Hilltop House always remembered its first, how closely it watched them, how much they meant to it . . . and what it did to them. But Hilltop House has yet to find another like its first, until she moves in. Cora is angry, and weird, and entirely unsuspecting. Her mother hides secrets, just as her grandmother did, and just as every neighbor seems to be doing. But the biggest secret is held by her sentient house, which enjoys rhymes, wants to enjoy Cora, and may or may not have done something to a baby . . . Hilltop House is here to play, and Hilltop House will get its way.
Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe! Today I’m reviewing a novel called Hilltop House but before I get into that, I need to have a quick word about the author, S.Q. McGrath. Why, oh why, doesn’t everyone know about her? I have only recently discovered her and when I toddled along to post reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, I was beyond shocked to discover that there are hardly any reviews on any of her books. And yes, I know I rave and rave about some authors, but there’s good reason for it! I very rarely feel so strongly about an author’s talent that it ruins my day when I find out they’re not making a full-time living from their books, but McGrath 100% falls into that category. She’s talented as f*** and it genuinely pisses me off that she doesn’t have an enormous audience.
Anyway, moving on to the actual novel. As you might have guessed from the above rant, it’s bloody brilliant. The story is told from three different viewpoints; Cora, an older teen who has just moved into a new house, Maeve (Cora’s mum) who needed to get them away from her ex, and – my favourite – the house itself.
The house is old and it has personality… literally. It’s a conscious being with feelings, and it’s current feeling is that it’s very fond of Cora and it wants her to like it back. A little too fond, you might say…
The people in the neighbourhood have all heard rumours about the house and generally, it freaks them out. Brian, a teenager Cora makes friends with, is particularly worried about it because he broke in once when it was empty and had a terrifying experience.
My favourite parts of the story were definitely the ones told from the viewpoint of the house. Reading its thoughts as it became more and more anxious about the fact Cora didn’t seem to return the love, and its growing possessive obsession with her were the most unnerving details. There was also an undercurrent of dark humour during these passages because as the story goes on, and the house becomes more stressed, it sounds progressively more unhinged. It reminded me of a much darker version of Red Dwarf’s Kryten once Kochanksi enters the dynamic and he’s freaking out about losing Lister to her.
The way the house was used, allegorically speaking, was fascinating to me. It’s not only a metaphor (and a parallel in this story) for an abusive spouse, in that it is selfish, paranoid, possessive, and uncomprehendingly dangerous, but it also serves as a physical demonstration of anxiety. There were some wonderful details about how the house reacts to being so stressed and worried – for example, when it starts panicking that Cora doesn’t love it back, cracks appear in some of the walls. Never have I seen such an apt representation of the physiological human reaction to extreme stress.
McGrath doesn’t just create characters and plights, she shrouds them in layers upon layers, and the best thing about her character work being so excellent is that it forever keeps you guessing about where the plot might go. She’s brilliant at setting things up without alerting to you to the fact that she’s setting anything in motion at all.
I wholeheartedly recommend Hilltop House to horror fans who enjoy character-driven stories with a weird edge. If you’d like to check out this book or the author (please do – she’s so deserving of more readers!), I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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