Review: House of Ash and Bone by Joel A. Sutherland

House of Ash and Bone

by Joel A. Sutherland

Release Date: July 1st, 2025 (First published September 2023)

2025 Tundra Books

Softcover ARC; 344 Pages

ISBN: 978-1774881002

ASIN: B0BP6P5VKY

Audiobook: B0BPMZSPX6

Genre: Fiction / YA / Horror

Source: Review copy from publisher 

 

3 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger is a talented writer with special abilities she doesn't fully understand. Over the years she has developed methods to cope with the voices she hears in her head, but the old house her family has inherited in Vermont makes Josephine question what's real and what's not more than anything she's ever encountered before. It's filled with shadows, and whispers, and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Josephine then catches her first glimpse of a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, and impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them — then consume them — in order to rise from the grave and live again . . .

 

My Thoughts

House of Ash and Bone was an entertaining read, but I think it really misses the mark when it comes to horror as well as intentions. There were quite a few themes running through it, ones that were rather interesting, but when you have too many of them, none of them get explored into any depth so the overall story seems rather superficial. I also really wished that Josephine didn't have any 'magical' powers as I think it would have made this much more compelling as it wouldn't have relied so much on her abilities and it would have been a spookier setting for her and her family. Relying on 'magic' kind of downplays the horror element for me.

 

So let's talk about Josephine. How do you like the reference to Little Women, something I think was done on purpose. I think this author is a fan so I kind of like that idea. Maybe someone should write a horror novel based on those women, but I digress.  I rather liked Josephine as a main character. She was determined, smart, sincere, and loyal to her sisters.  Because of her ability to hear the thoughts of others and see things when she is dreaming, she is the only one to realize something was not right in the house. The pantry is always stocked with food, their personal bedrooms are stocked with everything they personally desire, and all their needs are met without them remembering a thing about how it happened, except for Jo. Josephine is the clearest character as the other ones seemed to move in a more dreamlike state, something that was done deliberately to show the reader something clearly was wrong. While I didn't necessarily mind the way this was done, it did make character development for the rest of the characters to be rather difficult and honestly, I couldn't tell you their names if my life depended on it at this point.

 

The story itself is well-paced and the haunting atmosphere is definitely there in the setting as you have this old decrepit house with a forest that has a reputation for being haunted surrounding it. There are ghostly apparitions and things that go bump in the night. The family constantly forgets what they were doing and why. So, all the elements are definitely there. However, the execution felt stilted and while there were some nice twists and turns, something else would destroy the tension that was being built up, either some dialogue that didn't quite match what was happening or something else. In fact, the dialogue pulled me out of the story a few times and I had to re-immerse myself into it to get a feel for the haunting atmosphere again and again. I do think the author likes the classics as well as fairy tales though, as I was definitely getting vibes of Hansel and Gretel from this book. In fact, lots of Grimm's fairy tale references were peppered throughout the book and I had fun looking for them.

 

Verdict

House of Ash and Bone was a story that kept me entertained even if there were issues with execution and character development. I've already mentioned that I liked the main character, but I did think her behaviour was inconsistent for a seventeen-year-old girl and it didn't help that the character development for the other characters was almost non-existent. The twists and turns were fun, if predictable, but I have to say though, that I really liked that ending as it was the highlight of the book for me.  If you like stories set in eerie locales with an atmosphere, then I suggest giving this one a go.