A recent transplant from Australia, Elodie has just moved to Virginia with her new husband Bren who is renovating his parent’s old house. As the story opens, they’re in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, madly in love with each other.

Elodie is only 22 and Bren is only 23, although they act older than this due to the weight of the world landing more heavily on them than most. (Bren’s parents died when he was 10 and Elodie’s brother died when she was 8.)

Elodie is devoted to her six-year-old son Jude who may or may not be autistic. (The official description of the book describes him as autistic as does the acknowledgments section, but the book itself isn’t clear on this and presents an alternate explanation for his behavior. In either case, Elodie avoids letting doctors officially diagnose Jude with anything.)

Elodie is pregnant with her second child and suffers from extreme anxiety. Raising a special-needs child who has frequent tantrums is harrowing for her. She keeps many secrets from Bren, including the full extent of Jude’s problems.

Elodie considers herself unloveable and thinks she tricked Bren into loving her. She avoids social media and seems to be running from something. She constantly fears the judgement of other people. She blames herself for the way Jude is.

Her sister-in-law Ava thinks her way of raising a baby is the only right way and doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a special-needs child.

Bren is presented to us as being too good to be true. He’s extremely understanding, patient, kind, and sexy. Elodie has never seen him angry. But is it all an act? She’s entirely dependent on him because she has no money of her own.

Elodie is jealous that Bren seems to care more for their unborn baby than he does for her. She’s also jealous that Jude might love Bren more than he loves her. She’s the embodiment of insecurity.

Her parents were very distant, even ignoring her when she cried. They didn’t show her the love she craved, so she pours all her love into Jude. The backstory is revealed little by little. Along the way, we learn the reason for her parents being so distant.

Her frustration and losing her cool are totally relatable to any parent. She has anger-management issues, but is trying to be better. She won’t let Bren help her, insisting on doing everything herself, but also complains about having to do everything herself. This contradiction makes her a more believable character because real people are like this.

Both she and Jude think the house is haunted. They see and hear things. The house itself seems malevolent.

Jude is placed in danger throughout the book. As every parent knows, something bad happening to your child is more terrifying than something bad happening to you. Since Elodie is pregnant, her being in danger ups the ante as well. Jude seems to be jealous of his unborn brother, adding another layer of tension.

This book is very well written. The author does a great job with a small cast. The characters feel like real people. We feel their frustration and other emotions right along with them.

Reading this book made me feel anxious, which means the author did their job, but it also made me reluctant to finish it. I’d say it’s more of a stress novel than a horror novel. There is horror here, but the main emotion I felt while reading it was anxiety rather than fear.

One unbelievable thing about the book is Elodie gets pregnant after having sex just once on two separate occasions. Fertility must be her superpower.

Not everyone reads the Acknowledgements to books, but if you skip them, you won’t know why the author picked the title they did.

Since we have an unreliable narrator, the story leaves you guessing until the end. Is the house really haunted or not? Who’s really hurting Jude? Is it Elodie, Bren, the house, or Jude himself? You’ll have to read it to find out.