Set in Norfolk in 1867, Eliza Caine responds to an ad for a governess position at Gaudlin Hall. When she arrives at the hall, shaken by an unsettling disturbance that occurred during her travels, she is greeted by the two children now in her care, Isabella and Eustace. There is no adult present to represent her mysterious employer, and the children offer no explanation. Later that night in her room, another terrifying experience further reinforces the sense that something is very wrong.
From the moment Eliza rises the following morning, her every step seems dogged by a malign presence that lives within Gaudlin’s walls. Eliza realizes that if she and the children are to survive its violent attentions, she must first uncover the hall’s long-buried secrets and confront the demons of its past
The opening line of this book piqued my interest. Ghost stories intrigue me, and I like the authors (Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte) that author John Boyne was paying homage to. This book has a really good concept, and it was a good read, but I didn't find it that scary.
I found it exciting, but not scary. It's definitely more of a plot-driven novel and less a character-driven one. This isn't a book that will have me up half the night wondering if my house is haunted or has spectral visitors. I wished that it was more scary, or at least that Eliza found things to be scarier than they were. I know it's supposed to be paying homage to the Gothic novels that were so fond of having characters be unnervingly calm in their description of supernatural things, but it would have been nice to see Eliza react more to scary things that were happening than what we got. It was teetering on being one-dimensional. If Eliza wasn't scared of what was going on, why would I be?
This being said, however, John Boyne has a strong narrative voice, and has a great writing style. He pays homage to the Victorian and Gothic authors, while also having his own narrative flair and style that makes for a unique hybrid of old and new. He is a good writer, which shows through in this book, and is one of the highlights of the novel.
Unlike Dickens' novels or books by Charlotte Bronte, This House is Haunted didn't take me very long to read once I got into it. It was a relatively short and quick read, and things moved quickly. As I said, it wasn't all that scary. It was nothing new or surprising, just your general run-of-the-mill Gothic tropes. The explanation for the twist kind of fell flat for me, and the lack of public curiosity about a high turnover rate of governesses was eyebrow-raising. In Jane Eyre, I was genuinely afraid of the madwoman in the attic. I wasn't really afraid of what came in This House is Haunted. Sure, I was curious about how it would all turn out, it wasn't all that scary.
All in all, This House is Haunted is fine. It has an interesting concept, and I liked the homages that the author made to Victorian and Gothic writers. It was a quick book to get through, and there are some interesting moments. John Boyne is a good writer with a unique writing style, paying homage to writers of the Victorian era, while also creating his own narrative voice. That being said, it wasn't scary enough for my tastes, and I didn't really connect to the narrator on any level. I'm going to give This House is Haunted a 3/5 - it was good, and has a lot of potential, but it needed a bit more.
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