"Horror is the fear and the guilt and the sin that we try to keep inside us, down in the dark, and as storytellers it's our job to sort of bring that into the light."

The Finch house is an abandoned place in the countryside of Kansas that has been dormant for years. Four horror authors are invited to spend Halloween night inside the infamous house, where an entity is awakened and so begins the act of tormenting the authors into its legacy.

I first picked up this book in 2021 when it was hyped up. I read half of it and never touched it again. I'm sure there were other reasons as to why, but one of the main reasons was that it was slow. I generally enjoy slow burns as long as the story is interesting, but at the time I thought it was a slog. This time around, I started from the beginning and actually finished and enjoyed it for the most part 😅

Yes, it was a slow burn, but this was the time used to build up the atmosphere and the creepiness of the house, as well as the characters and their backstories. I liked how each author had their own definition of horror and how their writing and personalities reflected that, essentially effecting the way they viewed and navigated the Finch house.

The second half of the book was way better than the first half as that was where most of the action took place. The haunted house came alive and really brought the eeriness and bloodshed to life. And that ending? Not what I was expecting at all, but I liked it.

Overall, it was a well written story and a different take on the haunted house trope. I'm glad I took the time to actually finish it.