodreads giveaway copy and another thank you to @macmillan.audio for the gifted ALC. I cannot pick a favorite format. This is a book I'd listen to again and one I'd go back and annotate. If you're into slow building horrors set against realistic backdrops you'll want to add this to your TBR!

A perfect, quick-read for the fall spooky season (or any time of year). Milas has crafted a fresh take on psychological horror, while grounding it in the realism of modern war as in Phil Klay's Redeployment. Well-paced and excellent narration will leave you wanting more from this author. I highly recommend the audio version. Please note, I was gifted an advance audio recording via NetGalley.

This was a weird one and I am still not entirely sure how I feel about it. I was definitely left wondering what just happened if Corporal Loyette is still in The Militia House or not.

I thought this was a well written book. I loved the slow pace and both the real life horror elements of war and the supernatural horror.

The Miltia House by John Milas is a slow twisting decent into madness. It’s one of those stories that left me thinking even after I’d finished listening. The story revolves around Corporal Loyette and his unit. They’re stationed in a FOB in Afghanistan in 2010 doing the rather mundane task of loading/unloading cargo. There is little do to there, especially since at least early on they can’t recharge their electronics. So the idea of checking out the supposedly haunted old barracks, a Soviet-era militia house, close to the base is almost irresistible. They should have taken the warnings more serious. I won’t go into detail—you’ll want to experience this for yourself—but their excursion into the militia house has lasting effects, and it’s not long before he and some of the others begin to experience things (or at least think they are). Again, not going to say what so I don’t ruin it for you but this is truly a trippy and unnerving story. Hopefully some of my friends will read this when it comes out as it’s a story that absolutely begs to be discussed. Davis Brooks does an excellent job with the narration, completely pulling you into the story. I’d like to thank Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advanced copy of the audio version of The Militia House.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R296TIYDPLYZQL/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

“At first you’ll see nothing, and then you’ll wish you had seen nothing.”

Happy belated pub day to this one! This book was one of those “no blurb, just vibes” reads for me, so I didn’t really know what to expect. In fact, I thought the helicopters on the front cover were fish for the longest time.

This book has everything: stick figure drawings, a never ending case of athlete’s foot, long island iced teas, porcupine quills

The horrors of this book come at you from two different directions: the mundane horror of overseas deployment (not in a war glorifying nationalist way, but more of a “why are we even here?” way) and the unexplained horror of Loyette’s gradual descent into madness after visiting the militia house.

It’s a slow burn for sure, but I feel like it was a necessary creative choice to portray how monotonous the MC’s everyday life is and what his cynicism is driven by.

I can’t attest to whether or not this book is like Stephen King or Tim O’Brien, but if you enjoy the liminal aspects of House of Leaves and twisty Catriona Ward endings, this book is for you. Seriously, if you enjoyed House of Leaves (minus the misogyny), read this. This book is truly unique, and I enjoyed reading it.

Thank you NetGalley, Henry Holt & Company & MacMillan Audio for this ALC. A special thanks to John Milas! All opinions are my own.

The Militia House is the perfect quiet, creeping horror to fill your long summer days. It is John Milas’ debut horror novel and is set in Kajaki, Afghanistan in 2010 during the war. I listened to the audiobook version of The Militia House and absolutely devoured it–this is sure to be a book that I will continue to think about and possibly re-read for many years.

We follow Corporel Loyette as he and his unit are moved to a new base in Afghanistan where a British unit has already been stationed. Loyette is unsettled by a few odd occurrences he notices around base, but thinks nothing of it outside of his mind playing tricks on him. However, Loyette and his unit are soon informed by the British unit of an abandoned militia house nearby that was the site of a violence battle and is now believed to be haunted.

Since Loyette and his unit are sufficiently bored on base, they manage to plan a visit to the site, where they have a deeply unnerving experience that they op to ignore and not talk about with anyone else once they make it safely back to base. Unfortunately, things don’t go right back to normal as each individual person seems to begin having uniquely odd experiences that begin to put strains on the group as they attempt to maintain an existence in this war-torn area where all they have is themselves and one another.

Milas does an excellent job at conveying the monotonous reality of living on base in Afghanistan and the many different ways in which it can begin to affect each person’s mental wellbeing. At the same time, Milas also does an excellent job at exploring the psychological aspects of being at war, including PTSD, difficulties adapting to civilian life, and how the aforementioned monotony can create varying levels of uncertainty among a unit.

While The Militia House is military horror and there are many war experiences mentioned, there is not much of an emphasis on military action itself in the present, which for me worked well on keeping the attention focused on Loyette and some of the more psychological components of the story. I really appreciated Milas’ exploration of war and introspection concerning the moral and ethics surrounding war and the soldiers’ experiences.

The Militia House is not a horror story that really throws things in your face and focuses on gore and shock value, but rather one that focuses on the slow burn build up of unease and a sense of haunting that slowly builds into a crescendo that truly echoes long after the last page is closed. It is incredibly disquieting is the type of book that is full of images and ideas that are sure to stick around in your head for far longer than you’d like them to.

Milas has a writing style that is both simple and complex in how he crafts his ideas and subsequently conveys them in ways that left me riveted to every word. There is a perfect blend of detail and description mixed in with just enough left unsaid to really impart a sense of terror at the unknown. I will also warn you that this is a story that falls into more of the open ending territory, and I think this was the perfect choice for Milas to end his story with. It probably won't be for everyone–in fact, I'm sure some people will probably end up quite frustrated–but I thought it was the perfect ending to match this atmospheric tale of creeping horror.

Overall, I’ve given The Militia House five stars! This is a stunningly written work of military horror that filled me with dread until the very last page (and honestly still does) and I genuinely cannot wait to see what’s next from Milas.

In The Militia House, Corporal Alex Loyette and his unit continue to complete mundane tasks at their post in 2010 Afghanistan. It's tedious work, and when an idea forms to explore the nearby and supposedly haunted militia house, everyone agrees.

It isn't long before things start to feel different. They have unusual dreams. Porcupine quills are found all over the place. A journal that was destroyed reappears. The tension comes to a crescendo when one of Loyette's fellow Marines vanishes. After searching everywhere, he knows he must return once again to the creepy house.

I wasn't sure where this book was going at first, but there was an unsettling undercurrent weaving through the story that kept me intrigued. It gave me Iain Reid vibes a little bit, especially with a conclusion that's more open-ended. I really enjoyed this atmospheric debut and look forward to more books from the writer.

I am still trying to figure out what I think of this book. The Militia House wasn’t really horror. It was almost House of Leave light. You enter the Militia House but do you ever leave? If you are in the most boring job in the military during the Gulf War who knows? I enjoyed the entire thing, but I was always sure that everything went back to the place it started. It made me think about the terrors of war even if you aren’t on the front line, but know you could be and are not prepared coupled with the surety that no one at home understands. It was, in the end, a study of war, trauma, and the darkest places of the mind.

Corporal Alex Loiyet is stationed in a little abandoned village in Afghanistan. They not only have nothing to do but they’re in the middle of the desert with nothing to look at except for the militia house. It is an abandoned building that the Royal Marines claimed an atrocity happened in One night while guarding the back gate him and his fellow marine see a dog with humongous porcupine quills coming out of its face and it is a sight he will not soon forget. Especially because every time he turns around he seems to see the dog or find porcupine quills. One day due to boredom Lamont inquire if they can sneak over to go inside the militia house and although the corporal is curious about it he plays it cool but eventually gives his consent. he gets the two British Marines who told him about the tragedy in the militia house to bring them and they tell the guys not to stay long. The corporal says those stay 15 minutes but it seems time gets away from them before they know it they’ve been in there almost an hour strange things happen but this is just the beginning. The narrative is spooky from the beginning but at the same time it is almost a slow burn we learn about the things that hold the corporal who’s your earning to be a good Marine and his missing brother Bryce I think this book is a bit extreme and had a lot of military jargon. it took me a while to get into it. I will say starting the book off with a dog with humongous quills in its face was a good idea because that horrible image stuck in my head for days after finishing the book. I enjoyed the book but think if you like books about the military and horror then you’ll love the book it may have seemed like a lot of military talk because I really know nothing about the military. Having said all that however I do recommend this book as it is a good horror and sci-fi read. I listen to the audio and read some of it in Kindle and enjoyed both. Please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review I want to think the publisher and Net Galley for my Ark copy. is one of

When I read the blurb for <i>The Militia House</i> on NetGalley, I physically could not click "request" fast enough. The description gave me elements of the Dark Pictures Anthology game <I>House of Ashes</i>, in which a group of deployed Marines finds themselves trapped and battling mythical horrors, contemporary foes, and the fears that simmer in their own minds. Debut author John Milas, a former Marine himself, weaves his own take on the inherent terrors of being deployed thousands of miles away to a desolate land where so little is known or under your control.

Like in <I>House of Ashes</I>, young American Corporal Loyette finds himself deployed to the Middle East in the early 2000s. His job is operationally important but not prestigious. He oversees a few other Marines but has relatively little autonomy. He is frequently referred to in relation to his brother, also a Marine, who was killed in action several years before. Corporal Loyette makes for a nuanced protagonist in that his self-doubt is soul-crushingly relatable: he takes pride in his work but ultimately fears that it makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. And then, the mission goes... very wrong, and his existential questions spiral with him.

The narrator cast for the audiobook version really brought Corporal Loyette to life, his tone inflected with the hints of cynicism and self-doubt that you might expect from a twenty-two-year-old man on his first overseas wartime deployment. However, the narrator did mispronounce several names and titles, which broke my immersion. No Marine would ever pronounce "the Corps" as "the Corpse," or "corpsman" as "corpse man" (which, in a horror novel where corpses could reasonably appear, I also found confusing). It was disappointing to me that the lived experience Milas brought to this story didn't fully translate into the narration.

All that being said, nothing excites me more in literature today than seeing new perspectives in the horror genre, and John Milas' voice as a young veteran makes a fantastic addition. <I>The Militia House</i> is a 4.5-star debut in my eyes, and I will be first in line for whatever he writes in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I really ended up liking this! It took awhile for me to get into it, but once they visit the titular house it ramps up pretty quickly and because a twisty horror book in a similar vein to some of the elements in House of Leaves. Definitely worth a read for a fan of horror.

So good, so haunting. This book made me paranoid and left me shocked by the end. The narrator was really great. I love military fiction, but military horror is probably my new fav. I loved this debut.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
So this was not a book I wojkd normally listen to or read but I did end up enjoying it. There was a sense of something coming throughout the book and the creepy inuendo about the militia building and that there was something bad there.
Narrator did a good job.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

A very good and slow burn of a debut(?).

There is a deep sense of pending doom as the story progresses and the Militia House seeps into the lives of the soldiers that were curious enough to go inside. The dread gets thick and won’t let go.

An excellent story, well written with spot on narration.

“I’m not supposed to be here”.

Truly unsettling look at the impact of the military on our psyche. It was dense with lingo, but to me, that just built the world. I was genuinely scared. I know it might be frustrating to some people, but it really worked for me.

Neat little psychological / horror story. Has some Shutter Island vibes. Similar to House of Leaves by Danielewski... only much, much shorter.
It is interesting to note that the author used his own military experiences as a backdrop for the story. I will definitely be following this guy... lots of promise here. I have a feeling that one day we will be boasting that we knew about this author before anyone else did.

Oh. My. God. John Milas’ ‘The Militia House’ is easily one of the best, most well-crafted gothic horror stories in a modern setting. Set against a backdrop of the real life horror that was war in Afghanistan, the juxtaposition of the unexplained reads as both incredibly apt and particularly hard hitting. Milas crafts the atmospheric suspense so meticulously and skillfully that I actually had to go back and verify that this was a debut. The dread-laced sense of urgency and visceral prose made ‘The Militia House’ absolutely un-put-downable and as haunting in the long term as the titular house itself.

Davis Brook’s narration of the audiobook perfectly captures the protagonist’s transitions from apathy to paranoia to resignation to downright madness.

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio, Netgalley, and John Milas for the opportunity to listen to an advanced audio copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.