A thousand revengeful spirits.
Five perfect strangers.
One malignant house.
Cassandra, a former social media influencer, believed she had healed from the trauma she endured two years ago when abducted by an obsessed fan and held captive in an isolated cabin amid the vast woods of Mystic Hills…until the nightmares began. Her nights are plagued with terrifying images of the woods she had escaped from… and a mysterious house that beckons her to it. She now hears its call while awake and fears the only way to silence its dreadful voice is to return to where the nightmares were born.
Kieran knows of the horrors that tread in Mystic Hills’ woodland. He had thought the small, sleepy town steeped in dark lore would be the perfect backdrop for the online paranormal series he and his friend, Trevor, hosted and produced. Trevor never made it out of the woods and Kieran was the prime suspect in his disappearance. Now, years later, something is calling to Kieran, an omnipresence, demanding he return to the very town he barely survived fleeing from.
Mystic Hills, Georgia is a town built on tragedy and bloodshed, a cairn that harbors just as many entities as it does residents. Deep in its sprawling forest is a house that hadn’t been there yesterday and will be gone tomorrow. Weakened from the wounds it bore over the centuries, the house feeds from the town’s darkness as it seeks out the sacrifices it needs to rehabilitate it to the power it once held. But it needs to act fast. Danger is brewing within its crumbling walls—a
danger that could wholly destroy it.
Cassandra and Kieran, along with spoiled socialite Lolita, misogynistic Quinton, and enigmatic Chase soon find themselves trapped inside a sinister house that is just as desperate to stay alive as they are.
Welcome to Price Manor…
Dark bleatings, my enthralled tribe! I read a short story by Mocha Pennington earlier this year, and then immediately demanded…er…I mean, “asked nicely” for a review copy of her next work – and here it is! This is her debut novella, and it’s thoroughly entertaining.
“There stood the immense monster from her dreams, the thing that had beckoned Cassandra to this dreadful town. The House.”
The opening of this story totally hooked me because it begins with Cassandra wandering into the woods, where she finds a weird house that she’s told literally popped into existence. It just materialised. If that isn’t an intriguing book opener, I don’t know what is. She goes inside with her new pal, to find several others there – and it seems that something lured them, compelling them to be there.
“The shadows painting the floor recoiled from her feet with the fluidity of smoke as she moved, bleeding back together in her wake.”
Gosh, how do I even talk about this book? For a start, I’m in love with the writing and the way Mocha describes things – she’s a wordsmith and I think she’s sensational. There’s a lot going on in this story – characters with secrets, the weirdness of the house itself, and there are other characters that seem to be using the house, or in cahoots with the house,. They were super interesting because the house seemed physically connected to them – if they suffer, it suffers. And then, of all things I was NOT expecting…oh look, what’s this, but a little folk horror?!
I have to say though, my absolute favourite thing about this story is that it feels like Silent Hill. I LOVE Silent Hill – as horror properties go, that one is super special. The house seems tapped into the psyches of the characters and it manifests…things…as a result. Hand on heart, I’ve never read anything that reminds me of those games, and I can’t tell you how delighted I am to be able to make the comparison.
“Naked men and women crawled along the wall like gruesome bugs.”
Overall, I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable, entertaining and – yep – scary read. I’d recommend this to general horror fans (especially if you have the same taste in horror as me!). I can’t wait to see what Mocha Pennington does next.
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links for you below.
PRICE MANOR: THE HOUSE THAT SEEKS
Bleeeeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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