The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel Review! 🏚️

Thank you Netgalley and RDS Publishing for this e-copy!! The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel is out now!

This was definitely a cover read, I mean look, stunning! This one was a 2.75/5 stars for me!! This plot had everything going for it. After reading the synopsis, it literally sounded like American Horror Story: Murder House (my favorite season 💁🏼‍♀️). And while reading, it did remind me a lot of the show. Very creepy house with a terrible past, a family hard on their luck, and a pregnant wife who thinks she may be going crazy! After a while though, it felt like I was reading the same thing over and over and over again. And the ending fell extremely short for me! 🤷🏼‍♀️ A creepy haunted house book, but redundant and short ending! If you like AHS Murder House, give this one a try!

This southern gothic is well done. It ties motherhood and eerie happenings in the house. I think it lacked a bit of a scare factor for me. I need more sinister to feel captivated. Still well done and I would give this author a try again. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this earc
3/5 star

This was such a strange book. It was so creepy but took forever to get entertaining. I wish this was a series.

Wow. Really enjoyed this book by EV Knight. Enjoyed the characters, the plot/story, and the pacing. Wasn't an uplifting story, but was very well written and enjoyable. Will be reading more by EV Knight soon. #TheHouseontheCoverofaHorrorNovel #NetGalley

really had to sit with this book for awhile after I finished reading. A bleak story of a family and their descent into madness (reminiscent of Stephen King's Rose Red), this is a true Southern Gothic tale with a darkness and heaviness surrounding the narrative from the beginning.

I'm not quite sure what it says about me that I liked this book because it has some seriously messed up scenes.

A haunted house, a young girl's ghost, and some intense graphic scenes kept me up last night finishing this one. It's dark, gory, and not for everyone, but it's a great horror novel.

TW: domestic violence, pregnancy trauma, abuse to women and children

I love haunted houses, they’re my favorite horror setting by far and EV Knight’s “The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel” keeps that love strong. Emily and Miles have been wanting a baby for years and have given up trying by the time Emily finds the perfectly unsettling house for her next commission, painting the cover of a new horror novel. When Emily and Miles are equally surprised that they are pregnant and he buys the house she’s been painting for their growing family, terror comes quickly. Knight skillfully weaves haunted houses, motherhood’s many fears, failing relationships, and questionable sanity into one short and punch packing novel. I loved figuring out the house’s secrets alongside Emily and seeing each character's flaws build and build to the climax. Overall a great Halloween read! Thanks #netgalley for the #ARC

Wow, wow, wow, this book will be one of the contenders for best book I've read this month. Yes, some of the writing and characters phrasing was not so great but the body horror and spookiness of this book made me forget about that. Were there times I couldn't stand either of the main characters because of actions done or things said? Yes but that ending took me by complete surprise and I loved it. Fair warning, if you don't like pregnancy books or books that heavily feature babies and motherhood I would definitely skip this one. Me personally I loved probably 85% of this book. The gore was great, the craziness, the haunted house, THE ENDING, did I mention the ending because it was fantastic! This is one of those times I finish a book by an author that I've never heard of and immediately want to go buy everything they've written. Fantastic book!

Many thanks to RDS Publishing for the gifted copy for my honest review!

Horror is having it's own renaissance and EV Knight's novel is a great unique contribution to the genre. It is a bit meta, which I appreciate, and the characters are very interesting.

Overall, the plot and characters make for an enjoyable read. However, the last quarter of the book feels a bit rushed, despite an interesting climax and resolution. The author excels at building anxiety and resentment in the main character, but the actual paranormal aspect left me wishing for a tiny bit more "overt" horror. Nonetheless, it is a solid read that I found to be a lot of fun, and I am certain any fan of haunted houses will enjoy this book too!

Thank you to NetGalley and Raw Dog Screaming (RDS) Press as well as the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
#NetGalley #RawDogScreamingPress #RDGPublishing #EVKnight #TheHouseOnTheCoverOfAHorrorNovel

Title: The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel
Author: EV Knight
Publisher: Raw Dog Screaming Press
Publication Date: September 12, 2024
Themes: pregnancy, childbirth, parenting, family, paranormal,
Trigger Warnings: child death, ghosts, pregnancy with complications, graphic childbirth postpartum depression, new motherhood, infant disappearing, marriage trouble, emotional abuse

This book was fun. I enjoyed it very much. The haunted house is my very favorite subgenre of horror. This book tells the story of Emily and her family and what happens to them after they move into a haunted house. Emily is an artist who just got the gig of her life. Cooper Yancy, a famous horror novelist, has contacted her about designing and painting a cover for his next book. He gives her creative license and tells her to an image that speaks to her and he will base his story around her painting. Emily begins to search for an image that is unsettling and frightening. She finally finds a strange old mansion that fits perfectly. She begins to paint it and her husband, whom she hasn’t told about this assignment, assumes she’s painting the house because she loves it. When they find out that Emily is pregnant, Miles decides to buy the house as a surprise to his wife. Unfortunately, Emily’s initial feeling of foreboding about the house proves to be rooted in truth. There’s something off about this house.

This story is an effectively creepy and atmospheric haunted house story. It’s also an compelling allegory about the difficulty of motherhood and postpartum depression told through characters that were relatable. This is a popular trope right now among horror novelists and for a good reason. It’s a very real thing and awareness in popular fiction in any genre or media is important. Many women fear that the awful thoughts they’re having are a sign that they’re awful mothers or psychopaths. Books like this help normalize it. Most of them aren’t also dealing with an angry house but I digress. Like Emily, many women do deal with partners who don’t understand though. Miles was a tough character. I went through several emotions with that character’s arc. Sometimes, I wanted to slap him and scream in his face and other times I just wanted to hug him and let him take a nap. Who surprises his partner with a house? That’s never going to be a good idea, ever! He did try though. I felt the same with Emily. I tended to feel like slapping her more than Miles though. She was kind of awful and unlikable. I’m not talking about the depression troubles either. Her secret-keeping, her condescending attitude toward her husband, and most everything else. Talk about a troubled relationship! It made the atmosphere in the story much heavier and more tense.

As enjoyable as the story was, it would have been nice if it had built a little more. I didn’t need it to be a slow burn, but I could have used some more backstory and some smaller incidents that would lead up to the big incidents.

All in all, I enjoyed this book a lot. This was my first book by this author and I intend to look into some more. I recommend this novel to anyone who’s looking for a creepy Halloween read, or just someone who loves haunted house stories. Happy reading!

I should really start reading more synopsis because I almost never know what I’m getting into and I choose books mostly by author, title, and cover 🤣!

Once again I would say there are big triggers for postpartum, birth, ect ect ect. I don’t want to give away any parts of the story and although I didn’t find anything personally triggering somebody might.

I was definitely interested in this story but I feel like maybe the plot was little all over the place and I saw someone describe it at “clunky” and I agree.

I despised the husbands character LITERALLY from the first page and it probably could have been told all from the wife’s pov.

I feel like the speed was quite slow but then a certain part of the story would be written so well and I’d be drawn in again! So I kept getting reinvested and wanted to know what was gonna happen.

I'm not a huge fan of horror that plays on the psyche of pregnant women. I think the premise of the cover artist finding the inspiration for the book was neat, but I wish it would have went more on that direction and less on the pregnancy/motherhood direction.

Haunted house novels are hard. They just are. But this isn't necessarily a haunted house novel. Our girl's clueless husband buys a house without consulting her and it turns out she was only sketching it because it was so creepy. So they move in during her high risk miracle pregnancy (I would never) and the house is unsurprisingly creepy. Why not do some renovations and make it not creepy first? People are loving this one but to me it was not what I expected. I will probably buy the audiobook though.

Well that was...unexpected.

Artist, Emily Lawrence, is contacted by her favourite horror novelist and given the chance of a lifetime, the chance to design a cover for his newest novel. Of course he hasn't written the book yet, and thus he also enlists Emily to find the spooky muse for his first and great southern gothic novel, and boy does she find it. Past the posh Savannah homes, keeping guard over a rotting swamp, is the Leeds House. A house whose imposing figure reaches out to embrace... or ensnare... all those who enter.

And ensnare it does, thanks to the help of Emily's clueless (well meaning?) husband, who mistakenly believes he is buying his wife's dream house. Miles seems to be the mold for the typical, socially inept, tech bro who thinks everything dealing with emotions is scary and should be avoided at all costs. Though, confusingly, he also sometimes presents the very contrasting behaviors of thoughtfulness and toxic masculinity. It made it very hard to pin down his character, especially since the book is told in alternating POVs of Emily and Miles, and Miles' thoughts do show care towards Emily and his family. So is he socially inept, loving but clueless, or secretly malicious, I can't really say.

Now onto my thoughts! I enjoyed the book. I think the author's strongest point is the atmosphere she creates. The description of Emily's first meeting with house was vivid and I could picture and feel the pull that Emily must have felt. I immediately felt the house was a living organism and it created this claustrophobic, crushing atmosphere as Emily transverses the house. I also thought the author touched on the theme of motherhood and the intense scrutiny and guilt associated with new motherhood amazingly. I personally enjoy horror books that have a deeper theme running behind it. I mean that's why I finally started reading horror after 20 something years of avoiding it like the plague, because I finally realized that horror can be insightful as well as scary.

That's why I was a little sad that the themes I thought the author was going after didn't really solidify in the end, which is my only criticism of the book. Of course I can't read the author's mind but it seemed that she was using the themes of motherhood, toxic masculinity, and at the very beginning it seemed like the conversation between Emily and Coop was setting up some kind of discussion on Southern trauma, manifested through the swamp/house. However, these topics seemed to disappear in the last few pages and instead just went for shocking, and I was shocked. In fact, I choose to believe that the epilogue doesn't exist and that's how I'll sleep tonight.

My final thoughts, this was definitely a fun and captivating read. I can honestly say the ending left me flabbergasted even though I wasn't fully satisfied by how it tied up the story. I am very interested to read this author's other works because, I must say, she has some interesting titles in her body of works, and they sound right up my alley. It was an enjoyable start to the 2024 "Spooky Season" so I must thank RDS Publishing and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

This was an alright book, mostly. It was difficult for me to read because of certain triggers. I honestly wish I would have looked into it more before reading. As a mom who has had several losses during pregnancy, reading about an extremely high risk pregnancy was not fun. I won't give spoilers, but certain events in this book. I would've rather skipped. Good premise, but I just was not ready for it.

Thank you to the author EV Knight, publishers Raw Dog Screaming Press, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of THE HOUSE ON THE COVER OF A HORROR NOVEL. All views are mine.

"...She’d owned it for, oh, I don’t know, maybe fifty years? But she hadn’t lived in it for a while. Just paid someone to come care for the yard and keep a fresh coat of paint on it.” “That’s sad,” Emily said. “This beautiful place with no one inside to care about it?” p19

This book didn't score very high in the ratings systems, but I honestly think it deserves a higher score. It's not really scary in the haunted house sense, but there is a great deal of friction resulting from the main characters' relationship and interpretations of their share as experiences. The writing is empathetic of the characters and readers, and the main conflict is compelling because of it. The Shape of the plot / primary conflict gets fuzzy at times, but I was invested and excited to read to the end.

This book does a lot of the small things right, too, like natural-sounding dialogue, distinction between POVs, and solid pacing.

I definitely recommend this book to fans of house horror and domestic thrillers, as this is the perfect blend of these genre, and family drama stories, pregnancy horror, and emotional endings.

Reading Notes

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. That little bit about the cattleprod and the earthworms? Completely genius horror.

2. I love how exact this book gets about gynecological science.

3. I loved the resolution to the main conflict. It could disappoint some readers though.

4. A very interesting look at abuse in marriages. He's sweet and he never knows what he does that makes her so mad. But from her side, he's controlling and uses his affection toward those ends, and he does know how his behavior is wrong because she tells him. It makes for dynamics way more terrifying than the house they moved into!

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. This story isn't complex enough to justify the use of multiple POVs. Miles's sections don't offer much insight into the story. His character details could be transmitted from Emily's perspective.

2. I feel bad for Emily, but there isn't enough depth for me to connect with and care about her or her whiny husband.

3. Not a fan of mom magic and superhero-mom tropes. But she might be using these tropes in a metafiction sense, where she is judging these tropes through her story. But I don't think so. I think she reserved these energies to expose the motivations of her characters.

4. The plot is everywhere. It might be more accurate to say there is no plot, and the story flails around, looking for meaning.

Rating: 🏚🏚🏚.5 /5 haunted houses
Recommend? Yep
Finished: Sep 21 '24
Format: Digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
🏚 haunted house stories
👻 ghost stories
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 family stories, family drama
🫃 pregnancy horror
🏡 domestic abuse stories

"The house needed melancholy. And she's feeding it.
Stuck in a vicious cycle of depression, radiating out of her, bouncing off the walls and right back in. Would she ever feel better? "

Southern gothic inspired. A dual timeline piece weaving the past and present together. A story about two mothers who went mad, haunted by the evil encroaching upon them from the swamp. It is later discovered that the swamp has poisoned the land the home was built on and it ultimately affected the families that tries to live there.


Part haunted house story and a psychological look at motherhood. Two povs told from wife and husband. Ending was tragic and devastating. Reminds me a bit of 'The woman in black'.

I got annoyed by the lack of communication, constant bickering, secrecy, immaturity and gaslighting. Tension, stress and paranoia are palpable. Only few spooky elements and the constant husband-blaming and cursing got repetitive. I believe the husband really meant well from the start and just wanted to make his wife happy but things just kept on getting shitty for them.
The premise of the book is intriguing but it just didn't deliver much.



Arc from netgalley 🏚️

Thank you so much for an advance copy. Unfortunately I didn't really enjoy this book. The miscommunication, not talking to each other about stuff, and just all around nonsense... it wasn't horror for me

Absolutely loved this book! From the beginning all the way through the creepy content stayed consistent and was such a page turner. So far, I have recommended this book to so many people for spooky season! This is a great book regarding paranormal activity, it's so believable and makes you want more! The ending was very sad however it made the most sense. Will continue to tell my friends how much they need to read this.