Friday, January 3, 2014

Starter House

Starter House
Sonja Condit
William Morrow Paperback
December 31, 2013

Book Description:
Promising talent Sonja Condit makes her debut with Starter House, an eerie and mesmerizing tale about a young couple whose new house holds deadly secrets from the past, sure to appeal to fans of Heart-Shaped Box and The Thirteenth Tale.
From the moment Lacey sees the house with the beautiful wood staircase, she knows she’s found her dream home. Growing up rootless with her flighty mother, Ella Dane, a self-proclaimed psychic, Lacey is determined to give her unborn baby the stability she never had.

But shortly after she and her husband, Eric, move in, the warm and welcoming house becomes cold and dark. There is something malevolent within these walls that wants to hurt her unborn child—a terrifying presence that only she can sense. And there is Drew, a demanding and temperamental little boy who mysteriously appears when Lacey is alone.

To protect her unborn child and save her family, Lacy must discover the truth about her dream house and the troubled Drew—a decades-old mystery involving secrets, violence, and guilt—and confront an evil that has lingered in wait for years. 

Idgie Says:
A very scary novel, one that while you might "recognize" it from other novels (some fairly well known) it takes enough of a turn in the story to become completely it's own.    I won't say too much about the story itself as I don't want to give away plot, but imagine moving into a house that you adore - only to start to fear it the minute you actually own it?  No real way to back out that late in the game, especially when you and your husband put all of your savings into it. On top of that, your mother, filled with psychic experiences, senses nothing amiss in the house at all, so maybe it's your pregnancy hormones making you a little edgy. 

But everyone wonders who the little boy is that keeps wandering through the house.  The little boy that sits at the table and colors while eating the cookies Lacy makes for him. The little boy who sometimes loses his temper, or suddenly goes away..............the little boy who really doesn't like babies..............

Ooohhh!