This was a spooky and haunting read!

A little backstory for you readers:

Sam Hatch loses his family in a horrific accident and decides to completely walk away from his life as he has nothing left. He takes to the highway traveling here and there hoping to keep the life he had at bay.

On his travels, Sam comes across an abandoned house in the woods and on a whim he decides to buy it. He thinks that he can repair it back to its former glory. What he doesn't know is that the house is abandoned for a reason and what lies within will take its toll on his mind.

Sam not only has to explore his inner self but he has to come to grips with what the house holds as well.

The book just weaved itself around me as I read the storyline and I became so engrossed with the book that nothing else seemed to matter!

Five stars for keeping me entertained and spooked. ( )

I lost my Kindle before I wrote this so I cannot recall the names precisely. Suffice it to say a man has a car crash where he gruesomely loses his wife and child. He cannot seem to put it behind him. The dilapidated house he rents at the beach to fix up literally turns into the nightmare he was trying to run away from and as he becomes part of it he just fades away.

It's a nice but depressing novella that tells a compelling story well. We can see Dr. Sam Hatch just fade away a little more each day until the house absorbs him.

Hide the razorblades... ( )

Another fine novella from Darkfuse.

To those who read lots of dark fiction, and ghost stories in particular, this is familiar territory. We even feel like we have been in this house before. Yes, there is the creaking floorboard and the shadow moving in the next room. Wasn't the staircase over there? Let's find the closets, because as we all know, a lot of things happen in closets and basements. Oh never mind. That doesn't matter.

While this story will definitely feel familiar, what isn't so common is the quality of the writing and the depth of the characters. Ghost stories should be creepy and unnerving, and this one sure is; but the very good ones are often sad---filled with the heartbreak of loss of loved ones and the anguish of those left behind.

Malfi delivers. We feel deeply for these characters. We appreciate the texture and depth of his narration and description. And even though we have been here before, we still feel the chill to the spine and the tug to the heart.

I guess that is why we will always read ghost stories. Particularly really good ones like this. ( )

This was an excellent haunted house story.

Dr. Hatch has lost his family. Broken by the weight of his guilt, he decides to leave the family home and wander aimlessly. Until he comes upon an abandoned house. The Mourning House.

I have read a few great haunted house stories in the last few weeks. This one stands right up there with the best of them. ( )

As the name would suggest, The Mourning House is a bit of a dreary and depressing novel. The novel starts off with Dr. Sam Hatch getting into a car accident that kills his wife and young daughter. That starts a downward spiral for Sam as he abandons his life and becomes a drifter. He winds up buying a house in the middle of nowhere that has some mysterious and mystical properties. The house “calls” to Sam, and he begins renovations on it. Without going into spoiler territory, things get weird after that.

The writing had a seriously dark quality to it. It was moody and atmospheric, I think in the way the author intended it to be. Sam Hatch is a realistic character with some depth to him. He has a hard time coping with loss as many others do in similar situations. His dropping out of society might be a bit extreme, but it works in the context of this story. I thought at times it was a bit too depressing for my liking, and I would have liked it to be more uplifting. For instance, a relationship between Sam and a waitress at a restaurant nearby the Mourning House was teased but it never evolved. Perhaps that could have brightened things a bit. Overall, I liked this book. I read it one sitting on a plane ride, and it’s the sort of book that you could devour pretty quickly.

Carl Alves - Battle of the Soul ( )