5 stars (that taste of peppermint and cotton candy)

First and Foremost, thank you to the Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a digital copy of this title in advance of its official release for an unbiased review.

This story begins as these types of stories do: a family (Trent & Rita - Lawyers, Milo the son with eccentric leanings and family pet, Morty the Turtle) pulls into the driveway of a newly developed house to begin a new life. Upon this arrival, you immediately get a sense that there is something not right with the family: wife is not terribly excited about the house, resists her husband's clumsy attempts to take her over the threshold. And the child is not too excited either. It is as if the circumstances upon which this family arroved on Dunsany estates was not normal.

Oh and the house is a fixer-upper as well. - no grass, and a crack in a wall. There are no neighbours (it is a lone plot - the first of a housing development grabbed at an excellent price) there are creepy structures and decrepit effigies out in the forest, slowly rotting, awaiting the bulldozer for when the rest of the housing is ready to be built. And from the developer - promises upon promises that the little perfections in the house are not that big of a deal (and their grass guy will be around in a few weeks once things have settled).

But that's okay: papa Trent, who is on administrative leave from his legal firm, will use this time to fix up the house himself (LIKE A MAN SHOULD BE ABLE TO FOR HIS FAMILY), using DIY Youtube videos from a channel hosted by Handyman Hank (THE BEST ADVICE ON HOME REPAIR AND MANY OTHER TOPICS CONCERNING BEING A MAN IN THIS MODERN TIMES). Trent's obsession with home repair is egged on by the Youtuber Hank (who seems to be speaking directly to him), while his family around him also start to deal with their own dissociations with this new life in this strange plot of land.

And it is here that you get a sense that not only are things not right with the family and the house, but that they are also about to get very wrong.

While Nick Cutter's horror catelogue has not been 100% hits with me (thinking about The Acolyte), I can totally appreciate that they take the reader on paths not often previously tread upon. In the case of The Handyman Method, it is a haunted house story, but with extra Lego pieces and electrical components fused into it to make this story feel more creepy. As for Sullivan - I have not had the chance to sample his wares yet - but I definetly will be looking into his catalogue soon!

Together, however, these authors pen a story that is creepy in a way that persists after you close the book and go out into the sunny outdoors. It is wonderfully gruesome as well. If you were to catching me reading this out in public, my rictus grimace may have you worried that there is something terrible going in my life, but no - it is simply a reaction to elements of the story.

There are a lot of previous horror inspirations in Sullivan and Cutter's The Handyman Method. Some are quite obvious as they offer tribute to the narrative forebearers.

Absolutely horrifying! I am a regular horror book reader and this was by far the scariest, most disturbing book I’ve read in a long time. It gave me The Shining vibes, but amped way up. There were some parts that I actually had to skim. Other parts, I had to almost skip over completely because they were so disturbing.

Most horror novels take some time to get scary as the scene is set and the characters are introduced. This was not the case with this one. I made the mistake of starting it before bed thinking it would take some to time get scary and I was very mistaken. Every scene set me on edge, until some parts were more than I could handle. It kept me reading, however, because I just had to know how it was going to end! In short, I loved it!

Thank you so much Net Galley and Simon and Schuster Canada for sharing an ARC with me.

As with all horror, if you have any concerns make sure to check for trigger warnings.

Serious creep factor reading this. Gruesome and chaotic throughout. A house slowly sinking and a family becoming unhinged while they try to navigate thRough their new realities. Classic horror at its finest.

Thank you a NetGalley for this arc