This book is right up my alley in terms of genre, the unique premise and the wonderful cover! I’ve seen it everywhere lately, and it really stands out. Who says we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover? 😉

There’s a lot I enjoyed reading it—the haunted house storyline is fab, I like the idea of it just showing up, and a lot of the action in and around the house is great—but sadly I did find the characters often unlikable and two-dimensional (a further professional edit would have helped here!) and some of the scenes in the second half are a little wordy and not as exciting as they could have been as a result.

Still, it’s a great romp, a page-turner and such a fun and unique adventure, that it is certainly worth checking out if you’re a haunted house fan!

THANK YOU Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review, and the chance to read before publication! 🌟

The fact that it took me a month to read this book when I can usually knock out a book in a day or two says it all, honestly. The only reason why I continued this book was because it was an ARC. Suffice it to say, this is easily the worst book I have read so far this year.

I am doubly disappointed because the premise of this book immediately drew me in: One day, out of the blue, a mysterious house appears in the middle of a small town. No one knows where it comes from, only that it’s creepy and sinister and anyone who goes inside dies. A group of four friends is soon drawn into this mystery when one of them, Hannah, believes she will be able to find her dead mother inside.

Unfortunately, this book disappointed me on basically every level. Literally nothing happened for 60% of the novel. 60%! We follow our four main characters (Scarlett, Jackson, Tommy, and Hannah) as they sit around a dinner talking about what drove them apart several years ago. They snipe at each other. They wonder about the mysterious house that fell from the sky, but months go by and literally everything is normal, apart from a growing media upsurge about the house. They don’t even enter the house until the 60% mark, and by then, I just wanted the book to end.

The characters were wooden. Despite spending so much time with them (too much time!), I never felt like I understood their motivations or cared about them. Their relationships never felt real to me. The way they responded to things was just very robotic and unrealistic. For a group of friends who supposedly care so much about each other, they didn’t really show it. In addition, other reviewers have noted that they sound more like teenagers than adults nearing their thirties, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Even when the characters enter the house, the plot is bogged down by irrelevant details about decor and architecture. We get pages upon pages describing creepy black liquid that oozes out of every surface. They “die” every other page only to be resurrected and then spend four more pages just chatting about irrelevant moments from their past. The horror elements are so cliched, from a creepy doll-like child to weird, amphibious creatures. Nothing is explained. Nothing makes sense. By the end, it turns into this weird science fiction plot that doesn’t really go with anything before it. It’s like the author just wrote down the first random thought that came into his head, regardless of whether it makes sense. By the end, we don’t know more than we did at the beginning, and it all just felt like a colossal waste of time.

If this book had been given a better edit, it could easily have been a tighter work of around 300 pages, not a gargantuan 500 pages. Or maybe it would have been better as a short story. I wanted to know more about Hannah's backstory as a horror vlogger, because that sounds right up my alley. I wanted more horror and suspense that made me feel on the edge of my seat and anxious. I wanted actual answers, rather than threads that never even go anywhere. Unfortunately, all the potential this book had was squandered on a slower-than-molasses first half and a nonsensical plot in the second half. This book was painful to get through and I skipped multiple sections because I just wanted it to be over. I hate giving negative reviews, but I’d give this one a miss, for sure.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank You NetGalley/Publisher & Author for this gifted e-ARC!

Summary--
When twenty-nine-year-old Scarlett Vantassel comes to the conclusion that her life doesn’t resemble any of the things she actually wanted for herself, she drops out of school and moves back home, attempting to reconnect with the people she left behind. But a shadow falls over her return one early October morning when a sinister house miraculously appears in the center of the city, sparking a media frenzy that attracts attention nationwide.

Review--
The House That Fell From The Sky.... What a very interesting book this was?!
This was a dark, mystery, spooky book I think most would probably enjoy.
If you enjoy haunted house like I do.... This is also down your alley.
I loved the way this author wrote the book. Felt like I was literally walking through the house... awesome!
I found it to be a fast read. Very enjoyable, The plot was great. The characters were likeable.

Overall---- Great Book

Rating--4/5

As per usual, Abby and I had a blast reading with the @night_worms for the #NightWormsBookParty - we both love a good haunted house story!

Patrick Delaney's THE HOUSE THAT FELL FROM THE SKY has an excellent premise and some wonderfully written scenes! It took about 100 pages for me to get into it, but besides the need for a bit of editing, it's a great read.

Twenty-something Scarlett Vantassel is struggling at life, so she decides to move back home to renew old friendships. But she soon discovers her childhood friends have struggles of their own and are vulnerable to the foreboding darkness to come. A mysterious house literally falls from the sky, right in the middle of the city, which causes upheaval in the town and media chaos. And this house is not your average suburban cookie-cutter tract home either; it's a gothic-style mansion oozing with disquieting undertones, nefarious intentions, and puzzling questions. Scarlett is cautious while others want to score a ticket to see the show. Scarlett’s friend Hannah is determined to gain admission as she believes it answers the age old question - what happens in the afterlife?

Remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Well, Delaney crafted a clever story with a similar, sinister vibe - but with horror! We received pretty cool swag, including a lottery ticket with the book, so I assume that connection is purposeful, which is awesome. The chapters that focus on the house itself are fantastic, easily five stars! However, the character development is unbalanced so brought it down to three stars. Some details are gratuitous, while others are missing altogether. If this book were restructured with a focus on the house from the start, it would be a better reading experience. Also, editing down about 150 pages would provide a more succinct story and sharpen the pace. Although, for a being a 500-some-odd page book, it was an easy read. As an aside, major props to the cover art as it is a stunner!

All in all, this is a fun ride in the end. Read it so we can talk about it!

Special thanks to the author for my copy.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

Sometimes a book works for you, and sometimes it doesn't. This is one of those instances where it did not work for me, which is a bummer cause I really really wanted to like this novel. The premise of the story sounded so interesting to me, but the execution left much to be desired. I thought about DNF'ing it multiple times throughout my reading but the house had me intrigued. I wanted to find out more about the house, more of this mysterious architecture. Unfortunately we don't get this until the 300 page mark, and it was a bit of a let down. Also, the characters seemed a bit immature when it came to the dialogue, I honestly thought they were 10 to 15 years younger than they actually were. I did enjoy their friendship and the fact that they stood by each other through all the craziness.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for my review copy.

I could not get into this. I only read about 10% of the book and was not very interested in any of it. Not rating this anywhere else since I didn't finish.

This is a new take on the spooky house story and because of that I was immediately interested in the book. It was suspenseful and unique but I did have a few issues with the novel: I had trouble connecting with any of the characters a they seemed ‘all over the place’ somehow. I also didn’t like that there was no greater explanation for the events happening in the story. All in all, it was an interesting read but nothing that will stick with me for longer.

Four friends find themselves drawn to a mysterious house that just appeared in the middle of their town. A big mysterious mansion that literally fell from the sky and propped itself up in the middle of the town refusing to allow entrance, a sickness, sadness, and madness emanating from it, infecting all those in the surrounding area.
When the four friends (Jackson, Tommy, Scarlett, and Hannah) sneak to the house, they all are overwhelmed by different sensations and all hallucinate different things. Hannah thinks she sees her recently dead mother in the house and becomes obsessed with going in to find her.
Somehow the house becomes the property of a corporation that holds a strange lottery to allow two random people (who can bring friends) via a special invite. Whomever is picked must stay in what everyone calls "the haunted house" overnight, and if so they will win $1,000,000 each.
Of course the four wind up in that mansion and realize it's not just haunted, its maddening and malevolent.
In the end they all do the best they can for each other but things still don't end picture perfect. Reading some of these scenes was absolutely horrifying, like traveling through hell on acid perhaps...I wished they had gotten into the mansion quicker but when they did, things really picked up and the bizarre creatures and mind-resets they experienced would be truly horrifying.
The complexities of the characters and their relationships both with each other, and with their parents, made them so much more realistic. The fact that they all felt like losers at the age of 29, each in their own right not where they thought they'd be at their age, had a familiar feel. I enjoyed the tension between Jackson and Scarlett. I appreciated the distance that happened between Hannah and Tommy. These rifts and tensions happen in all types of relationships, so it is always good to have this type of tension, since simple easy relationships are something I loathe in fiction (can't relate lol).
Although I felt the pacing could've been a little quicker before they entered the mansion, I enjoyed getting to know the group. I liked towards the end the mansion chapters and flashback chapters sequences, because the mansion was heavy and I like having a break and it created the page-turning atmosphere you want it a book, I just wish it had been that way from the beginning, or closer to the beginning. Still, this did not take away from my overall enjoyment and the major creepy vibes that happened before they even entered the house. I especially loved Jackson's hallucination (?) on the street outside of the bookstore. The monster in the sky. Wow.... I would recommend this book for lovers of horror and would really enjoy seeing this as a movie.

<i>Thank you, NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest review!</i>

<i>“Light can be just as deceiving as the darkness. You can't always believe everything you see.”</i><p>This is the story of a mysterious house that literally shows up in the middle of the street. We follow the twenty-nine-year-old Scarlett, who comes back home after figuring out that her life is not going the way she wanted it to. Alongside her brother Tommy, his girlfriend Hannah, their friend Jackson and the mysterious magician Vicent, she has the opportunity to explore the house.</p><p>I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the house. It is really spooky, gothic, haunting, mysterious, and has a certain Haunting of Hill House vibe to it. But the characters were a weak aspect to the story, in my opinion. They were all in their late-twenties but acted as though they were teenagers. I wanted more substance to their development... they were childish and bit boring.</p><p>Overall, it was an interesting story, with meh characters.

The best way to approach this book is by knowing as little as possible going into it. That’s what I did and it was an amazing experience!

Briefly, the book is about four friends who, with the help of an enigmatic magician, try to understand the house that suddenly appeared out of nowhere one dark and stormy night. The house is strange enough on the outside, but once it’s doors finally unlock they realize the true nightmares lay within

This book hit a lot of personal likes of mine: from a focus on character building, to themes of family, friendship, and grief (a la Haunting of Hill House) to an irresistible mystery that needs solving, to terrifying images of monsters and dark chaos. I love that there’s such a cool mix of horrors (ghosts, ghouls, creepy crawlers, monsters, eldrich terrors, etc). Healthy doses of Silent Hill, Lovecraft, King, and more. I also loved how imaginative the inside of the house is and all of the twists and turns in the second half (with some moments in the final act I did NOT see coming!! At over 500 pages it drags just a bit in some spots, but overall I was definitely down for this epic tale!

Three stars from me! I rate based on the Goodreads system, so three stars translates to, "I liked it," In my opinion, it is difficult to find a unique, not done to death before, scary / spooky house story. With that being said, the basic idea of The House That Fell From the Sky is indeed unique, and because of such, I was thrilled to read this book. I am naturally an inquisitive person so no matter what I am reading, I am always asking, "How?" or "Why?"
and I am frustrated when the answers aren't provided. With this being said, I would have liked a clearer picture of just how this house came to be. My favorite genre is horror, but as much as I have read books involving paranormal encounters and haunted houses, most works leave me wondering, as stated before, "How and why?" I can accept that a house fell from the sky with a good backstory, but I can't accept that it came to be just because it happened to happen. I also couldn't connect with the characters, but neither of these things kept me from enjoying the book. I read to escape and for fun, and this book provided both of these things to me. I will certainly read more Delaney because I enjoyed his work.

I love gothic horror, beautiful turns of a phrase, descriptive language, and learning new words from literature. I’m always up for a slow burn. The description (plus the cover) of The House That Fell From the Sky seemed to promise all of these things wrapped up in a scary, well-written story. Unfortunately, that’s not at all what was waiting for me inside of the 528 pages that followed the cover.

The writing was beautiful in several sections of the first few chapters. It all quickly went downhill, though. The author often used unnecessarily drawn out descriptions lasting several paragraphs for things as simple as a wall or a door. There was also a lot of repetition (yes, we get it, Scarlett’s fancy shoes are “black Converse”).

The characters were supposed to be in their late-20s and older, but in many sections, they came across like teenagers. It’s as if the book was originally intended for a YA audience and all the author did was change their ages and a few of their life circumstances.

One backstory mystery from before the titular house fell from the sky involved Scarlet (who has scarred hands and is often called Scar, for short; how subtle. /sarcasm) and her last relationship. This was teased out for most of the book, yet the big reveal was far from worth it. There was nothing sinister there. Her ex wasn’t a bad person. He just did what he thought was right for both of them, given their situation. He was actually the most mature character in the book.

Don’t even get me started about Vincent and his cheesy inspirational talks. His reasoning for everything was ridiculous, too. The backstory behind it was the most exciting part of the book, but he definitely didn’t seem to understand the full experience.

Also, can we talk about the fact that Scarlett’s foolish, selfish behavior set everything in motion? And how about the author’s constant usage of “And then,” or “Then,” at the beginning of sentences (especially in the last few chapters)? These factors and many more made getting though the book a painful slog. I almost DNFed it several times, including at the 95% mark. I wish I would have.

I will say one positive thing: the author has a hell of an imagination. Putting it all into one book like this weakened the impact, though, making it not even a little bit scary. A good editor would have cut this down by at least 1/3, maybe even by 1/2. That probably would have made the book a much more enjoyable read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

Oh! Now this is a great story!
The House That Fell From The Sky is spine tingling, very suspenseful and a fantastic story! There was moments where I couldn’t believe what was happening!

If you’re looking for something out of the ordinary then give this a go! You won’t regret it!

Delaney's book grabs on the first page and doesn't let go. A perfect mix of horror, sci-fi, and Lovecraft. Four friends + one haunted house = the best haunted house story since Rose Red and Haunting of Hill House.

Thank you NetGalley and Oblivion Publishing for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

If you are a big fan of clever, quirky metaphors and similes then this is the book for you.
If I were to do word counts of “as if” and “like a”, I believe that the numbers would come out to be around twice the number of pages in the book.
For me, they were mostly very irritating, inappropriate and not at all relevant.
Allow me to share a few examples.
“Scarlett thought it sounded as if an immense vat of hot jelly was being poured into a bottomless well.”
“The texture reminded him of a sea lion that had just plopped down on the ice after a swim, shiny and wet.”
“… where a tall pole greeted them with a length of stained glass at the side, as if they’d arrived at the North Pole.”
“It’s just an old Victorian bedroom, like Princess Anne vomited all over it.”
This sentence fails to conjure up any sort of meaningful image in my mind.
There are also some continuity errors. For example, “He’d waited for her for hours at the hospital, calling her so many times that his battery died. When he finally realized that she wasn’t coming, he’d called Jackson to come pick him up.” He managed to call Jackson after his battery died!
There is also a plethora of unnecessary adverbs. I really don’t understand their purpose.
“Well fuck,” Jackson said amusingly.
REALLY?
I really struggled to get through this book and almost cast it aside as the second DNF of my reading career. It is slow-paced and there is so much filler that it becomes a challenge to find the substance.
The concept of a sinister, mysterious house appearing in the centre of a city and casting evil on all who approach it, never mind attempt to enter, is absolutely brilliant. This was the reason that I elevated my rating from one star to two. However, so much more could have been made of the story.
The characters and storylines are weak and the narration didn’t grab my interest until I was 92% through my reading of the book. At that point, there is a flashback chapter entitled, “The Wizard behind the Curtain,” which makes a strong connection between the characters. From that point on, my interest was held.
The ending is disappointing as is the whole book, to be honest.
It seems to me that the author is trying to emulate Stephen King and is failing miserably. That great author would be horrified by the proliferation of adverbs (see On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft).
Looking through some of the other reviews, I can see that the story has an appeal to many of its readers. It is just not for me and I would not recommend it to any of my friends.

Loved the spiel, sounded right up my street. Unfortunately it wasnt. The subject matter was for sure. It was the storytelling that wasnt.

I`m sure you all know the gist of it. Giant "haunted" mansion appears in the middle of a town overnight. Anyone who goes near it or tries to enter it either goes mad or dies.

We have a group of four teenage friends, sorry they are in their late 20s apparently, and for a convoluted reason they win a raffle to enter the house for a night to win a million dollars each.

Ok, my problems with this book are many.

The main characters are very poorly written and as somewhat sarcastically alluded to by me earlier, come across as teenagers rather than adults in their late 20s. None of them are interesting. They are all angsty for one reason or another, which we find out about throughout the book through flashbacks. None of it that interesting at all and added little if anything to the characters.

The first half of the book deals with the arrival of the house and are main group, along with another couple of characters before we eventually get to the very convoluted set up for the second half of the book where they enter the house.

I thought the book might pick up when they did finally enter but if anything it got worse. No tension. No pacing. Endless pages describing the walls, ceilings, floors, paintings, statues of a new room they entered. Like I`m talking 3 or 4 pages of description every time they moved. I was pleading with them to stay put so I wouldnt be subjected to more pages of inane description of the horrible walls etc. The one thing I did care about in the book by the second half was the house itself and this killed it stone dead.

I`m sorry but the second half of the book was a complete snooze fest. Rinse and repeat chapter after chapter a formula that wasnt working. This was very close to becoming my first ever dnf but I soldiered on to the end, relieved more than anything that it was over. Awful pacing, over writing, the book is probably a couple of hundred pages too long.

I dont take any pleasure in writing this negative review. I wanted to like this book so much but its up their with the worst I have read and I have to be honest. It is getting a lot of very positive reviews so Im sure it will do well.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Oblivion Publishing and Patrick R. Delaney for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The House that Fell from the Sky.

I love horror movies and horror books so I was excited when my request was approved; the premise sounded so freaky!

Sadly, The House that Fell from the Sky had amazing potential but left me wanting.

First, the characters were under developed, especially Scarlett and her brother. She's a typical millennial; bratty, self indulgent and annoying.

She's not stupid, but lacks focus and ambition. I didn't like her nor did I sympathize with her. Her brother was equally one dimensional. I would have liked to know more about him, his prowess as an athlete but the author spent far more time on Scarlett.

Personally, I think he should have centered the story around a male character, mainly Jackson, the only character I liked remotely. Kind, decent, hard working raised by an emotionally distant man, he was the only one who was vaguely interesting.

The plot had tons of potential but the author spent more time house building, describing every facet of this Winchester/Lovecraft-type house than he did on the ginormous plot holes left hanging at the end.

For example, what is the Crow Corporation? How are they connected to the house?

What's up with all the Cthulhu-like insects bugs? Seems like a rip off of Lovecraft.

The story moves really slowly. I mean, really slowly. There's plenty of unnecessary filler/exposition in numerous flashbacks that add nothing to the meat of the story, nothing that couldn't be summed up in a few paragraphs instead of the many pages it had been given.

I found Vincent's role hard to believe; he's connected to the friends through a ridiculous subplot that left me unwilling and unable to suspend disbelief for.

I also couldn't believe that Scarlett could forget a traumatic memory such as that as well.

But, the worst thing of all, is that I was never scared. Not once.

I skimmed most of the book but I didn't need to focus to see how many cliche haunted house motifs were in this story; the scary girl appearing when you least expect it, the creepy photos, the rooms altering and shifting every time. The bugs. Lots of creepy, crawling, humongous bugs with many appendages.

Not to mention, the standard stereotype of all books (and horror movies) that the only two female characters are beautiful. Natch.

I must have read, at least 3x, how Scarlett opened or fluttered her big eyes or Hannah didn't realize how beautiful she was (which was a good thing, ya know) and how Scarlett tried not to be intimidated by her friend's beauty. Yawn.

I wanted to like this, but I didn't. Some people might.

Wow! This was a mix of Pretty Little liars with dark, very dark twists. The written is so good that sometimes I really think I was "watching" instead of reading. Excellent!

When twenty-nine-year-old Scarlett Vantassel comes to the conclusion that her life doesn’t resemble any of the things she actually wanted for herself, she drops out of school and moves back home, attempting to reconnect with the people she left behind. But a shadow falls over her return one early October morning when a sinister house miraculously appears in the center of the city, sparking a media frenzy that attracts attention nationwide.



This was a great story with teenagers who are not so pleased with the hand life dealt them.

I was very much looking forward to this but am disappointed to say I DNF at chapter 10. The story moves at glacial pace with nothing much happening up to this point in the book (although we finally reach the house at the point I gave up).

This was compounded by the writing - I had to repeatedly read paragraphs to try ascertain what was going on and was convinced certain sentences were inserted at random. I'm glad I was reading on Kindle because people and things are continually referred to as if the reader is familiar with them and a quick Kindle search proved that no, I'm not getting forgetful, this is in fact the first time this person or thing has been mentioned.

I also found the timing really weird. At the point in the book at which I gave up, more time had passed in me reading it than had supposedly passed in the book. It was exhausting.

I know this title is getting great reviews but books shouldn't be this much of a chore to read and I eventually gave up.