Thanks to Netgalley and Skybound Books/Gallery Books for the opportunity to read The Residence.

Well, it was certainly topical...
I went in expecting a horror story. It wasn't, not really. It was a sad, slow story about broken but somehow completely unsympathetic people making endless bad choices and suffering the consequences.
There is definitely an audience for stories like this. It was well written and thoughtful, and, as mentioned, topical, with its themes of presidential ineffectualness, slavery and the attempted eradication of America's first peoples, and the seemingly unbridgable divide between political philosophies. Personally, I found it a bit heavy-handed. (And the concept of an evil entity trapped in the White House subtly influencing the decisions of those within strikes me as, I don't know, generous? Or strangely comforting, in a way, because it allows the reader to place blame on a malevolent spirit and not their elected officials, or even themselves for not doing enough to advocate for change.)
Was it scary? No, unless the scary kid trope bothers you. Was it tense? Not really. Since it is partly based in history, the reader knows that there are only so many ways it can end. And I mean, even if they did banish the Thing, we know that it's not going to stop politicians from making decisions with terrible consequences.
But it wasn't just that. The main characters, the President and First Lady, were portrayed as egocentric, largely lacking in empathy, and in the case of the President, spineless and a bit pathetic. It was hard to feel for them. It's hard to feel for a character who begs the universe to take one child instead of another.
It was good writing, and it was a careful study of human weakness, but I can't say that I enjoyed it at all.

This latest by Andrew Pyper really pulled me out of my comfort zone…”Moi” reading a supernatural horror thriller really????

This ghost story based on true events tells the story of a marriage and is set at the most famous building in the world: the White House during the time of President Franklin Pierce’s tenure. Jane his wife was a charming First Ladies and Frank a leader whose inaction set the course toward civil war... a president almost forgotten by historians.

The “Residence” is the story of a couple struggling with the loss of their children especially Ben who was the sole fatality in a bizarre train accident. After the inauguration, the couple were forced to reside in a place of grief. Jane wrote letters to Bennie, pleading for the boy’s return and in the book, he did. There were séances, eccentric behavior, visions, apparitions, all kind of weird stuff the author’s describes. Jane talked to Bennie every day and the ghost of Sir appeared multiple times, a vision in Jane’s mind that started in her childhood days. At first the sightings and exchanges were civil then events became tragic….. All in the haunted house its residents are not permitted to leave…A house with that much history must have some pretty dark secrets…right? We have a truck load of strange behaviour in this novel…

Wasn’t it supposed to be a kind of ghost story to scare us? No, it is simply a bla bla bla sad and depressing story. A dread-filled kind of story or any kind of dark story has to capture your imagination and keep you captive and engrossed to the last page. I was so bored I couldn’t reach the end fast enough. Not saying it is bad it simply did nothing for me. Having read and enjoyed books from this author in the past I was simply disappointed with this one. I guess one cannot please all the time. Well Mr. Pyper you did it, a story creepy for some and for others to leave on the shelf and never open it.

I'll read anything that Andrew Pyper writes, I like his books that much, and while The Residence is a departure from his other novels, I still enjoyed it. Pyper gave himself quite the challenge, setting a supernatural horror in one of the most famous residences in the world and basing characters on real people from history. He pulled off the historical aspects well and I was intrigued with the architectural details of the White House, Neither Franklin Pierce nor his wife Jane are in any way likable but that doesn't detract from the story, which is more achingly sad than straight-up horror. A more nuanced and restrained book than usual but still very gripping in its own way. A reader cannot help but compare what was going on in the White House then to what's happening in the present.