I hadn’t read a horror novel in quite a while, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. This one had some good and bad things. The writing felt clunky at times and some of the sentence choices were odd. The dialogue between the characters was awkward, but I think it was meant to be that way.

It switches between Miles and Emily’s perspectives, which gives you a nice break from each character. The characters, especially Miles, are unlikeable, but I was okay with that. Miles is just plain terrible in the beginning, but he goes through struggles as well. The struggles gave his character some understanding.

What I enjoyed about this story is you don’t know if the haunting is actually happening or if it’s just an extreme case of postpartum depression. I also felt this book moved along pretty fast, which kept my interest. This story does include harm against children, so be aware of that.

Thank you NetGalley and RDS Publishing for this eARC to review. All opinions are my own. This book is available September 12, 2024.

Read if you like:
👻 Ghosts and Haunted Houses!
🤰🏼 Pregnancy and Babies
🧠 Mental Health Struggles

Oh my god! First of all, I have been a fan since I read Knight’s novella Three Days At The Pink Tower and when I saw the chance to read an advanced copy of this horror novel, I could not pass it up! The House On The Cover Of A Horror Novel is completely full of suspense, murder, with a touch of true crime, as the crime only took place inside the fictional world. I love how this horrendous house is haunting only Emily for the duration of the story, making her appear like she is suffering insanity after a heartbreaking and emotional pregnancy that could have costed her her life. Then, at the climactic ending, everything is unraveled to her husband Miles and twin sister Monica, who are finally shown that she’s not crazy and indeed, the house is haunted. Bravo to that ending and I’ll be on the lookout for all Knight’s future releases even more!

The setup of this novel is so intriguing! Our main character Emily is an artist and gets commissioned by a famous horror author to create inspiration for his next horror novel. Emily finds a delightfully creepy house and starts to paint it - but her husband misunderstands her interest in the house and buys it for their family.

One of the biggest issues I have with this one is that it is sold as a haunted house horror and should really be marketed as pregnancy/motherhood horror. The synopsis on NetGalley (and I assume the finished book?) talks about Emily, Miles, and their son, but the son isn’t born when the novel starts, and the event of him going missing in the house doesn’t happen until the 60% point: this should not be in the synopsis, it would be more impactful if it wasn’t, and something more vague was mentioned instead.

The husband is awful in this one. I know it’s a staple of the genre to have a gaslight-y husband, but Miles is horrible. Get a divorce Emily! I never get the sense, even when everything is going great at the beginning of the novel, that this couple likes or respects each other. He has no redeeming qualities and the whole side story of him calling his son another name behind his wife’s back because he doesn’t like the name she chose is written as if this is a cute quirk and not cruel behavior.

The writing style feels scattered at times. The author has a good voice and this novel is at its best when it is speedy, concise, and to the point writing. However, sometimes the author tries to write in more purple prose and the similes and metaphors come off really jarring and overwritten. Overall, I wish this was a more gothic haunted house story, rather than parenthood horror. A book with one of the most graphic birthing scenes I’ve read in a while should better prepare the reader for such content.

Another note: there is a nonbinary character that gets misgendered by the author (not the characters) in the text. He/him is used instead of they/them in a sentence where the nonbinary character is doing something and it feels like the author just decided to add a nonbinary character to check off some diversity box and didn’t actually care about making the rep good.
Editors - this is super triggering - this is on page 103 “humming in the back of his throat” should be “humming in the back of their throat”. This error feels especially weird because the husband makes a big deal out of explaining the concept of they/them pronouns in quite a patronizing way to Emily, and then the author misgenders her own character.

Overall this had a lot of potential but unfortunately missed the mark.

This was such a dark read that had me captivated right away, I got to the point where I couldn't put it down.

This short horror novel had me absolutely enraged at times. Miles is a clueless husband who buys a dilapidated old house after seeing his wife's many sketches of it. He thinks she's in love with the property, while in reality she's been comissioned to paint a cover for a horror novel. I couldn't stand Miles and over the course of the book began to realize that he's a very realistic description of a personality type I wouldn't get along with. The childless couple unexpectedly find themselves with a baby on the way. They're absolutely horrible at communicating with each other, which makes every situation worse than it has to be.


What's really going on in the old house surpasses anything that Emily dreamed up while she was painting it. There are graves in the swamp at the edge of the property, a horrific family history, and creepy old toys that keep turning up in the worst places. It's standard haunted house stuff...until it's not. Every plot element I hated while I was reading the book actually had a reason for being there and comes together in a very effective ending. I'm honestly not sure if I likes this one or not.

The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel
by EV Knight #seventysixthbookof2024 #arc #hauntedhousenovel #savannahbook

This contains *****SPOILERS****

CW: difficult pregnancy, kidnapping, psychics, exorcism, death, murder, child death.

This was a wild one. Emily is commissioned to create the cover of the newest horror novel by renowned author Cooper Yancey. She starts painting a house in town and when she’s sidelined by a difficult pregnancy, husband Miles buys the house and it all goes wrong from there.

Miles is an idiot from the word go. Just a moronic husband and person who refuses to call the baby by his name because he doesn’t like the name Emily picked out in a fair and square deal. The obviously haunted house starts making trouble and Miles, bless his heart, thinks nothing of it. Assumed Emily is just scatterbrained and won’t listen to her. Emily knows that the house is deranged and out to get their family. This plot is bonkers and kind of fun if you can overlook a missing baby. The ending wraps up neatly in a bow but is kind of batshit. I enjoyed it wholeheartedly.

Thank you to @rdspress and @netgalley for the advance copy. (pub date 9/12/24)

I definitely enjoyed this book which deals with a haunted house and some postpartum depression. I really enjoyed Emily, the FMC, and wasn't happy at times with her husband because he had some misogynistic tendencies. However, I know this was purposeful and I love to hate a character. The pace of the book was good, but I wish the end was pulled out a little more for a dramatic effect. I absolutely recommend this book to horror lovers of a good, haunted house story.

I love a haunted house story! The concept for this book was really intriguing however the execution did not do it for me. There wasn't enough focus on the paranormal activity and the house as there was the conflict between the husband and wife. I felt like there was more pregnancy body horror than haunted house horror. I usually like multiple POVS to get a better understanding of the characters but these characters fell flat and seemed one dimensional to me. The story just wasn't cohesive for me and I struggled to understand the intentions of the authour. Loved the cover and the title.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

A haunted house is a delicate balance to manage when you’re writing a story. You want people to believe it could happen to you, but at the same time, you want it to be just beyond the realm of possibility. The ghosts need to be realised and, to an extent, human, or at least show in pure form their inhumanity.

Unfortunately, this book failed past the post. I loved some of the descriptions, and the start of this novel was nice and creepy. A couple dealing with infertility and a miracle baby threatened with the idea of the one thing they have wished for more than anything else being ripped away from them? A fascinating premise.

I just found the concept a little tired. The ghost was, as expected, a vengeful parent spirit that ended up destroying everything it touched. I was left feeling disappointed by the potential of this novel to be a savage portrait of grief, but unfortunately I just felt a little more substance was needed.

In a way too, I feel like this novel is better conceptualised as a paranormal thriller than a horror novel. I wasn’t left scared or hiding under the covers- which was a shame, because I really was hoping to be.

Emily is a book cover illustrator and receives the offer of a lifetime - a famous bestselling horror novelist has offered her a deal, find a nearby house that gives her the creeps and illustrate it for him. If it inspires his next horror novel, she receives half the revenue! It's the deal of lifetime, and with no shortage of creepy houses in the Savannah area, it should be a slam dunk. But after months of artist's block, she's driving through an affluent neighborhood that dead ends in a copse of creepy trees and an abandoned house from her nightmares! It's perfect, but before she can act on it, she's traumatized by a medical emergency, making her a slave and prisoner to her own body and mind.
True horror comes when you can't escape from your own nightmares. In this haunted house horror, the characters make bad decision after bad decision, and become trapped in a nightmare of their own making. Filled with disturbing images, creepy atmosphere, and lots of dread, this creepy supernatural thriller will definitely have you rethinking that beautiful, old fixer upper you've had your eye on.

This book was such a trip, every page was more chaotic than the last and that title is just everything!

Every possible emotion, I felt it. Told in 2 different POVs this story had me in a chokehold, most of the characters were unbearable (specially Miles and Cooper) but the story felt unique to me and it kept me guessing throughout.
Was definitely not expecting that ending but it felt fitting.
I just wish that the history of the house would’ve been explored a little bit more.

🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸/5

Thank you so much to the author, @rdspress and @netgalley for the ARC, opinion is my own.

I really, really wanted to like this book. Everything about it - from the cover to the plot to the setting - spoke to me. But the parts somehow didn't come together in a nice, cohesive whole. Knight's writing style seems rushed and slightly frenetic at points, which might appeal to some readers, but didn't to me. The horror in the book was at an appropriate level and the detail of describing the setting was also welcome. Overall, it just felt like it needed a little more work and thought from the author.

This is one of those books that was a fun story premise but shoddy execution. I knew that is a personal beef but miscommunication is just not it. No two people have failed to communicate harder than Emily and Miles Lawrence. Between not talking about epic life altering things and the anxiety of a missing baby storyline, I just did not have a great time with this.

This book had an interesting premise…Emily, an artist, is hired by a famous horror author to paint a book cover that will inspire his next novel, a Southern Gothic, but doesn’t tell her husband about the deal. She finds a house that she finds both compelling and unsettling that she thinks will be a perfect fit. The husband, seeing her paint this house over and over again, thinks she loves it and purchases it for their growing family. And, naturally, a haunting ensues. Maybe not the most original premise, but an interesting one.

Unfortunately the execution did not follow through for me on this one. The characters are all pretty one-dimensional, and the husband, Miles, is downright despicable (fat-shaming his pregnant wife, gaslighting her regularly throughout the entire book, being homophobic toward a gay realtor, I could go on and on). The majority of the conflict in this novel was due to a husband and wife who just wouldn’t communicate with each other, and that was very frustrating as a reader. There was also way too much emphasis on graphic depictions of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth and not enough emphasis on the actual haunting; I’m still confused about some aspects of the story. While this did have some slightly creepy haunted house-type moments, I was expecting a southern gothic and instead got a pregnancy body horror with unlikable characters and an ultimately unsatisfying conclusion.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

while i love a good haunted house story, this one didn't quite live up to expectations. i did enjoy the different points of view in each chapter between the husband and wife, along with the being dropped into the ending at the beginning, however, i wish there was more explanation of the house and the ghosts because nothing seemed to ever get confirmed or explored thoroughly. while that can be a really good mystery sell for a book, in this one it only left me with zero answers and explanations and therefore made the read seem a little empty in my opinion.

overall this book was a fun read but ultimately a little disappointing.

Subversive, chilling, and a lot of fun. really enjoyable as someone who reads a LOT of horror, enjoy the voice and the way tropes are explored

Emily is looking at a house as inspiration for a commission for book cover art. However, when she has a medical emergency there, her husband thinks she was trying to buy the house. She felt creeped out by the house in reality but can’t really tell him that. Things continue to go wrong though especially after their baby is born.

I don’t know what it was about this one, but it just wasn’t for me. I thought the premise seemed spooky and interesting, but the writing didn’t give me the creepy vibes I wanted.

What do you do when your husband buys a potentially haunted house for you and your unborn child because you’ve been painting pictures of it non-stop? If you're Emily Lawrence, you go ahead and move in because you cannot tell him the real reason you've been painting the house. Of course, if you’re Miles Lawrence, you hadn’t even consulted your wife before making the down payment so I support everyone is at fault. Miscommunication runs deep in this household.

Houses are often the subject of horror stories, our author E.V. Knight even mentions that in the novel. Of course, that means if you're going to write another one, you have to make sure you're bringing something fresh to the table. Unfortunately, Knight has not done that.

I won’t spoil the “twist” for anyone who does end up picking up this novel, but I will say that Knight’s head was in the right place. They have chosen a plot that could work with some workshopping. The real fault of the novel lies in the characters and the prose.

Miles is completely oblivious to the feelings of those around him, and also oddly homophobic? (For anyone who HAS read this, I’m still trying to figure out why that scene is necessary.) Emily is your classic postpartum, potentially unreliable, narrator. Monica is nothing but a foil, and Coop is beyond annoying. Rhett/Remi might be the only character I felt any compassion for, but I still didn’t understand why the dual name thing was added.
On top of the two-dimensional characters, Knight’s prose is underdeveloped. Much of the dialogue is incredibly cliché and juvenile. It is not that it is bad, per se, it just does not feel professional.

Overall, the book is gratuitous with elements that have little bearing on the plot, and scant with the things that matter. However, I did read it in only a couple hours, so maybe there is something there, even if it’s not that Knight intended.

Thank you to NetGalley and RDS Publishing for the ARC. The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel is out 9/12/24.

"There's something off about the house...as if it's hiding a dark secret. That's why artist, Emily Lawrence thinks it's the perfect subject for a cover commissioned by a famous horror author. But that's her little secret. Her husband, Miles, can only assume the house she is constantly sketching is her dream home. So, when Emily is sidelined by an unexpected, high-risk pregnancy, he buys it thinking it'll be perfect for their growing family.

Immediately, Emily begins to hear voices and senses a child's presence. Is the house haunted or is it stress getting to Emily? Her husband certainly thinks it's all in her head. A traumatic delivery leaves Emily convinced something is terribly wrong. Miles must navigate his wife's delicate state, and care for their newborn son, while returning to work. It's a tenuous situation - then the baby disappears."

I love the concept, it reminds me of a story my Dad used to tell me when he was publishing Mike Norman and Beth Scott's Haunted Heartland.

Horror is one of my most favorite genres but it's also the genre I struggle with the most. The quality of most horror novels is sorely lacking. It's like anyone thinks they can sit down to do it. You can't.

This book, sadly, falls into that category. 😞

Pros: Great cover and title. Cons: Everything else.

Thank you to NetGalley and RDS Publishing for my complimentary copy.