White Smoke

Change is good. Change is necessary. Change is needed. Marigold repeats this over and over as she moves across the country with her newly blended family to a house that seems too good to be true. And it is. The house, the town, and everyone in it hide secrets in every crevice. Marigold isn’t going crazy, she isn’t. But her phone is never where she left it, things are going missing, and there’s a stench no one can explain coming from the basement. And she has a suspicion as to who’s responsible.

A creepy house, a fear of bedbugs, and a bratty step sister? The perfect setup for an October read. However, I found it much more of a thriller than a horror; the haunted house plays a big role in the plot, but it wasn’t the main point of the story. For most of the first half, I was mostly just frustrated by the family, which made it hard to enjoy the book. But the story picked up about a third of the way through and I couldn’t put it down. Marigold has a lot of backstory and her fear of bedbugs is the root of it. The fear never goes away when it’s convenient, it’s always there.