With Halloween right around the corner, the spooky season is in full force and many of us are enjoying our horror entertainment: whether it be scary movies, haunted hayrides or spooky books. A book I recently read to get me in the Halloween mood was “The Haunting of Ashburn House,” written by USA Today bestselling author Darcy Coates. Coates is known for her terrifying horror stories, focusing mainly on the subgenre of haunted houses.
In a quiet, small town named Ipson, a mystery sat at the top of a hill, overlooking a vast forest and the quiet town below. Ashburn House had been a household story for generations and so was Edith Ashburn, the woman who lived in it. Stories about who brutally murdered her family and why every Friday there was a light in the top window of her house. Edith was known for being peculiar as she always bought a newspaper daily when she came into town, she would never talk to anyone and she never allowed anyone to visit. But was Edith just a grumpy old woman who hated everyone, or was she hiding something to protect others?
“The Haunting of Ashburn House” followed Adrienne, a young woman who inherited a house from a great-aunt she never knew existed. Following the death of her mother, Adrienne is left with no place to stay, debt from her mother’s hospital stay and no money to feed herself and Wolfgang, her very chunky cat. With these problems weighing on her mind, when she was told about a fully paid off house given to her late great-aunt named Edith Ashburn, she considered it a miracle and a new chance to find normalcy. But questions still lingered in the back of her mind: who was Edith Ashburn, and why did she leave Adrienne her house?
As the story progressed, Adrienne slowly put pieces together about her great-aunt and who she was. In the house, strange messages were carved into the walls, there was no electricity on the second floor, and in the attic, there were hundreds of cartons of candles. But as she uncovered more and more of her great-aunt’s past, the more she realized something strange was happening at night outside the house. She questions her sanity as she swears she sees something move outside her kitchen window, but who, or what, would be all the way up the hill hiding in the woods? And what does it want with Adrienne?
For me, horror movies and books have always been hard to get into. When I was younger, I was scared to even watch “The Nightmare Before Christmas” because I would stay up all night overthinking and would end up having nightmares. But as I have matured and realized that I was the one sabotaging myself, and after dating someone who was obsessed with everything horror, I have grown to like horror, predominantly the paranormal kind.
This book is one of my favorite horror books that I have read. I have read 26 books this year, currently working on number 27, and this is the second book to which I have given a full five stars. From the first page, Coates gripped you with her storytelling abilities and kept you engaged and on the edge of your seat through the whole book. There is constant suspense when nightfall hits over what may happen as Adrienne is alone with her cat with no phone, no car and no way to get help. It was so hard to put the book down that I was able to finish it in less than four days. It would have been less if I was not a full time college student and working almost a full time job.
If you are like me and like something that is not going to gross you out but still makes you look behind you and run up the stairs after you turn off the lights, I would highly recommend this book. Because of this book, I bought another book by her called “Gallows Hill.” As of Feb. of this year, she has written and released 29 books, and has another one coming out next February, all of them being in the horror genre. So if you really enjoy her writing, you will be entertained for months to come!
All in all, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who feels like they have not been able to get a good spook in during the Halloween season. This one will give you a good fright for more than one night, so just make sure you have a candle lit next to your bed to stay safe.