Cabin in the City

August is typically my biggest book month of the year, but without my family’s annual trip up north, I didn’t read very much. What I did read fell a bit flat (with the exception of another book by Riley Sager.

But let my reads be your guide anyway. Maybe there’s something in here that will speak to you a bit more!

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan • 🎧 • ★★★☆☆

This book has been on my radar for a while. I was intrigued by a haunted house book that wasn’t on some cliff in England or an old home in New England. The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years follows two Indian families who emigrated to South Africa, and the haunting isn’t your standard ghost.

In the present day, teenager Sana explores the multi-family home she and her father just moved to. Sana is haunted by the death of her mother and twin sister. She fills her days exploring the history of her new home.

Decades earlier, you learn about one of the home’s original inhabitants: Meena, a second wife to a businessman who feels unwelcome there. While Sana uncovers Meena’s story, the house grows spookier (but really not that spooky, IMO).

But I felt like there was some tension and scares missing here. I enjoyed the stories (particularly Meena’s) but was left wanting more.

Read if you like: I’m not sure I have a good parallel here! Sorry, folks!

The Clinic by Cate Quinn • ★★☆☆☆

I hate to admit it, but I picked this book up 100% based on the cover. A scary Victorian-style house perched on a cliff in the fog? It was giving The Sanatorium vibes, and I had to rent it.

But this book was too long, not nearly atmospheric enough, and was full of characters I didn’t care about. Also, some of the timelines seemed off to me. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention.

So what’s it all about? Well, after the death of her sister, Meg checks into the rehab clinic where her sister died in hopes of finding some answers. While there, she keeps to herself, suspects everyone and essentially treads water for the bulk of the book.

The story is also told from the point of view of the clinic’s manager who starts to suspect that the treatments there aren’t on the up-and-up.

Read if you like: The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse.

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager • ★★★★☆

Riley Sager does it again. In Home Before Dark, Maggie returns to her childhood home after her family fled it 30 years prior. Unlike her parents and readers of her father’s famous book, she doesn’t think it’s haunted; she thinks it should be flipped.

This book flashes between Maggie’s experiences in the present day (including nosy reporters, odd neighbors and a helpful handyman) and bits from her dad’s book. Was her dad’s story all for the money? Is it haunted at all? I loved guessing!

I also loved how this book drew a lot from the creation of The Amityville Horror, but made it good.

Read if you like: The Family Plot by Cherie Priest or any other books by Riley Sager.

The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson • ★★★☆☆

I read somewhere that The Unmothers should be added to the folk-horror cannon. I’m not sure it’s quite that good (but it’s not that bad!).

Here, journalist Marshall gets sent to a rural Southern town to investigate a rumor that a horse gave birth to a human baby. Intriguing! Once Marshall arrives, though, she suspects this is all a hoax. However, something else mysterious is happening in this town.

The first half of The Unmothers was a little too detective-y for me. But once the supernatural elements came into play (far too late in my opinion) this book picked up.

Read if you like: Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey or Diavola by Jennifer Thorne.

Keep up with what I’ve read over on Goodreads! Also, if you’re an audiobook fan, I encourage you to try Libro.fm—you can support your favorite small bookstore while downloading your next listen.

According to Goodreads, I’m pretty much on-pace with my 2024 goal of finishing 40 books. Here’s what I picked up in the last throes of spring and early summer.

Where You End by Abbott Kahler • ★★★☆☆

I try not to critique books (or TV or movies or whatever) for what they aren’t or for what I thought they should have been.

But like with Mister Magic, the premise of Where You End was so intriguing yet the story wasn’t what I hoped for. In Where You End, Kat awakes from a coma with no memories. Her identical twin sister Jude fills her in on what she’s forgotten—or does she?

What Kat has forgotten is the time she and her sister spent in a new age-y cult. It sounds great, but I was underwhelmed.

A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley • ★★★☆☆

A witchy read in the middle of spring? Sometimes you just can’t control when your number at the library is going to be called.

A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon was better than I though considering how absolutely daft the title sounds. Like many other witchy rom-coms, the main character, Mariel, struggles with her magic. Is she the worst-ever witch or is she just good at some very niche spells?

Throughout the book, Mariel begins to find out, even if it means accidentally summoning and falling in love (real or not) with a demon.

This book was charming, but nothing I insist that you pick up—particularly outside of witchy reading season.

In Charm’s Way by Lana Harper • ★★★☆☆

This is the fourth installation in The Witches of Thistle Grove series. I enjoyed the first three books, but I’ll say that I really didn’t care for this one.

Delilah, the protagonist in In Charm’s Way was sympathetic and I really enjoyed how Harper picked up her story from the previous book and gave her a monumental challenge to overcome.

What I didn’t care for was the love interest in this story. Or rather—SPOILER—how this terrible love interest returned and managed a second chance. Ick.

The Manor House by Gilly Macmillan • ★★★★☆

I never know what to expect with domestic thrillers. Sometimes they’re un-put-down-able. Other times I know why they were a $1.99 Kindle deal or always available at the library.

The Manor House delivered in a big way for me. I ripped through this one in about four days.

Why was it so good? An English couple wins the lottery and moves into their dream home packed with fancy smart features, big windows and a pool. They live near some very fancy neighbors with their own live-in housekeeper. Their new life has them almost forgetting all about their weird friend who keeps asking for more money and random hikers that keep hiking through their yard.

But then the husband is found dead in the pool. And of course it’s great because there are plenty of feasible suspects. And his drowning might not even be the only mystery! And smart home features are scary! (Don’t tell my Nest thermostat which I fully believe has a mind of its own.)

The Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden • ★★★☆☆

A governess flees her hometown after the death of her husband to take a new post for a mysterious family at a dilapidated manor far from home? Sign me up.

The Secrets of Hartwood Hall has almost all the gothic elements you could ever want. Not enough ghosts for me, but still a nice read. Yes, I’m deducting a star for lack of ghosts.

One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware • 🎧 • ★★★★☆

I love a good Ruth Ware read. In a Dark, Dark Wood and One by One are such good snowy thrillers, and I was thrilled to find that her latest outing was set somewhere tropical.

One Perfect Couple hits on a lot of really great tropes in terms of summer reading and page-turning thrillers: a reality TV show, mismatched couples, shipwrecks, remote islands, and DRAMA.

I won’t share more because if you like Ruth Ware’s work or any of the tropes above, you’ll be in good hands with this one. I’d also recommend One Perfect Couple if you liked Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins.

Keep up with what I’ve read over on Goodreads! Also, if you’re an audiobook fan, I encourage you to try Libro.fm—you can support your favorite small bookstore while downloading your next listen.

It’s been a really trying month. My mom is gone. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling empty and trying to fill days with low-effort, benign entertainment. Reading often counts. So does Antiques Roadshow.

Nora by Nuala O’Connor • ★★★★☆

Michael and I celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in a pretty low-key way: We ate homemade brown bread, shepherd’s pie, and shared a Guinness. We also listened to the Significant Others podcast on Nora Barnacle, James Joyce’s wife. The historian on the show recommended this book, and I figured it was the perfect way to enjoy the rest of the holiday.

From what I understand, not a ton is known about Nora Barnacle. Joyce’s letters to her have survived (and they are absolutely batshit), but her correspondences have been lost. O’Connor does a good job at pasting what is known about Nora together in this rather lengthy book.

A lot of what I’ve read about Nora is that she was uneducated and kind of a bumpkin. O’Connor shows that this certainly couldn’t be true. She portrays Nora as being savvy, smart and stubborn. While Joyce runs around Trieste, Zurich and Paris with his cronies, Nora keeps their life as stable as she can and gives Joyce the space to write.

I think this is a must-read for James Joyce folks.

Death and Croissants by Ian Moore • 🎧 • ★★★☆☆

Immediately after my mom died, I needed mental respite. This took form as reruns of Superstore and The Great British Bake Off. It also meant reaching for a genre that I find entertaining but not taxing: a cozy mystery.

Death and Croissants is set in the Loire Valley, a part of France I visited last year. It was enough for me to bite. This little mystery was funny and absolutely full. How Moore managed to fit a chicken-loving innkeeper, nudist swingers, bounty hunters and mafia members into a short book is beyond me; but he did it and it was the respite I needed.

Fever by Mary Beth Keane • ★★★★☆

I’ve read and learned about Typhoid Mary in the past. The way the story goes is that Mary Mallon, an Irish cook and asymptomatic typhoid carrier, went from home to home cooking for families, always leaving death in her wake.

This typical telling makes Mary out to be calculating and cruel. Fever flips this narrative on its head. In Fever, Mary cooks so she can earn a better living than she ever could as a laundress or maid. She cares for the families she works for. When her employers fall ill, she’s saddened but moves on to wherever she’s needed next so she can keep a roof over her head.

This perspective is one I never really thought of. Even Keane’s telling of how Mary continued to cook despite knowing her diagnosis was sympathetic. I think Mary Mallon is due this sort of story.

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand • ★★★★☆

Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall is one of the best-ever moody, spooky reads. I knew that A Haunting on the Hill, a riff on The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, would hit all the right notes.

A Haunting on the Hill had the slow, creepy build that makes so many books and movies perfectly spine-tingling. A woman on vacation comes across the infamous Hill House while on vacation. She is immediately taken with the home, and convinces her girlfriend and a small crew of actors to join as she workshops her upcoming play.

Personal dramas, secrets from the past and general eeriness all start to seep into the rehearsals, and it’s wonderfully spooky. This is a great vacation read — if typical light beach reads aren’t your thing.

Keep up with what I’ve read over on Goodreads! Also, if you’re an audiobook fan, I encourage you to try Libro.fm—you can support your favorite small bookstore while downloading your next listen.