Published February 7, 2023 by Tor Nightfire
Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. Having left his wife, his house, his whole life behind in Maryland, he’s desperate for money–it’s not easy to find safe work when you can’t provide references, you can’t stay in one place for long, and you’re paranoid that your past is creeping back up on you.
When he comes across the strange ad for the Masson House in Degener, Texas, Eric thinks they may have finally caught a lucky break. The Masson property, notorious for being one of the most haunted places in Texas, needs a caretaker of sorts. The owner is looking for proof of paranormal activity. All they need to do is stay in the house and keep a detailed record of everything that happens there. Provided the house’s horrors don’t drive them all mad, like the caretakers before them.
The job calls to Eric, not just because there’s a huge payout if they can make it through, but because he wants to explore the secrets of the spite house. If it is indeed haunted, maybe it’ll help him understand the uncanny power that clings to his family, driving them from town to town, making them afraid to stop running. A terrifying Gothic thriller about grief and death and the depths of a father’s love, Johnny Compton’s The Spite House is a stunning debut by a horror master in the making.
Eric and his two daughters, eighteen-year-old Dess, and seven-year-old Stacy are on the run. His youngest daughter has been counseled to run and to hide if he says so. What trouble could they possibly be in? Has he stolen away his kids without custody? Was it an unsafe home life? One thing is for sure, he is a father looking for a safe spot for them to land after the transient life they've been forced to endure. After seeing an opening for a position at Masson House in Degener, Texas advertising a tidy sum of money, Eric packs up his girls and drives to apply. The rules given to Eric by the very wealthy Eunice are simple; live in the house and report anything that happens. What trouble the trio is in is left as a mystery until close to the end.
Spite houses, if you are unfamiliar with the term, are houses that are built in the way of something else, like a neighbor's view, or as part of a land disagreement. (My personal favorite is The Equality House in Topeka, Kansas built across the street from Westboro Baptist Church and painted in the pride flag colors.) The Masson House is weird, both in architecture and history and I applaud Compton for choosing such an unusual setting, diverting the typically dark and stormy haunted house tropes.
While I loved that it held its secrets tight until almost the very end, I wanted more from The Spite House. I enjoyed the characters and the mystery of both their past and that of the spite house, but it felt like it was forgetting something. For a house billed as one of the most haunted in the state, there wasn't the gothic atmospheric dread and buildup that I expected. The characters themselves were excellent and I was invested in their story but the jumping timelines didn't do any favors to my drifting attention span. It often felt like an info dump with more tell than show. While the origin story of the house was crucial to the ending, the deviation from the characters I was already invested in stalled the read for me at times. When a book leaves so many questions unanswered in the beginning, I expected an ending showering all the information out in a downpour. However, there were still a lot of questions that didn't feel answered after the last page.
I did experience this one via audiobook and must say Adam Lazarre-White was the perfect narrator for the job. Johnny Compton's writing could drift a bit on the tedious side with the multiple viewpoints and numerous timelines. The narration brought vibrancy to the characters that might not have been there otherwise.