What Happened at Hawthorne House

I read an eARC of What Happened at Hawthorn House by Hadassah Shiradski. Thank you, NetGalley and Brigids Gate Press, LLC.

This book gave me serious, Court of Rose feels. It’s the creepy orphanage setting where the older girls create a court with a queen, princesses, and duchess, and then they act out horrible acts on each other because they’re copying how the adults in their lives treat them. That is what play is for after all.

In the first half of the story, we follow Rosalyn, the young girl in 1926 who creates the game and then the “crown” that the queen is to wear. Even as she makes it, she knows she’s not the current queen. But she still takes a moment to put the crown on her head and be the queen just for a moment and be in charge. The little girls in the orphanage are not part of the game, but the three oldest are. To begin with, Sophie is the one who is the queen. Marie challenges this, and when Sophie answers that Marie has to tell her something she didn’t know, Marie gets the crown with a cruel prank.

Because that’s how you become queen. You “show you’re better” or “get one over” on the queen, and even the other princess’s and duchess’s. While the rules are not completely clear to someone on the outside, the girls all act with the knowledge of the young of how you pull a prank, how you can respond to a takedown or prank, that will keep or lose your place in the hierarchy.

When two sisters join the orphanage, we watch them both get pulled into the game.

The story is set up in two parts. The story leading up to the “event” and then the follow up to the “event”.

I loved every moment of this creepy story, and definitely think it’s worth reading!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this!

This book is about a ghost story about a children's game gone way wrong and too far!
The fact that there was the aspect of children games/ presence made it all that much more creepier!
I can also say there was a gothic - horror type feel to it (excellent in my opinion as a long time lover of dark and creepy!)... it may also be on the "morbid" spectrum.
The book itself was a shorter book (which makes for a quick and easy read).

All in all a great fantastic read and cant wait to check out more from this author!!

Hadassa Shiradski provides all the ingredients for horror in "What Happened at Hawthorn House": wicked children, dilapidated orphanage, and a Neganesque hammer. The result is definitely cringe-worthy. But Shiradski goes beyond mere blood and gore delving into the psychological toil of abandonment, degradation, and isolation. What makes this even more harrowing is that those abused are no more than children. Left to their own devices these children become vindictive, maliciously cunning, and manipulative. Their tragic end only leads to further encroachment between themselves and those who stay at Hawthorne House. Although we have sympathy for the girls, we are still left with a bad taste in our mouth as the childish games become more and more macabre. In the end the girls are left in a perpetual state of survival and fighting against being left "unwanted and collecting dust."

OH MY GOODNESS! This tapped into emotions from days back in primary/middle school when my friends and I played and said things to each other that felt fine back then but now looking back, things sometimes got conceited. The hierarchy and competition, the constant one-uppance, jealousy...

This Gothic novella explores that, but what if the game goes too far as neglected and abused orphaned children are left to fester malicious emotions?