Endless lemonade and black oozy stuff

80. Just Like Home – Sarah Gailey

Vera Crowder has a treacherous family history with her father being a convicted serial killer and her having a really contentious relationship with her mother. With a nefarious father alone, it’s understandable why she wouldn’t want to stay in her hometown, but her mother does…in the same house, even. Her mother even exploits the house and has boarders who usually want something notorious or spooky to happen for their art or their writing and/or their bank account and Vera doesn’t like that. She doesn’t want to talk about the situation with her father and it’s clear she doesn’t really want to talk to her mother either. But, when her mother asks, she comes home.

And everything gets really creepy and there’s definitely something wrong with her bed. Vera is not who she seems like she’s trying to be at the beginning. It is deeply traumatic to have the parents she’s had, one who murdered men in the basement and one who refuses to engage emotionally with her own daughter at all, so she really has no one to rely on, but why she has no one to rely on gets a little clearer as the book goes on through her childhood and her present. Both timelines are quite engaging and terrible, just like the artist who is currently boarding in the guesthouse when Vera gets home. Seriously, could he be more of a weasel? I think not.

It is a bit of a slow paced book, which depending on how much horror you read normally could be unsettling or a smidge annoying. I did find myself feeling like I was waiting a little too long at points for something to happen but it was also interesting and different enough to keep reading.

 

As you can see, Snuffy’s A-frame home does not have hidden depths. It’s like a foot in. Hard to haunt without her noticing.