‘Delightfully unsettling. The sort of tale that seeps into your bones and refuses to let go’ Kristi DeMeester, author of Dark Sisters and Such a Pretty Smile
‘Of course, they would come for me eventually. How could I have ever thought they wouldn’t?’
Everyone knows where Betty lives. Strangers knew her address long before she knew her own name. Like every woman in her family who has resided at Hanger Hill, she has been subject to rumours all her life. Some of the rumours are vapid and vaporous, others go into specifics that seem impossible. The weather, the scent in the air, the exact words spoken by people who thought they were alone.
On the morning of Betty’s eighteenth birthday, she is approached by a detective at her school gate. She wants to know whether, now of age and free of her mother’s guardianship, Betty will help her solve the cold case of what happened at her house the year she was born.
Betty can picture scraps of it. The flick of a cat’s tale. The smell of rot. A neighbour peering at her from a house that no longer exists. Screams coming from below the kitchen floor. Pages of old diaries curling amongst flames.
The only person who knows the truth, whole and complete, is her mother. And Betty decides it’s time that she knows her family’s story too.
‘A compulsively readable gothic thriller that evokes the spirit of Shirley Jackson’ Dan Chaon, author of One of Us
‘Unsettling, mysterious and addictive’ Laura McClusky, author of The Wolf Tree
‘Of course, they would come for me eventually. How could I have ever thought they wouldn’t?’
Everyone knows where Betty lives. Strangers knew her address long before she knew her own name. Like every woman in her family who has resided at Hanger Hill, she has been subject to rumours all her life. Some of the rumours are vapid and vaporous, others go into specifics that seem impossible. The weather, the scent in the air, the exact words spoken by people who thought they were alone.
On the morning of Betty’s eighteenth birthday, she is approached by a detective at her school gate. She wants to know whether, now of age and free of her mother’s guardianship, Betty will help her solve the cold case of what happened at her house the year she was born.
Betty can picture scraps of it. The flick of a cat’s tale. The smell of rot. A neighbour peering at her from a house that no longer exists. Screams coming from below the kitchen floor. Pages of old diaries curling amongst flames.
The only person who knows the truth, whole and complete, is her mother. And Betty decides it’s time that she knows her family’s story too.
‘A compulsively readable gothic thriller that evokes the spirit of Shirley Jackson’ Dan Chaon, author of One of Us
‘Unsettling, mysterious and addictive’ Laura McClusky, author of The Wolf Tree
Reviews
The House at Hanger Hill is a compulsively readable gothic thriller that evokes the spirit of Shirley Jackson - rich, twisty, and wonderfully spooky
Delightfully unsettling. The sort of tale that seeps into your bones and refuses to let go. Mounser excels in creating unease bubbling under the surface of the mundane. I loved every moment
Devastating and sinister, The House at Hanger Hill is a superbly complex novel brimming with dark secrets and stunning revelations. With its clever layering of time, characters and multiple stories, it takes readers into a psychological maze that had me absorbed from the intriguing beginning to its wildly unpredictable conclusion
Unsettling, mysterious and addictive - everything I love in a book. Hanger Hill is an expertly-crafted unraveling of the lies we tell ourselves and others. Mounser nails tension and keeps you guessing until the last line
Ashleigh Mounser's horror-tinged psychological thriller drips with creeping, twisty dread. It will slither under your skin and absorb your thoughts until you discover every last secret. I loved it
In this richly evocative, atmospheric take on the haunted house as an enduring site of family trauma, Mounser excels at creating an atmosphere of mounting dread. The isolation and creeping threat of the supernatural are unnerving enough to chill even the most devoted horror readers - but, like the best of Shirley Jackson and Stephen King, Mounser's modern Australian gothic knows that the true terror within every haunted house lies not in its ghosts, but in the unexplored recesses of its characters' minds. An accomplished, genuinely chilling debut