The House on Cold Hill was written by Peter James, whose detective series featuring Brighton Superintendent Roy Grace is a worldwide hit. This stand alone novel sounded like a good chiller, but it was lukewarm.
Ollie and Caro Harcourt, and their daughter Jade, move to the Sussex countryside into Cold Hill House, a rambling Georgian mansion with a dark history. For many years, anyone who attempts to move in meets a tragic accident, sometimes before they even get to the front door. Within days, Jade's friends are seeing spectral figures behind her in their FaceTime chats, and whooshing visions appear in hallways or attic windows. In fact, there seems to be a window on the outside that doesn't have a room on the inside. Ollie begins to receive text messages warning them they are all doomed, and 'someone' begins to send annoying emails directly from his computer - so, they decide to stay in the house anyway.
As Ollie learns the history of the house the villagers claim has a curse on it, some odds things happen, but nothing terrifying or memorable - the water taps turn on, a bed rotates, a psychic has an accident.
I was disappointed in this, it was actually pretty boring. What I gathered from the description on the cover is exactly what happens - they move into a haunted house and there is an angry ghost. No surprises or twists of note, and with a ghost story you can get as corny as you want, I don't mind.
Since Peter James has written twenty Roy Grace novels and won countless awards, maybe this was a really early novel he dusted off for publication. The reviews I've read after reading it were either love it or hate it. The writing was good, but the story lack lustre.
I was hoping for more.
2015 / Hardcover / 310 pages
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