The Dead House

A Novel

By: Billy O'Callaghan

Narrated by: Simon Mattacks

Sometimes the past endures and sometimes it never lets go.

This best-selling debut by an award-winning writer is both an eerie contemporary ghost story and a dread-inducing psychological thriller. Maggie is a successful young artist who has had bad luck with men. Her last put her in the hospital and, after she’s healed physically, left her needing to get out of London to heal mentally and find a place of quiet that will restore her creative spirit. On the rugged west coast of Ireland, perched on a wild cliff side, she spies the shell of a cottage that dates back to Great Famine and decides to buy it. When work on the house is done, she invites her dealer to come for the weekend to celebrate along with a couple of women friends, one of whom will become his wife. On the boozy last night, the other friend pulls out an Ouija board. What sinister thing they summon, once invited, will never go.

Ireland is a country haunted by its past. In Billy O'Callaghan's hands, its terrible beauty becomes a force of inescapable horror that reaches far back in time, before the Famine, before Christianity, to a pagan place where nature and superstition are bound in an endless knot.

©2017 Billy O’Callaghan (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Very descriptive

Writer wrote in such a way that I could see smell and almost taste the story. I felt it took too long to get to know the characters but that’s just me. Creepy story left me wanting to know more about what happened and how.

Gather round the fire for this one!

This one creeped me out. But it isn’t the books dreadful supernatural side or its finely realized characters that impresses me most; the book's setting wins out this time. Desolate and awful (archaic) and mysterious as the sea.

Disappointing

This book is fairly well written but never gets going. Very little in the way of a ghost story or character development.

Pleasantly spooky

I felt drawn into this book with every word! I usually play my books at 1.5 speed but dropped this one down to catch all the expression. Also love that this was featured in a book club I just joined @twogirlsoneghost awesome read

Spooky

I absolutely loved this ghostly storyline. I was sucked in immediately. It was definitely worth the read.

Only read if you have to...

Narrated well, had some trouble with the female voices. The story was incredibly slow and boring, and I definitely would not say this was horror.

Kept waiting for the story to begin…

Really wanted to like this but it to forever to go anywhere. It was like being stuck on a long train ride with someone who was trying to tell a joke with no punch line.