The Haunting of Ashburn House by Darcy Coates

 The Haunting of Ashburn House by Darcy Coates, 328 pages

Following the death of her mother and being evicted from her home, Adrienne gets thrown a lifeline: she discovers she has inherited a house from an aunt she never knew existed. But once Adrienne moves into her new home, she quickly realizes that there's something not right about the house. Cryptic messages are scratched into tables and walls, a solitary gravestone stands alone in the woods, and jarring images darken Adrienne's dreams. As Adrienne unwinds all the threads of mystery surrounding her home and her family, she discovers an awful truth about Ashburn House's dead.  

The first third of the novel seems to stretch out unnecessarily, but once the story starts moving, it does not stop. The writing had a solid balance that helped bridge the reader between the drama of Adrienne's uprooted life and the horrors that play out at Ashburn House. While it doesn't end perfectly tied in a bow, the story wraps up with enough information to satisfy. I don't read a lot of horror, but this novel makes me curious about the rest of Coates' work.