BENEATH THE STAIRS

SYNOPSIS

Few in sleepy Sumner’s Mills have stumbled across the Octagon House hidden deep in the woods. Even fewer are brave enough to trespass. A man had killed his wife and two young daughters there, a shocking, gruesome crime that the sleepy upstate New York town tried to bury. One summer night, an emboldened fourteen-year-old Clare and her best friend, Abby, ventured into the Octagon House. Clare came out, but a piece of Abby never did.

Twenty years later, an adult Clare receives word that Abby has attempted suicide at the Octagon House and now lies in a coma. With little to lose and still grieving after a personal tragedy, Clare returns to her roots to uncover the darkness responsible for Abby’s accident.

Title: Beneath the stairs

Author: Jennifer Fawcett

Publisher: Atria Books

Publication date: February 22, 2022

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐

I’m not usually one for stories with a paranormal element, but I’m always down for a good haunted house story, and Beneath The Stairs had a really good premise. 

Clare is returning to her hometown after an old friend tries to commit suicide at the Octagon House, the local haunted house where they lived a traumatic incident when they were kids. 

Although the idea sounded really interesting, sadly the execution was not up to par.

I’ll grant this novel one thing, the atmosphere was really well done, especially the scenes inside the Octagon House. There were some really eerie moments and I would not have set foot in there in a million years! If a haunted house was not enough there was also talk of creepy doll. I don’t know which one I found more disturbing!

One of the problems I encountered in here was the story unfolded really, really slowly. There are multiples timelines and different POVs, but it revolves around the same facts for way too much time, making me think sometimes…”ok, you already told us about this. Move it forward!”. It could have been done in fewer pages and it would not have changed a thing.

When I thought we were finally getting somewhere things got bogged down again with an ending that not only tried to mix too many things, some of which came out of nowhere, but left lots of hanging threads. When I finish a book I want all my i’s dotted and all my t’s crossed, but in this case I was left with many questions and got very few answers.

Although the creepy vibes were there, the repetitiveness of certain parts and the lack of a satisfying ending made of Beneath The Stairs a not so haunting read.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Atria for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.