Having an overly credible horror protagonist doesn’t always work. Most of ghostly or demonic horror comes down to gaslighting, more than anything else. I noticed this for the first time when doing the Dracula audiobook with my wife, and her pointing out that Dracula and Johnathan Harker are basically acting out a domestic thriller for the first third of the book. You often need to have a character not know what’s happening in order to make a compelling read as they are slowly driven to craziness or desperation over [gestures broadly at haunted shit].
But then there are the Warrens in the Conjuring series of movies. Part of why those movies work is you have these professionals being professional and mature about ghosts. That’s kind of cool and has its place. Similarly, in How to Sell a Haunted House, the realtor friend walking in and going “yeaaaaaaaah this place is haunted” is both funny and effective in building tension.
It Was Her House First has a lot of this stuff going on. The protagonist takes very little convincing in order to come around on the ghosts in her house. This was a little surprising to me in part because I expected a slower burn here. There definitely isn’t that. This book grabs you by the hair and drags you down to the basement in not a lot of time. I don’t hate that though. This is an engaging, exciting read where you often know enough of what’s going on to know where the danger is. That can bring a lot of tension into the story: seeing that the killer is right behind the protagonist before they turn around and realize they need to run.
But the real appeal of this book is in the reality it brings to the story. The protagonist suffers from OCD, is traumatized, and generally has her work cut out for her just existing, let alone existing around some ghosts. For me, an early description of her anxiety and how she thought obsessing was a tool to be used for protection, and how this is awfully reinforced for her, rang incredibly true and close to home. It was honestly that moment when I told my wife she absolutely needed to read this, and she then wound up lapping me and finishing the book before me.
This one is a definite recommend: real, visceral, not overly scary but very exciting.