Coram House is a gripping, atmospheric thriller. Set against the eerie backdrop of a crumbling Vermont orphanage, the novel expertly weaves past and present as Alex Kelley digs deeper into the long-unsolved case of a vanished boy. The tension is palpable, and the slow unraveling of the orphanage’s dark secrets keeps you on the edge of your seat. While the pace can feel a bit slow at times, the compelling characters and eerie setting make it an engrossing read. A great choice for fans of psychological suspense and true crime.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC of Coram House.
Inspired by true stories at St. Joseph’s orphanage in Burlington, VT, true crime writer Alex Kelley sets out on a 6-month contract to write a “legacy” book for a local attorney who represented former residents of Coram House back in the ‘80s. Through research and reading old transcripts, Alex discovers long ago buried accusations of a young boy being drowned in the lake, in addition to many other abuse cases by both the nuns and priest that ran the orphanage. Determined to uncover the truth of what happened back in the 1960s, Alex finds in herself in over her head in her research.
Coram House started off strong for me, but the details of the story got a little muddled and slow in the middle, and I didn’t find the big “twist” at the end to be too shocking. If you’re up for a slow burn thriller, it would be worth checking out though! 3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read an early copy of this book. Book was fine, really good if you like the genre! I would read more from this author.

Some books grab you by the throat. Coram House is one of them.

Bailey Seybolt's debut novel turns a real-life horror — the dark history of St. Joseph's Orphanage — into a gothic mystery that'll keep you up at night. The story follows Alex Kelly, a true crime writer whose career is circling the drain. When she takes a ghostwriting gig about an old orphanage on Lake Champlain, she stumbles into something bigger: a decades-old disappearance of a nine-year-old boy and a fresh corpse in the woods.

Seybolt writes like someone who knows Vermont's bitter winters firsthand. You can practically see your breath while reading, and feel the crunch of dead leaves under your feet. The orphanage looms over every page like a bad memory, exactly as it should.

What makes this book special isn't just the mystery — though that's a doozy. It's how Seybolt weaves together past and present, showing how violence leaves fingerprints across generations. Alex isn't your typical plucky detective; she's messy, complicated, and carrying enough baggage to fill a cargo hold. The rest of the cast is just as real, each hiding secrets that matter.

The middle section takes its time, letting you sink into the mud of family histories and local legends. But when the pieces finally click together, the payoff hits like a punch to the gut. This isn't just about solving a mystery — it's about facing the monsters we've tried to forget.

If you like Tana French's moody crime novels or Carol Goodman's gothic chillers, you'll feel right at home here. But fair warning: this one might keep you looking over your shoulder, especially if you live near an abandoned building with stories to tell.

4.5/5 - A debut that proves some ghosts don't need to be supernatural to haunt you.

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my own.

This was well written and engaging, especially when you remember this is inspired by a true story. It didn’t feel overdone in any way and keeps you on your toes.

I would recommend!

wow I haven't been this into a thriller in a WHILE! The setting here was soooo good... perfect winter read! And I did not see the plot coming which was great :)

Thanks, Netgalley, for the early read.

When Alex gets word that shady things have happened in the past at Coram House, she packs her bags and moves to Vermont for six months to write her book about it. What the doesn’t expect is things don’t always go to plan.

I enjoyed this book and did not see many of the twists coming.

This was a great read! The main character was relatable and endearing. I appreciated the pace do the writing as it kept you engaged and excited without being too fast paced. I highly recommend this book!

Coram House by Bailey Seybolt was absolutely the perfect mystery thriller to read in the dead of winter.

Coram House follows the story of Alex, a writer who struck gold with her first true-crime historical book but has since been dealt a hard hand when her husband winds up getting sick and passing. In the midst of his illness and passing, Alex had been writing her second book. Due to the outside factors, her book wasn't up to her prior success and ended up getting someone wrongfully imprisoned. Reeling from her husband's death and the fallout of her second book, Alex makes the desperate decision to ghost write a book for a Vermont attorney about the famous Coram House. She needs a break from New York and the payout promised by her contract so she packs up her few belongings and moves to Vermont for the foreseeable future.

Coram House, run by the Catholic Church, served as an orphanage for most of the 20th Century until it was shut down in 1977 due to allegations of ongoing abuse of the children in the Priest's and nuns' care. There was a lawsuit brought forth by various children (now adults in 1988/89) that would have doomed the legacy of Coram House and the church along with it - it should come as no surprise then that the lawsuit was settled out of court with a surplus of NDAs signed by the plaintiffs.

Back in the timeline of our story, Alex begins her research for the ghostwriting project and as she's doing the required digging, there are certain pieces to her puzzle that are not lining up.

What follows is a fast-paced (without being overwhelming) search for the truth of what really happened during one summer at the orphanage and the web of lies and secrets surrounding Coram House.

Four stars EASY with an eclectic cast of characters and beautiful portions of prose that kept me hooked so that I read the book in three days.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for this advance reader copy (ARC) of Coram House. I was sent this ARC in exchange for an honest review which you've just read. :)

📖🏚️ Coram House ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you love a good gothic mystery with a side of eerie atmosphere, Coram House delivers. This novel is packed with tension, secrets, and that deliciously unsettling feeling that something isn’t quite right. The story unfolds in a crumbling old house filled with whispers of the past, and the author does a fantastic job of building suspense with every chapter.

The characters are compelling, and the slow-burn reveal kept me hooked. The only thing keeping this from a full five stars? The pacing drags in spots, and some threads could have been tied up a little more neatly. But if you’re in the mood for a moody, immersive read with gothic vibes, this one is well worth it!

True crime writer Alex Kelley has lost her husband and had a book disaster; the man she framed for murder in her book was innocent. She needs to rebuild her professional reputation, so she agrees to ghostwrite a book about an orphanage where horrible abuses took place. When Alex arrives in town, she starts to uncover long-kept secrets and becomes a magnet for yet more horror. This suspense novel will keep you guessing till the end.

THis book is inspired by a true story which made it all the more interesting to me. Coram House was an interesting page turner for me. There are some trigger warnings people should be aware of relating to the mistreatment of children. This book is a well researched debut novel.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Atria for a copy of this book.

I wanted to really love this book but I just couldn't. The main character I found SO annoying. And the way the book itself was written I found elementary. Short sentences that irked me to no end. And characters I didn't really care too much about. I finished expecting a big reveal and it really wasn't.

I really liked the plot of this novel, an investigative author who goes to a small town to research and write about an old orphanage where abuse and a possible murder occurred. While those connected to the past begin mysteriously dying.

What made me really struggle with this book was the main character, Alex. She was a very unlikeable character to me. In short, I found her annoying. She was someone who jumped to conclusions (mostly incorrect), interfered with law enforcement, was awful to some characters (specifically Lola and Xander), and didn’t seem great at her job as an investigative author.

Alex Kelley has been contracted write a book about the abuses at Coram House, an orphanage closed many years ago. There are all sorts of unanswered questions about events that may have happened 50 years ago. Conflicting stories and uncooperative sources. There are all sorts of twists with a surprise ending. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy

A writer in need of a change of scenery decides to ghost write a book about a book about a closed orphanage on the shores of Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont. The orphanage was the site of physical and sexual abuse by the nuns and priest that worked there, and Alex also decides to research rumors that a young boy was murdered there. But during the research, not only does Alex find herself stymied by her sources, bodies start to appear connected to the old orphanage. Is Alex imagining that everything is related? Or is someone trying to hide something that happened back in the 1960s?

The book is told from Alex‘s point of view, but is interspersed with transcripts of testimony, collected during a lawsuit about the treatment of children at the orphanage.

The tension in this book is palpable from the very beginning. Not only is Alex fairly broken and disturbed on her own, but then we are introduced to a case which is disturbing on its own, and then the bodies start to appear. It’s incredibly enticing and makes for an excellent thriller. I was definitely hooked from the beginning and wanted to see where this was going to go.

There are plenty of suspects and a lot of potential ways for things to play out. However, I did have a bit of an inkling of one of the twists, though I didn’t guess the whole ending, which was done very, very well. The whole story was crafted in a way which allowed for it to build tension in and easy and exciting manner which adds to the creepy atmosphere and mystery.

Also anything dealing with old religious traditions and institutions has an extra creep factor, at least in my opinion.

This is definitely a winner for anyone looking for a good mystery/thriller to cozy up to this season. I highly recommend it and I’ll be looking for more from this author.

this was the perfect mystery! i loved the interview format, the twists and turns, and the ending was INCREDIBLE.

Since true crime writer Alex Kelley’s last book release ended disastrously, she’s struggled to pay her bills and doesn’t put up much of an argument when she gets paid too little to ghost write another true crime book. The lawyer who contracted her wants her to write about the abuses that happened at a Catholic orphanage in the sixties and seventies. One survivor had said during a disposition that she saw a little boy drown at the hands of a nun and an older boy who lived at the orphanage. But there is no record of the boy whatsoever and others stick to the story that if he did exist, he ran away. Alex becomes obsessed with discovering the identity of the boy and what really happened, and when she starts finding dead bodies, more than one person encourages her to stop digging quite so hard.

There are a number of twists, and the stark cold of the Vermont weather makes for an atmospheric read.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES APRIL 15, 2024.

A slow burning mystery/suspense with an abundance of atmospheric intrigue. The main character is a writer hired to ghost write a book about the Coram House, a home for orphans run by nuns decades earlier. She soon learns that some terrible things took place there and finds that she is being led astray by those she has interviewed. I loved the Vermont winter setting and was completely drawn in. I liked the main character and found her relatable. It took some time to get into the meat of the story, but once I did, I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. For fans of Kate Morton and Carol Goodman.

Coram House is a fictional slow burn mystery, but it is based on real crimes that occurred at St. Joseph's Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont. Coram House centers the plot around events that happened in the late 1960's. Fifty years later Alex, a widowed and down-on-her-luck true-crime author, takes on a job as a ghost writer and sets out to untangle the mystery of the disappearance and probable murder of a young boy. As she searches for answers, nothing is as it seems, and she isn't sure who she can trust.

Coram house is a propulsive read from the 1st page. Although it should be mentioned that there is child abuse, it isn't graphic. This book was 3.5 stars for me. Readers who enjoy true crime should add this book to their TBR!

Thanks to Atria Books and Netgalley for this AR.