“He still couldn’t feel anything divine in the world. But this - the way his skin crawled, the suffocating pressure in the air, the quickening of his pulse - he felt all of that and no longer hesitated to put a name to it. There could only be one word - evil.”

Tommy and Kate leave their life in Boston behind to move to Italy, to be closer to Tommy’s elderly grandparents. They find a fantastic deal on an older home there and are excited at the prospects for refurbishing it. Tommy’s Nonna is furious that they bought the home, which Katie and Tommy think is a little odd. Until they find out that the house used to belong to the Catholic Church. It got its name - The House of Last Resort - because people who were rumored to be demonically possessed were sent to the house as a last ditch attempt at exorcism. Creepy to think about, but there couldn’t possibly be any truth to it…could there? Sure the house is a little creepy, and has a bit of a rodent problem, but that’s just because it's old and abandoned…right?

Whew, now this was a perfect horror novel for me! I love isolated/locked room type stories, and Italy is one of my favorite settings, so to have them combined was so fun. The atmosphere in this book played a huge part; the descriptions of the house, its hidden rooms and long-kept secrets, laid all the necessary groundwork for the perfect haunted house tale. Though the pacing was a little bit slow at times, I still was very much invested in this story and wanted to see where it went. I always joke that I am more afraid of the living than the dead, but the idea of evil spirits lingering in this spooky old house was just enough to make me want to keep the lights on when reading at night - LOL!

I believe that evil spirits can exist but I also appreciated how the author presented another question to this topic; broaching the idea of how many of these people in the past were mentally ill and dubbed as “demonically possessed” because there was no other word for their condition at the time. More than the evil spirits, I think all the rats inhabiting the older parts of the house are what really got to me - idk!

Christopher Golden will always be an auto-buy author for me! “The House of Last Resort” releases January 30, 2024. Thank you to Christopher Golden, Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

This review will be shared to my instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottl) shortly :)

After reading All Hallows last year, and really enjoying it, I was very excited to get an ARC of The House Of Last Resort. I’m also very excited to say that I loved this book, even more than All Hallows. The House of Last Resort was extremely creepy, the scene between Kate and Tommy’s grandfather genuinely gave me chills. This book had great atmosphere, I really felt like I was in this small Italian town, seeing all the things Kate and Tommy saw. I will say, this book is very slow burn and it takes a long time to get going, so if slow burn books don’t work for you, you probably won’t enjoy this. This book really worked for me however, and I loved it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Across Italy there are many half-empty towns, nearly abandoned by those who migrate to the coast or to cities. The beautiful, crumbling hilltop town of Becchina is among them, but its mayor has taken drastic measures to rebuild—selling abandoned homes to anyone in the world for a single Euro, as long as the buyer promises to live there for at least five years.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for sending me a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I enjoyed this book. The first half of the book started off slow and I almost DNF’d it but in the second half, the book got better and I was glad I stuck with it. I liked the setting. It was creepy but it wasn’t scary. I felt like I was there. The writing style of this book bothered me in the beginning because it has a lot of descriptions about the setting and a lot of inner dialogue where you are reading what the couple’s thoughts are but there’s not a lot of dialogue between the characters and the chapters were really long which made the book feel like it was a lot longer than it was but once I got used to the writing style, I enjoyed the story.

This felt like it would be better suited for a short story. Although, I will say I appreciate this author’s writing style. I’ve not read any other books by him, but I will check them out.

The House of Last Resort takes a seemingly beautifully location in a small town in Italy and presents a darkness lying beneath. Tommy and Kate have moved to Becchina to an old abandoned home in the town where Tommy's grandparents live. The story starts off by presenting a sense of unease around their new home and revealing a darkness in the history there. By the end, the book really earns it's horror genre label. With claustrophobic catacombs, rats, possessions, ghosts, and more, there is plenty to get under the readers skin. The author's writing style brought everything to life and I will be excited to read what the do next.

The House of Last Resort is a creative spin on an exorcism storyline. It had a slower start, but despite the pace, was still interesting and had some little creepy moments sprinkled in. At a little before 50% things really pop off and get scary. This was such a unique novel and I was gripped from then to the end.

It all begins when a couple move to Sicily for a government program offering young people the chance to purchase abandoned homes for as little as one single Euro, as long as they commit to staying for a certain number of years and putting a certain amount of money into renovating the home in an attempt to repopulate small cities and bring new generations into deteriorating towns.

Kate and Tom jump at the chance for a new start in the Sicilian city that Tom's grandparents live in and they score a huge house to make into their own. However, in traditional horror novel fashion, it's simply too good to be true and things start to go very dark.

I don't want to reveal anything specific, because I loved learning the grim backstory of the house that the couple move into, but just know it's spooky and interesting and all the things I had hoped for. I didn't like rats before, and I certainly don't like them now. 🐀 They haunt my dreams.

This is a must read for horror fans!

3.5
Tommy and Kate move to a small town in Italy wanting to restart their life a little. But after only a few nights they realize the house is not all it seems to be.

This was an interesting on but it felt a little unbalanced. I loved the setting and the descriptions of the town and people in it. You get that eerie atmospheric setting really well. I also liked Tommy and Kate. I liked how they just jumped into this new life and looked at into all of the weird things they kept hearing and seeing. The beginning was a bit too slow though. But, once you got going, you really really got going. My heart was pounding for several scenes!

All in all, this was a good horror book that has an incredible setting.

Thank you to the author, publisher for the gifted copy. My reviews are always honest.

Rating this book is so hard for me. I STRUGGLED to get through the first half. Nothing interesting happened, I was so bored…..but the second half of the book was INCREDIBLE. It was everything I wanted this book to be. If you can handle the slowest of slow burns for the first half, 1000% read this because the payoff is worth it. So 3 stars? 4? I truly don’t know. First half, 1. Second half, a solid 5.

Thank you to NetGalley, Christopher Golden and St Martin’s Press for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This one is a bit slow to start, but once you get into this one - it’s creepy and twisty and I flew through it! I did not take those twists coming and I loved the entire idea of this novel!

2.5 STARS - I was pulled into this book based on its enticing blurb. A couple takes advantage of a too good to be true deal and buys an Italian mansion for one Euro in a remote Italian village. The only caveat is that they must live in the house for five years and renovate it. But the home has its own secrets and a dark history.

Golden provides a beautiful yet haunting setting in the small Italian town. There is a sense of foreboding, and the sinister atmosphere was my favourite part of the book, but the story takes quite awhile to get into the house's secrets. One plot point that that irked me is how Americans Kate and Tom move to the small town to get away from the busyness of American culture only to immediately want to turn the quaint town into a tourist destination without talking to the locals.

This is a very slow burn read with creepy elements (that felt a bit absurd at times), but not nearly as scary as what I (a self-proclaimed wuss) imagined a horror book would be. And while the ending had high energy, the tension was often disjointed, and the plot lagged in the middle with a lot of internal dialogue which caused me to put down the book a few times. I think this book would fare better as a short story.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to St Martin's Press for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book is for anyone who’s a fan of The Exorcist or movies like that. This book reads like a movie in the way the reader is engaged throughout drawn into the lives of the main characters as they embark on a new journey of living in Italy and renovating the house they bought. When Kate and Tommy soon discover their new house has a dark past they think of it as unique history but when they learn how closely it ties to Tommy’s family that’s when things start to change.

This is a quick reading book and I think anyone who enjoys the horror genre will definitely enjoy this.


Thank you @stmartinspress and @netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

I received a complimentary egalley of THE HOUSE OF LAST RESORT by Christopher Golden thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley.

THE HOUSE OF LAST RESORT is set in Italy in a small town that is slowly fading away as the young move to bigger or more populated cities and the remaining population ages. The town of Becchina is trying to fight this attrition by offering homes for the steal of a deal price of one Euro to anyone who moves there and stays for five years. Americans Tommy and Kate can’t pass up such an opportunity, especially since Tommy has family living there and fond memories of visiting as a child.

When Tommy and Kate arrive, their new home is hit by an earthquake which seems and ominous start, made worse when Tommy’s Nonna arrives and is clearly mad and scared when she sees the new home they’re moving into. Still, Tommy and Kate are excited for their new start in a new home. When they discover an undisclosed annex on the house, it begins to raise questions about the former owners and the former uses of the place they now call home.

This book had so many buzz words for me and I was excited to read it. The Italian setting was done well and I enjoyed the glimpses of the new home Tommy and Kate create. Still, I found the setup to the actual horror elements to take too long to get to. I did like the premise of bringing different people together and the excitement that these “imports” had for rejuvenating Becchina, but there is a lot of time spent on the relationships and family drama that didn’t fully hold my attention.

The horror elements are well done and I did enjoy quite a bit of those, but it doesn’t really take off until you’re about halfway into the book and even then, the pacing was a bit uneven for me. There were some twists to the story that I didn’t expect, especially not having read the full synopsis (which I think gives a lot more away than I would have wanted to know).

For a relatively short book, this one took me a while to get to because I found it fairly easy to put down. Still, I would read more from this author in the future as there were parts that I did really enjoy.

Christopher Golden is truly a master of his craft. An incredible book. Highly recommend this book and his other wonderful works.

I wanted to love The House if Last Resort, but I had a hard time getting into the story. I did like the setting.

The House of Last Resort by Christopher Golden had me hooked from the synopsis. A haunted house in Italy, what better setting could you ask for? I loved how much detail went into building the Sicilian town of Becchina so that the reader could visualize the multiple locations.
I felt that the story started out strong, but lost some momentum in the middle. However, I could not put the book down in the final 25%. The ending had me sitting on the edge of my seat.
Some of the dialogue was a bit cheesy and felt unnatural. Overall, I really enjoyed this creative take on a 'haunted house' and would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy in return for my honest review.

So first off, in the beginning of the book they stated, how the main characters put their happiness and the quality of their lives above work. That absolutely resonates with me! I value my time and experiences over money and working, unfortunately I have to work to have experiences but man this book gets me already! Then BAM. Scary! There was a lot of scene setting which I think lost people love especially when you’re setting a scene in a beautiful country like Italy, specifically Sicily, for this one. I’m not a huge fan. A little is fine with me, I start to get lost and bored without some dialogue. But I really liked this book the characters were so relatable and the story was just awesome! Definitely recommend this one!!!

I really wanted to love this book as much as I loved Road of Bones, but sadly, I struggled with this one. For me, I like a faster paced book, and this one is definitely on a slower scale.

There is a creepiness about the book, which kept me intrigued and wanting to see what was going to happen next, but it still fell a little flat for me.

I do see a lot of people truly loving this one. I look forward to the next from this author!

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author, for the advanced copy!

My thanks to St. Martin's Press, Christopher Golden and Netgalley.
Well, honestly I've never been at a loss to describe a Golden book. Yet, here I am.
I can't fault Christopher too much. Truth is that the thought of demons seems a bit ridiculous. I've never been a fan of this trope, and the few times I was? Well, that was because they scared the ever loving shit outta me! This? This was not Lisa Noell having any type of shit scared outta her. This was mostly just me being annoyed as all hell that I was spending this much time reading a book that I hated, written by a man whose books I've always loved! So, there ya' have it.
Love the author. Hated the story!
Still, me hating is still a worthy read. 2 1/2 stars, rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC!

This was my second read by Christopher and I really enjoy how he writes his story’s. This was a very creepy tale and I loved the setting in Italy!

My only complaint was I felt the ending with Tommy was a bit rushed, but I still liked how Golden ended the story and I wanted more.

Wow, this book was exactly what I want from a suspense horror book. I read it all in one sitting and absolutely couldn't stop, even tho it meant delaying going to bed. I'm filled with nerves now, especially with that ending!