By: Abeeha Shahid
“The haunting of the Ashburn House” is a horror novel by Darcy Coates, an Amazon bestseller and award-winning author. Her passion for haunted houses, ancient graveyards, and suspense are mirrored in all her books. This book in particular is mostly influenced by the mysteries surrounding haunted houses yet still contains other mentioned aspects.
There is something about haunted houses that evokes a feeling of unnerving terror. They give us creeps not because there is a threat but rather because it is unclear whether they represent a threat or not. It is that uncertainty and internal struggle that makes you uneasy and keeps you frozen in place.
“The Haunting of Ashburn House” explores this phenomenon through the story of a young woman, Adrienne, who inherits an ancient manor from her estranged Great Aunt Edith, being her sole surviving relative. With only a suitcase of luggage, her pet cat, and twenty dollars, in her possession, Ashburn is a lifeline she can not afford to refuse. The uncanny manor and its previous owner Edith, a reserved person who never let any visitors come into her house, have had numerous rumors spun about them by the nearby town.
Upon arriving at the estate Adrienne is filled with a sense of dread at how unwelcoming the manor looks but brushes it off as it being due to Edith's old age hindering her from managing it well. Refusing at first to associate any of the happenings to paranormal activity, she soon finds it hard to rationalize what she sees. Cautionary notes and reminders have been carved into the wallpaper, furniture moves when she leaves the house, there is a hidden grave in the forest surrounding her house and eerie portraits hang in the upstairs hall that seem to follow her every move. As Adrienne tries to uncover the austere and gruesome past of the manor she realizes something malevolent and resentful is on her trail and it's slowly getting more powerful.
Coats excelled at establishing a mysterious and sinister atmosphere. The writing draws in the reader and the little clues and pieces of information are revealed in a manner that allows the build-up to tense moments to be intense and completely chilling. As Adrienne chases after threads of decades-old mystery the anticipation to discover more hints and developments makes it easy to look over the slight slow pacing of the book.
Although the plot was intriguing, certain details made little sense other than the fact that they were convenient for the storyline. For instance, soon after moving in Adrienne discovers that there are often power outages at night that leave the house shrouded in darkness and she knows there are crates full of candles stacked up in the attic yet still does not utilize any of them rather chooses to spend her meager savings on a week keychain flashlight for emergencies.
Another thing was how Adrienne has almost no curiosity about the manor and it makes no sense for her to not even familiarise herself with the space she is going to live in. It took her life being in imminent danger and ¾ of a book for her to even look into Edith’s room.
“As much as she hated disturbing Edith’s space, Adrienne couldn’t leave while there was the chance that something in the room could help”
The book is told from Adrienne's perspective, yet there is little that we find out about her personality other than her being a freelance writer with no friends or family. Her bond and interactions with her cat, Wolfgang, however, are cute and wholesome. In a way, while Adrienne saved Wolfgang's life when he was a kitten he saves her life when it's threatened in the manor, and to me, he is definitely integral to the plot and an interesting character.
Overall, it's a good book that's thrilling enough to keep you reading and I definitely recommend it to people who are trying to get into the horror genre.
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