Print Length: 170 pages
Publisher: Black Owl Books (August 15, 2015)
From Goodreads.com: Elle can't believe her luck; she's spending a month house-sitting the beautiful Gillespie property. Hidden near the edge of the woods and an hour's drive from the nearest town, its dark rooms and rich furniture entice her to explore its secrets. There's even a graveyard hidden behind the house, filled with tombstones that bear an identical year of death.
If only the scratching in the walls would be quiet…
The house’s dark and deadly history quickly becomes tangled with Elle’s life. At the center of it is Jonathan Gillespie, the tyrannical cult leader and original owner of the house. As Elle soon learns -- just because he’s dead, doesn’t mean he’s gone.
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My Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
This story gave me a lot of mixed feelings. On one hand, I enjoyed the atmosphere the author created, and the way they made the house come alive for the reader the same way it did for Elle. And I loved the way we got to see some of the past and the history of the Gillespie family through her dreams.
But on the other hand, some of the idiotic things Elle did over the course of the story made her a hard character to like. In fact, I have never been more convinced that a character had no sense of self-preservation than I was with her. Between creeping around in the dark with nothing but a candlestick for protection to trying to open a mausoleum (for what purpose I ask) I continually found myself shaking my head at her actions.
Then there was the part where she intentionally broke down the door to a locked room (and honestly, there wasn't an easier way to get in there? Look for the key perhaps? Or see about taking the door off the hinges) for no other reason than she "thought" she heard a noise in there. Yup. In a room that was locked, in a house that she had been staying in for days, all of the sudden it become too great and she literally used a crowbar to break into a room. And then despite realizing what it was and the reason for it being locked, she proceeded to violate their trust and privacy even more by snooping through the things that had been left in there.
I feel like some of these issues could have been overlooked had the ending not felt so rushed and sort of anti-climatic. I definitely felt like there was something crucial missing from the final sequence, but I can't identify what exactly it was. It also seemed kind of weird that the Gillespie's would just allow Elle to continue living in the home, but I definitely understand why they no longer wanted to.
In the end, I believe that people who enjoy paranormal stories that are on the shorter side will definitely enjoy this one.
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The Haunting of Gillespie House is available from Amazon.com
(for free if you subscribe to kindle unlimited)
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