by Kelley Armstrong
Release Date: October 14, 2025
2025 St. Martin's Press
Ebook ARC; 276 Pages
ISBN: 978-1250360564
ASIN: B0DPV1KXGX
Audiobook: B0DRPRQ641
Genre: Fiction / Horror
Source: Review copy from publisher
2 / 5 Stars
Summary
When Samantha Payne’s grandfather dies, she
figures she won’t even get a mention in the will. After all, she hasn’t
seen him in fourteen years, not since her father took his own life after
being accused of murdering a child at their lakefront cottage.
But when she does attend the reading of the will at the behest of her aunt, she discovers that her grandfather left her the very valuable lakefront property where the family cottage sits. There’s one catch: Sam needs to stay in the cottage for a month.
Traveling to Paynes Hollow, Sam is faced with the realities of her childhood and the secrets kept hidden in the shadows of her memories.
My Thoughts
The Haunting of Paynes Hollow is another horror attempt by an author whose other series I really enjoy, such as A Rip Through Time and Haven's Rock. However, I haven't had as much luck with the horror novels, and this one is my third standalone one. The plot was interesting enough for me to finish the story, but it lacked character development, the MC was quite annoying, and I still have no idea what the 'ritual' was all about.
The story is told through Samantha's POV and while I sort of understand her misgivings at returning to a place that has a negative history with her father, she constantly mentions her 'happy' memories in the house, so I was not sure why there was this complete negativity about staying there as it didn't make sense. For someone who is drowning in debt, you would think she would be somewhat grateful to be given a chance to earn $10 million dollars. She also made some really silly decisions, ones that made no sense at times, and she wouldn't listen to anyone else who has lived there and knows the area. Here's looking at you Ben! I don't know how Ben put up with her. His character is the only one I enjoyed, but in fact, he stood out because everyone else was so one-dimensional.
At first, I was intrigued by the idea this book was loosely based on the legend of The Headless Horseman, but unless I have completely forgotten how the legend works, it was very loosely based. The story was a bit disjointed, and as I've already mentioned, I am pretty unclear as to the ritual that made Samantha so special. Sam is a bit of an unreliable narrator, and while that works in other books, I don't think it worked very well in this book, especially since the use of repressed memories were used as plot points. It always amazes me how repressed memories suddenly comes back just as we need to propel a plot forward. UGH! The story flip with Austin didn't quite sit well with me, not because of the horror of it or anything, but because it just didn't seem to fit with the story all of a sudden. Which is why I had a problem with this book as it seemed disjointed, as if the author wasn't sure in which direction to take the story, but forgot to include some necessary plot points in the beginning and had to just throw them in later.
Verdict
The Haunting of Paynes Hollow was somewhat disappointing as I found the plot to be disjointed and the character development was weak. I actually didn't mind the conclusion to the story, but there needed to be more development of that plot line in the story for it to completely make sense. There were some interesting elements to this book and it definitely had a lot of potential, but it was chaotic and didn't always make sense. That being said, I will continue reading her other series, but this one was not for me.
0 comments:
Post a Comment