I don't know if there's many horror fans here – or more specifically, fans of ghost stories – but I recently read Christopher Ransom's debut novel – The Birthing House – for PW and I was pleasantly surprised. Below is the Publishers Weekly review if anyone is interested...
The book will be released in early August.
Paul
The Birthing House Christopher Ransom. St. Martin's, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-38584-2
A blend of supernatural horror and psychological thriller, Ransom's impressive debut chronicles a couple's descent into madness after they purchase a 140-year-old Victorian house in rural Wisconsin. Failed L.A. screenwriter Conrad Harrison, whose marriage is on the rocks and who's still coming to grips with the sudden death of his estranged father, decides it's time for a change and, on a whim, buys a turn-of-the-century birthing house he fatefully found after driving the wrong way out of Chicago. But the sprawling structure has a dark history, and after his wife lands a new job and leaves for a few weeks of training in Detroit, Harrison begins to unravel the house's bloody past, even as his own sanity is unraveling. Replete with subtle symbolism that supports the birthing motif (spiders with bulging egg sacs, a moist clutch of snake eggs, etc.), this addictively readable ghost story will keep readers up all night, with the lights on, of course. (Aug.)
