The Haunting of Ashburn House: A Modern Gothic Haunted House Survival Story

I had actually started listening to this on my Spotify Premium during my hour long drive to work every day. This afternoon, my drive home ended at chapter 34 and I realized there was no way I could wait another day or two to find out what happened next! I don’t have the attention span to listen to any audiobook unless I’m driving or doing chores, so I purchased the book from kindle and finished it within the hour. I would read this again, and now I need to own a physical copy! Just a good fun horror story with a hero in Wolfgang!

I’ll admit it, horror is not often my genre. In the last year I’ve read three horror/thriller books including this one. Just three. Why? I like to sleep at night. Something about this book pulled at me, though. I ran across it while browsing Goodreads a few months ago and it kept popping up in the back of my mind. In the last couple of weeks I’ve tried to pick up a dozen other books and just couldn’t get into them. My mind was begging to read this one. I finally gave in and I must say that this book is different from most of the others I have read of the same genre.The story begins with Adrienne and her fluffy, slightly overweight cat Wolfgang. An elderly relative of Adrienne’s had recently passed away and she has been left her great-aunt Edith’s property including her home, Ashburn House. Addy doesn’t remember having a great aunt or any relatives at all, for that matter. Sadly though, she is down on her luck and being left a furnished, paid off house is a windfall. Using the last of her cash, she takes a cab to the house she is determined to make into a home without ever seeing it or the town that it is a part of. Desperation and potential homelessness can make you do some silly things.The house is everything you’d expect out of a setting for a horror story. Set back into the woods, old, spotty electricity, and no phone line.Alright folks, moment of confession here. I’m honestly having trouble writing this. My desk is against a wall with a stairwell behind me and I keep spinning my chair around expecting something creepy and horrible to be behind me or some nightmare creature to be hanging down from the skylight. I have given myself such a bad case of the willies. It’s terrible. I’m such a wuss. Moving on…As Addy and Wolf settle into the old Ashburn house they start to notice some strange things about the place. First, it has absolutely no mirrors anywhere on the property. Where a mirror would normally hang there are cryptic messages carved into the walls warning against them. She finds further messages carved into the dining table and door to the attic.LIGHT THE CANDLEYOUR FAMILYIS STILLDEADWanting to find out more about the mysterious Edith and the people that once lived in the house, Addy discretely asks questions to the people in town. An older fellow, whose father was once the local police chief, tells Addy the story of Edith and her family. In the early 1900s young Edith and her mother, father, aunt, and uncle all resided at Ashburn. They were a very well off family and often went into town. After the locals hadn’t seen or heard from the family in a few days some of them went out to the house to investigate. There they found a blood bath. The family, save Edith, had been horrifically slaughtered. According to the tale, their blood painted the walls and pieces of them were scattered throughout the house. Little Edith was found as the lone survivor, locked away from the mess but was cleared of the crime being only eight and physically unable to cause the carnage.The story that follows this revelation to Addy is one of nightmares. She slowly begins to discover the reason for the cryptic messages carved around her new home as well as locating an old grave on the property. Adrienne and the fluffy Wolfgang are isolated in the woods and their horrors are just beginning.As much as this story scared me I still very much enjoyed it. The pacing was well managed and terrible little details were dropped at just the right moment. I physically gasped a few times and nearly hurled the book across the room once or twice when a passage particularly startled me. If you at all enjoy a good horror novel I would definitely recommend this one. Also, for those of you wondering, the cat lives. I doubt I could have said anything kind about the book if he hadn’t. Never kill the cat!IS IT FRIDAYLIGHT THECANDLE

I selected this book during the final hours of a 24 hour readathon. I had the hope it would keep me reading during my hardest hours of the 24. The creepiness of the story certainly did just that. It actually became hard to put down once the readathon ended. However as I needed the sleep, I put it down. When I picked it back up to finish it, (or so I intended), a hilarious thing happened.I woke in the early morning hours and could not get back to sleep. I decided I would read a bit in bed. The house was completely dark except for my Kindle. My dog was sleeping next to my bed. Now, you need to understand this book is very atmospheric. For me, the creep factor is high. The writing had totally drawn me in and I was transported to Ashburn House. At a part that involved a lone neglected grave and a dead looking body, (I don't want to tell you if they were or were not dead - sorry), I felt my bed suddenly start violently shaking! Being completely disorientated, I was wildly trying to figure out where I was and what was happening. The shaking stopped but my heart was racing. The shaking began again along with the doors loudly rattling and my dog freaking out at nothing I could see. Being fully awake now, I realized we were having an earthquake and the haunt of Ashburn House was not in my room. The earthquake was a 6.3 one so you can imagine how it felt. We are fine but I thought I would share that with you. I know I am not the only one who gets so drawn into a story.I really enjoyed the story. In my opinion the build up was well timed. We were given a chance to experience Addy getting to know an old house she inherited. We became aware of something being wrong the same as she did. This is what allows us to fall so deeply into the story that we are lost in Ashburn with Addy. I do wish we had a bit more information on Marion. It would have been interesting to know her character better. The gore level was a surprise. In my experience you either get a ton of gore or none with an atmospheric book. I felt the author put the right amount of it in the story.There is no sex in this book, the violence/gore level was appropriate for the story and there is some mild adult language for those who are interested. I would absolutely recommend this book for teens and up. I am looking forward to reading more work by Darcy Coates.

3 - 3.5 ⭐This was an easy, enjoyable haunted house read—classic in style, with a few twists. It has that familiar setup: eerie old house, unsettling notes, and a mystery that slowly unravels. I figured out the twist and the meaning of the notes early on, so it didn’t surprise me much, but the atmosphere kept me reading.Compared to Hunted, which was much more intense and gripping, this one felt a little too safe and predictable. That said, I still appreciated how smoothly written and accessible it was. The level of horror was fair—not too much, not too little—and it made for a nice comfort read.Not the most unique or memorable story, but if you enjoy traditional haunted house tales with a lighter edge, it’s still worth picking up.