I was provided a copy of The House of Last Resort by St Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest review.
Young married couple, Kate and Tommy are leaving everything they have ever known behind and moving across the ocean to a small hill town in Sicily where Tommy’s beloved grandparents live. They are participating in an incredible opportunity to purchase an abandoned house for 1 Euro in exchange for living in the town for 5 years and promising to spend money on updating the house.
The house in question? Not the cute row house they had originally looked at but a 15 bedroom mansion that the locals refer to as The House of Last Resort.
****** SPOILERS ******
Alright, first off… if it seems too good to be true then it probably is! You get a mansion for the same price as a tiny row house? You should do some research. This couple moves into this house without realising that there is an entire annex attached to the back of the house that the real estate agent didn’t even tell them about. It’s dark, and creepy, and has weird stains on the floor. I’d nope real hard outta there for sure.
So of course the house belonged to the church for centuries and was where people with serious demonic possession came as a “last resort” to save their souls. When the exorcisms failed, the bodies of the tortured souls were snuck down into the catacombs beneath the house and buried away out of sight of the sleepy town.
This concept of god and the devil was a new spin on our typical demon horror stories. I enjoyed the fast pace and the fact that our non believing couple kept trying to figure out what was going on.
The ending did fall a bit flat for me, just a stretch too far with the demon/rat monster chasing Tommy through the catacombs. It felt a bit cartoonish, where the possessed rats actually made me shudder.
The realisation that Tommy is now inhabited by a demon and the House of Last Resort will be reopened for excorsists to come and continue their work – creepily perfect. I kind of wanted more of Tommy’s descent into the madness but I am weird like that so there ya go.
All in all – I would recommend if you like a horror book that will creep you out but not give you nightmares (at least it didn’t to me)
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