Thank you to Netgalley and Angry Robot for The ARC!

I didn't expect Romantic gothic horror, but I really liked how well it melded in together! William experiencing loss and heartbreak that he constantly beats himself up with. And with a house he thought he would share now only being his own, it really set it up for the uneasy feeling the house and the events that follow. Edward barging in and being very much prominent in William's life calls for an interesting dynamic between the two as they try and unravel information on Robert and Teddy. Edward and William really are opposite attract and slowly heal each other in a way amidst the supernatural and mysteries of the house.

4/5 Stars! Thank you NetGalley for the eArc in exchange for an honest review.

A haunting tale of grief, sorrow, and insanity.

After a tragic car accident involving his long-term boyfriend, William Thorn inherits Hanbury Manor. William leaves London, with all its reminders of Archie, in search of a new life at Hanbury. But what he discovers is sinister and terrifying. When a man named Edward comes knocking, wanting to learn about his ancentor’s history at the manor, William finds comfort in the man’s company.

What follows is something twisted by time and pain.

I would describe this novel as a romantic horror. It is more of a mystery than anything, but some terrifying things do occur. The romantic atmosphere is created by the nature of the mystery in addition to William and Edward’s connection. I think that is a unique aspect, however, and it creates an interesting narrative.

I don’t think the Prologue chapter was necessary. It gives some clues, but none that the reader will recall or understand the importance of. Aside from that, there is a very firm trail from the start to the end of the mystery with some surprises along the way.

Reader, I think you will find this novel satisfying, intriguing, and at times unnerving.

Wow, well I didn't imagine I would get such a gut punch from a horror/ gothic romance, but here I am still kind of reeling.

William was left a house in an inheritance by his deceased boyfriend, Archie. William has been experiencing quite a bit of loss and heartbreak and this house was meant to be the place where he and Archie could have their own place away from the world and live a happily ever life. He beats himself up over having kicked Archie out of their apartment and for being the reason he was on his bike in the rain when he was hit by a car. Now William is in the manor with plans he has not shared with anyone.

On the first day he is in the house, a man pretty much barges into the house and makes a nuisance of himself. William is livid and kicks him out as quickly as he can but the man, Edward, somehow worms his way back inside after a thunderstorm begins raging. The longer they spend together, the more the house seems to awaken and weird things happen. They start to become allies along the way as they try to find more information of Robert and Teddy, who were lovers in the house a long time in the past. But, are they being haunted by the star crossed lovers or is it someone else.

As I mentioned, there is a really big reveal in the end. I had an inkling about some of it, but other parts were really surprising. Yes, I got a bit emotional too. there are some very touching moments. I give this book about 4.25* but I'm rounding up because it did linger with me.

Love haunts the past and present in this chilling tale of secrets, sorrow, and the supernatural.

I went in expecting a haunted house tale with a touch of romance; instead, I was swept away by a layered, emotional rollercoaster that blends gothic horror, tragic love stories, a slow-burn queer romance, mystery, and true crime, all wrapped in a chilling, atmospheric package.

The story unfolds across a dual timeline: In the present, we follow William Thorn, the grief and guilt stricken new owner of Hanbury Manor, as he seeks refuge from a life that has emotionally gutted him. In parallel, through the pages of a decades-old journal left by past resident, Robert, we’re pulled back to 1939. These entries are more than just a glimpse into the past - they're a descent into the horrors and secrets that have plagued the manor for generations.

William is a complicated character. His pain is palpable, and while his actions at times made me roll my eyes or want to yell at him, they felt rooted in something real: trauma, guilt, and the desperate need for redemption. Enter Edward - a burst of warmth and chaos into William’s cold, crumbling world. The dynamic between them is tense and tender, as opposites attract under the most dire and dangerous circumstances. Their relationship unfolds slowly but with undeniable chemistry, and even in the darkest moments, you find yourself hoping that love can break through the bleakness.

But don’t mistake this for a love story alone. This is a horror novel. The haunted manor is alive with secrets, both supernatural and human. From ghostly apparitions and warnings to the uncovering of long-buried crimes, the story builds with a sense of creeping dread. The mystery intensifies in the second half, bringing with it twist after jaw-dropping twist that kept me flipping pages well into the night. Some revelations genuinely made me gasp and others… cry.

What’s most haunting, though, is how well the novel weaves fate, synchronicity, and generational pain into its fabric. The way past and present mirror each other feels chillingly deliberate, making you question how much of life is truly our own making.

The Haunting of William Thorn is not just a haunted house story; it’s a tale of grief, healing, and how the past refuses to stay buried.

Ben Alderson is definitely one of my favorite authors I came across this year. It was no surprise that I enjoyed reading The Haunting of William Thorn, like other works of his, it was a well written story with just the right amount of everything that makes a story great - a fantastic plot, interesting characters, and emotional damage to the reader. I loved the horror elements of this book, it set the mood for spooky season. I very much recommend this book.

2.5 stars

I really wanted to like this more than I did. The premise was interesting but overall the execution felt a bit unfinished. The main character William felt very unrealistic and inconsistent. He would get angry over the tiniest little things and behave very immaturely. The dialogue was clunky and cringey, and was so clearly American when the story was set in England. The story was also unnecessarily long and had too many threads to pull together by the end.

The one thing I really liked was the twist at the end, which I did not see coming. I also liked the character Edward, because he actually had some consistent character traits.

William Thorn just inherited a manor from his recently deceased fiance… and of course it appears to be haunted.

There’s a lot to like here, like a creepy house, an emotionally wounded protagonist, repeating history, and a mysterious love interest.

But I didn’t like how the elements came together. William has no real stake in the house– he could just leave or burn it down. The grief that I think is intended to be the backbone of the story feels so surface-level, and consequently William also comes off as erratic and immature rather than emotionally wounded (with a rather odd aversion to Ouija boards). The repeating history elements are predictable. The mysterious love interest isn’t all that mysterious and their developing relationship doesn’t feel believable.

Reflecting on this more after finishing, my favorite elements were the genuinely frightening imagery and the numerous twists at the end. I guessed most of them, but not the biggest one.

Unfortunately this one was a DNF for me fairly early on as I found the writing overly simplistic and basic in its use of language and sentence structure. I do think this will have an audience, just sadly not me. A shame as I loved the concept.

Ah, well sometimes things just don’t work for you.

This one sounded so great, a gothic haunted queer story with a dual timeline. Unfortunately the horror aspects didn’t really hit and there was a real lack of tension. There was a lot of effort put into an insta-love, trauma-bonded romance and the main story suffered for it.

There were a few surprises at the end that would have been amazing if there had been more build up. This honestly at times felt more like a first draft with lots of pot holes and characters acting erratically.

Sadly DNF-ed around the 30% mark, just missing some juice for me. From what I read I could tell that there's potential in Alderson's prose and storytelling, I just found the overall premise to be more compelling than the execution.

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for the opportunity of receiving this arc! ✨

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Rating: ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰.25

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Review: I have beef with this book because WHY would you make me go through all of that just for that to be the ending. I felt flabbergasted. I felt heartbroken. I felt pain and hope and just despair. I am not a horror girlie, I get scared so easily and this book had me looking at the dark corners of the room with fear and jumping at any noise I heard. But this is more than a horror story, this story encompasses love and grief, and learning to love life again after experiencing complete tragedy. It talks about being vulnerable and opening yourself up to pain again but hoping that it will turn out different. It also has deeper topics like homofobia and the lengths people were willing to go to bury their secrets. This book was so good and maybe it was my signal to try more horror (but also only read it by day)

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Quotes I loved:

“If loving you is worthy of hell, I go there gladly, knowing it accepts us together.”

“Love was many things. It was painful, joyous, freeing and imprisoning. But it was never a sin.”

“Because no matter how broken you become, there’s always the chance to be put back together over and over, until you are something new. Something stronger, more versatile. That’s you, William Thorn. Beautiful and deadly, yes–but that makes you stronger than most.”

William Thorn's life was alright in London, he was in a happy relationship untill he finds that Archie has cheated, and fury William sends him the storm in, which becomes fatal to Archie. Months later, William has set out for one week to the country side, to the manor his boyfriend left him. During his first moments in de manor, it's becoming clear that it's not your usual vacation home. Disturbing noises and funny feelings are following the one after another. He meets Edward, who doesn't seem all that usual himself. Williams story is supplemented by the diary entries Edward and William read about a love story set in the 1920's in the manor, which will make more sense the further in the book you get.

It is a story of ghosts and haunting, filled with grief and a dose of love. Plot twists keep coming, I always try to picture how the story will unfold, but with this one I was rarely right. I feel like confusion and simply keeping things unclear enhances the horror aspect of a book, and I love that. This is also the case for this story, the end did a good job and picking up loose ends and keeping some things in the dark as well. Maybe if you're looking for loveable characters with personal growth, this isn't for you. There's some pretty deep guilt which at times felt repetitive. William changes his mind all the time, kind of using Edward when he feels like it and Edward just lets him. I had hoped to see some growth in this aspect, but nevertheless I did enjoy the overall story. So, I would recommend to anyone looking for a spooky, haunting story and you love solving a mystery. The perfect book to keep you entertained and engaged, never a dull moment.

Thank you NetGalley and Angry Robot for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was terrifying, one of the best haunted houses stories I have read. And the mystery was so well constructed, and when the truth began to unravel it was horrifying to read about. The ending was sad, and although the author meant for it to be hopeful it felt quite like everything the characters did up until then was pointless. And speaking of the characters, their personalities felt very convoluted, as if the author wasn’t sure what type of voice to give them, and I will say that their relationship was NOT necessary at all to the story, they did not have enough chemistry for me to care. The other reason why I’m not giving it five stars is that it NEEDS another round of editing. The story is finished but I saw quite a bit of misspellings and missing words. But I truly believe the finished copy will be amazing.

“𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨. 𝙄𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙪𝙡, 𝙟𝙤𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙨, 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙣.”

“The Haunting of William Thorn” takes place in present day with William inheriting a manor after the passing of his fiancé. While the town wants him gone before the secrets of manor are revealed, William refuses to leave as it’s the last connection he has to his late fiancé. However, all it takes is a few hours in the manor to learn that it’s truly haunted…especially the attic. And when William discovers a journal written by one of the last residents, he starts to learn the true haunting of Hanbury Manor. Shortly after moving in, he meets Edward, the manor’s groundskeeper whose family has ties to the manor’s history. Together, William and Edward endure more hauntings, more strange phenomenon, and begin to uncover the dark mystery that lies within the walls.

Let me start out by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this read. I loved reading the journal entries from the past and all the hauntings that happened throughout. However, I really didn’t feel much of a connection between Edward and William. There really wasn’t much conversation between them outside of working on the mystery. Plus the plot twist at the end was meh. I truly believe this book had more potential to be something magnificent, but the last 25% of the book just didn’t hit. Also, there needs to be some more editing done before publication as there were times when the POV switched from third person to first person.

Words cannot describe how amazing this book was.

It’s haunting, romantic, creepy, and mysterious. I’m not one to cry at books but this has me tearing up at points.

Gothic horror is my all time favourite genre cause it proves that true love can transcend everything and anything. And this book…fuck, this book. This book will be a new classic and it deserves every aspect that right has.

To the author, a million rounds of applause because this is now one of my favourite books of all time.

The ending!!!!!! I am devastated 🥲....
This is a nice creepy, murder mystery!
I do think there needed to be a little more research into people of the 1940's. Some of the diary entries came off as sounding much older than that time period and personally I don't see this as a horror book. Definitely gave me the creepies but not to that extent.
Other than that, this is a nice spooky read for September and into the Halloween season. 🎃

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the early e-arc. 💜

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

I really enjoyed this, I love gothic horror that balances grief and emotion with creepy elements and I think this title gets it spot on for the most part.

Initially I found it a little tough to connect to the characters but once the story picked up I was 100% invested. If you like horror with heart then I’d recommend giving this a go!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Goodreads.

Thanks so much to Netgalley for sending me an ARC for this book!

I've loved all the other books I have read by this author and I also loved this one. Its a very different genre but I enjoyed it very much. It absolutely devastated me down to my bones, the topic of grief is felt through the entirety of the story.

I definitely cried a little and I'm still very emotional about it and books that make me emotional are books I love even (especially) when they rip my heart apart and then put it back together again.

I might need some processing time from this but this book felt as haunted as the manor it takes place in and now I feel a little haunted too (in a good way if that makes sense) because this book will haunt me now.

Very good, so many emotions, I'm gonna go stare into the void for a while now.

DNF - I really tried though. I was not scared by the scary parts, the info dumping at the beginning went on and on, and the main character was unlikeable not in an interesting way, but in a “I can’t root for you or really care about what happens to you” way. I understand that this is an ARC, so some typos and odd phrasing is inevitable, and I normally would not mark a book down because of it. But here I swear it’s to the level where I don’t understand what a sentence is trying to say, and with that happening over and over again, it’s very hard to concentrate on the story and fully understand what is going on. I hope a polished version of this story turns out much better and finds success, but this version unfortunately just wasn’t for me!