The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel

Stoker Award–winning Knight’s (Three Days in the Pink Tower) Southern gothic horror flirts with metafiction as it delivers a solid ghost story that checks all the boxes. Book cover artist Emily finds a Victorian home that’s a perfect model for her latest commission from a horror author seeking a spooky house to write about. When Emily is sidelined by pregnancy complications, her husband buys her that same Victorian, mistakenly believing it’s her dream home. Emily is already under stress after a harrowing delivery and adjusting to motherhood, and now it seems that something in the house wants to claim her and her new baby. Though Knight teases the inner workings of a haunted house story by including a horror author in the plot, she mostly sticks to the formula while still creating an unnerving, richly atmospheric tale. Much of that atmosphere, however, comes from narrator Julie Cleburn’s Southern drawl and the use of music and sound effects. Cleburn’s narration is interspersed with tinny, warbling music and breathy whispers that immerse listeners in Emily’s horrifying circumstances.