Book Review: The Dead House by Billy O'Callaghan

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge,from Skyhorse Publihsing, 
via Edelweiss,  for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it,  all opinions are my own.

A Bestselling Debut Novel, Part Psychological Thriller, Part Ghost Story, That "Skillfully Conjures a Sense of Dread" 

Sometimes the past endures—and sometimes it never lets go.

This best-selling debut by an award-winning writer is both an eerie contemporary ghost story and a dread-inducing psychological thriller. Maggie is a successful young artist who has had bad luck with men. Her last put her in the hospital and, after she’s healed physically, left her needing to get out of London to heal mentally and find a place of quiet that will restore her creative spirit. On the rugged west coast of Ireland, perched on a wild cliff side, she spies the shell of a cottage that dates back to Great Famine and decides to buy it. When work on the house is done, she invites her dealer to come for the weekend to celebrate along with a couple of women friends, one of whom will become his wife. On the boozy last night, the other friend pulls out an Ouija board. What sinister thing they summon, once invited, will never go.

Ireland is a country haunted by its past. In Billy O'Callaghan's hands, its terrible beauty becomes a force of inescapable horror that reaches far back in time, before the Famine, before Christianity, to a pagan place where nature and superstition are bound in an endless knot.

Review:

This is one of those books that you start reading and you are thinking 'eh, it's ok', and then you realize you are 8 chapters in, and don't want to put it down! It's subtle how it catches the mind and keeps you turning pages. Once the proverbial Pandora's Box is opened, you'll find yourself holding your breath and waiting, and waiting some more, as O'Callaghan draws out the suspense, leaving the reader thinking the book is going down one path, when it slides to another! It's hard to believe it is a debut nove, as it is SO nuanced! This is not a book to be missed!

About the Author:

Billy O'Callaghan won the Irish Book Award for the title story of his collection The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind and is the author of two other short story collections, In Exile and In Too Deep. His debut novel, The Dead House, was an Irish Times bestseller. He was a finalist for the 2016 COSTA Short Story Award, the Glimmer Train Prize, the Faulkner Wisdom Prize, and the Seán Ó Faoláin Award and has published his stories widely on both sides of the Atlantic. He resides in County Cork, Ireland.