Looking For a Good Book

I am always happy to see a new Christina Henry book!

There’s a street in Chicago that seems otherwise pretty ordinary, except for the fact that there’s an old, abandoned, run-down house. Parents tell their children to stay away, but children find the fun in daring one another to go into the house. But people who go in, don’t come out. Many of them, anyway, and those who do, aren’t the same.

Jessie Campanelli is one of those who survived, but her little brother, whom she dared to go into the house, didn’t. At the time, his two friends said that the house ate Paul, but of course no one believed that. Paul was missing, at best, most likely kidnapped by someone who was staying in the house.

But years later, Jessie now an adult with a child, living in her parents’ home on the same street, having watched others disappear in the house, and workers sent to bulldoze the place, run away in fear, knows better. The house is evil. Pure, simple, evil. And Jessie is now a watcher, trying to keep people away from the place.

When a stranger shows up and begins to watch the house, Jessie confronts him and is surprised to learn that he knows her history and her present and offers some insight to the evil on the street.

This is Christina Henry at her best.  This is a superb examination of character in a horror setting. Jessie as a teen and as an adult who’s suffered unimaginable horror, is a great character for a dark, suspenseful, horror novel, and Henry captures every ounce of what she’s been through.

The house itself is a character, perhaps the only one that doesn’t change through the course of the book, but also the most threatening.

I never really thought I’d enjoy a ‘haunted house’ book as much as I enjoyed this. Of course Henry’s master stroke in detailing the characters around the house really makes this work. Even though the house is at the center of the book, it’s very much Jessie’s story, living with guilt, living with fear, living with a burden to protect others from the ‘place where they buried (her) heart.’

I’d be hard-pressed to pick a favorite Christina Henry novel, but this would definitely be in the mix.

Looking for a good book? Do you like horror? Do you want to read a haunted house story? Look no further, The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry is a delightfully frightening read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

* * * * * *

The Place Where They Buried Your Heart 

author: Christina Henry

publisher: Berkley

ISBN: 9780593953952

hardcover, 320 pages