Friday, June 30, 2023

Beneath the Stairs

Today's post is on Beneath the Stairs by Jennifer Fawcett. It is 352 pages long and is published by Atria Books. The cover is dark blue with a staircase on it. The intended reader is someone who likes mysteries. There is some mild sexuality, mild foul language, and no violence.  The story is told in many ways from first person to third person, depending on the character. There Be Spoilers Ahead. 

From the back of the book- A woman returns to her hometown after her childhood friend attempts suicide at a local haunted house—the same place where a traumatic incident shattered their lives twenty years ago.
Few in sleepy Sumner’s Mills have stumbled across the Octagon House hidden deep in the woods. Even fewer are brave enough to trespass. A man had killed his wife and two young daughters there, a shocking, gruesome crime that the sleepy upstate New York town tried to bury. One summer night, an emboldened fourteen-year-old Clare and her best friend, Abby, ventured into the Octagon House. Clare came out, but a piece of Abby never did.
Twenty years later, an adult Clare receives word that Abby has attempted suicide at the Octagon House and now lies in a coma. With little to lose and still grieving after a personal tragedy, Clare returns to her roots to uncover the darkness responsible for Abby’s accident.

Review- An interesting mystery with some heavy emotional baggage. One teenage prank unrevealed a friendship and one girl's sanity. Clare pranked her best friend Abby in abandoned house and Abby saw something that scared her out of her mind. For the next twenty years Clare lived with this guilt but when Abby is found in the house near death, Clare must face her past and the houses' past too. A good mystery with a lot of character drama from Clare running her past, both old and new, and the house itself. The way the story is told from different characters and perspectives, it is a unusual way to tell a story. Fawcett handles it well and it adds so much to the background of the story. I look forward to reading her next book. 

I give this novel a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.

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