The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry
I would like to thank Titan for n advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Titan
Published – out now
Price – £9.99 paperback £5.99 Kindle eBook
Single mom Harry Adams has always loved horror movies, so when she’s offered a job cleaning for revered horror director Javier Castillo, she leaps at the chance. His forbidding Chicago mansion, Bright Horses, is filled from top to bottom with terrifying props and costumes, as well as glittering awards from his decades-long career making films that thrilled audiences and dominated the box office―until family tragedy and scandal forced him to vanish from the industry.
Javier values discretion, so Harry tries to clean the house immaculately and keep her head down―she needs the money from this job to support her son. But then she starts hearing noises from behind a locked door. Noises that sound remarkably like a human voice calling for help, though Javier lives alone and never has visitors. Harry knows that not asking questions is a vital part of keeping her job, but she soon finds that the house―and her enigmatic boss―have secrets she can’t ignore…
Our love of a genre can be powerful. It may shape our worldviews, it may guide our life-choices and it can give us careers or even hobbies that end up taking lots of spare time (ahem) but love anything too much there could be consequences and we end up hurting others. In Christina Henry’s interesting horror novel The House That Horror Built we get a fascinating character study of this although the journey worked for me a bit more than the final destination.
Harry Adams was a young girl who fell in love with horror; she loved her Stephen Kings and copies of Fangoria. But she lived in a religiously conservative household and this demonic practise needed to end. Harry though had seen life could be more and just before College crept out at night and never went home again. Now in her early thirties as a single mother to a lovely son and working through the Pandemic she has got a job as the cleaner for the enigmatic but strict Javier Castillo the acclaimed Horror Director who is also known for his drive, artistic standards and has even won an Oscar but also that his wife and son vanished after the son was accused of murder. Javier fled with his beloved movie props to a giant house in Chicago. Harry cleans with Mr Castillo in silence, moving rom one room to another and has not yet admitted she is a fan of horror too. But there is one room that scares Harry where the Sten lives a bizarre demonic creature from his most popular film. One that seems to move just for Harry. Harry also starts to hear someone asking for help. This house…may be haunted but by whom?
On the one hand I loved the character work in this. Harry and her son Gabe are two really three-dimensional characters. A very good trusting bond between them and they talk as normal people do. We feel Harry’s ride in her son; their sense of humour, shared love of horror and as we witness Harry’s backstory what she had to go through plus her despair at rising costs, a greedy landlord and how she has often had to keep her head down in fear of losing what she has worked hard for. She’s incredibly effective. As she enters this strange house that gets steadily creepier we have someone both worried about the supernatural but also not simply running away.
In contrast we have Javier who horror fans may see a resemblance (hopefully simply in career history) to another real Hollywood horror director. Javier is fascinatingly enigmatic. Silent and reserved at first, we only initially see his character revealed in flashbacks. He is a horror fan that actively goes into the genre with his desire to be a great director becoming all consuming even with his wife and son in the background which leads to many family tensions brewing. While Harry puts Gabe first with Javier it’s the opposite and these two characters starts to warily lower their walls and Javier takes a bigger interest in Harry and in particular Gabe. None of this though ever feels romantic but more two people circling around each other in a very dangerous house.
The horror element is a deliberate slow burn. The house is a great gothic multi-layered home of strange rooms full of horror memorabilia and we have sounds, weirdness, and a growing sense of menace. Who is being haunted and why is a key mystery as does what Gabe who gets drawn into the house also attract the attention of. I’m really enjoying this playing out of horror and the increasingly worrying tensions between Harry and Castillo and then we come to my biggest issue with the book. Everything ends very very quickly in a few relative pages. It’s a very rushed ending that feels at odds with the rest of the book and leaves a lot of unanswered questions. We have spent so long with Harry sorting her life out so what happens next to them in a very difficult situation? Horror stories can end fast and leave the plots hanging indeed, but I feel like a better conclusion would have help end a really interesting story.
The House That Horror built is a story that loves its subject and horror fans will love that exploration and the many easter eggs that lie within it. The character work is indeed rather beautiful, and the creepiness of the house is a mystery explained I just wanted that ineffable a little bit more resolution to make it work completely for me. Its still an entertaining read and worth a look.
