Welcome back to Books With Cause. Let’s dive into my latest review – The Haunted by Bentley Little.
I’m always in the market for book recommendations. As someone who reads as often as I do, I need them. It might seem ridiculous when there are millions of books in the world. More than I’ll ever get the chance to read. But that causes a problem, too. When there are so many books out there, how do you know which ones are worth the time?
In this instance, Bentley Little is a name I’ve often heard highly raved about by Stephen King. I’m always curious to know what books my favourite authors are reading. I love to know what speaks to them and what inspires them. I definitely believe that iron sharpens iron. Writers only become good writers by consuming good writing. The same is true for Stephen King. I always want to know what he’s reading. The good news is that he usually raves about what he enjoys on his Twitter account. For me, there would be no greater honour than to hear that Stephen King was a fan of my work. If there’s ever a moniker I want to have, it’s “Your favourite author’s favourite author”.
Upon deciding to read a Bentley Little book, I opened up my library app to find that The Haunting was literally the only one they have. Well, why not start here then?
Bentley Little’s The Haunted focuses on the Perry family. Husband and wife Julian and Claire are a successful couple. Julian works in website design while Claire is a lawyer. They have two children, Megan and James, both in high school. Although a third child is referenced multiple times. A boy named Miles, who, it is hinted, is no longer with them.
At the start of the book, the Perry family aren’t happy with where they’re living. They’re being terrorised by local kids and feel like it’s time to move on. Quite quickly, they find a bigger house on the market in the city’s picturesque historic district. At first, it seems like a dream move. But the dream quickly turns into a nightmare. It starts subtly enough at first. Music was playing when Julian was certain he’d put the record away. The laundry basket was in a strange place when Claire was certain she hadn’t left it there. Then Megan starts receiving horrible text messages from an unknown number. And James is terrified of the basement. In fact, they all find a reason to be scared of the basement.
In the early stages of reading this book, it reminded me of the original Goosebumps books I used to read – the ones that really ignited my passion for reading. In particular, this reminded me of the very first book in the series, Welcome to Dead House. That book also features a family moving into a new home and then strange things starting to happen. The Haunted is a far more adult book in content. There are a couple of scenes that are very graphic, but on the off chance you want to read the book, I’m not going to give that away here. I’ll leave something to the imagination.
For all the build-up, I’m disappointed to say that this is a book that didn’t live up to my expectations. It was fine, and that’s about as high a praise as I can give it. Fine. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. However, Bentley Little has written over thirty novels, and I find it quite likely that I just happened to pick one that didn’t agree with me. I’d definitely take a chance on one of his other novels.
My Goodreads Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 stars)
