The House of Ashes

This review contains spoilers

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Sara and Damien have moved from England to Northern Ireland after Damien’s dad found them a home for a song. The home was destroyed in a fire and rebuilt to modern specifications. But when an old woman comes banging on the door one morning, insisting the home is hers, Sara learns there’s a lot about the house she hasn’t been told…

This was indeed a chilling book, told in two strands: Sara in the present day, and Mary (the old woman) from when she lived in the house as a girl. I have to say, I knew Damien would be bad news just based on his name. Parents, don’t name your son after the kid from The Omen.

This is a violent book, but fortunately there was little sexual violence on the page (although show more the scenarios certainly implied that consensual sex was not a thing, definitely not in Mary’s timeline). The scene where Sara manages to beat the shit out of Damien is graphic and terrifying—I honestly didn’t know how it was going to end up, but I do know Damien totally deserved it, the jackass.

The ghosts of the children surrounding Mary reminded me a bit of The Ghosts of Belfast, Neville’s first Jack Lennon novel, so I think if you liked that book, you would like this one too. The only reason this isn't a 5 after all is that I wouldn't re-read it. But it is definitely worth reading once. show less

A woman who has moved to an old house in Northern Ireland with her husband after a breakdown; a confused elderly woman who turns up at the door, looking for the "children" and convinced strangers have moved into her house. The story starts as if it will be a work of gothic suspense, but adds in a bit of a ghost story, and in time becomes a gritty, even brutal tale of women oppressed by men. In the present time, Sara is becoming aware that her husband and his thuggish father are controlling her life, gaslighting her into thinking she's incapable and fragile, keeping her from developing relationships or showing any signs of independence. In the past, we learn of the ghastly childhood of the woman who has turned up at her door, held show more captive in a basement by a family of brutish men who force the women they've captured to clean and cook and provide them with sexual release. The house itself is a character, refusing the let go of the past, filled with the whispers of dead children.

I'm highly allergic to women-in-captivity stories, but I admit to finding this novel quite riveting. Neville handles the dual storyline well and is able to blend the gothic women-in-jeopardy elements with a far grittier story. The ending is quite graphically violent, and some who signed up for gothic suspense might find it a bit much, but overall quite a compelling story about abusive men and women who manage to fight back despite the odds. show less

The House of Ashes by Stuart Neville is a highly recommended ominous, malevolent novel of psychological suspense.

After her nervous breakdown, Sara Keane's husband Damien moved them from England to Northern Ireland into a house called the Ashes that his father bought for them. Damien has been isolating Sara from her friends since the beginning and this move makes that separation complete. Damien is emotionally abusive and threatening to Sara and this has increased over the years. When Mary Jackson, an old woman, pounds on the door one morning claiming that the Ashes is her home and talks about the children, she is taken back to the care facility where she was sent, leaving Sara wondering about the history of the house. Damien dismisses show more her concerns, but Sara defies him and begins to uncover Mary's past imprisonment at the house as a child and the terrible history of the Ashes.

The writing is excellent in this novel, although the actual subject matter of abuse makes it difficult to read. The dual narrative tells two stories set at the Ashes, that of present day Sara and Mary's story from sixty years ago. Sara is experiencing abuse currently, but the abuse Mary experienced and lived through is chilling, horrific, and evil. Tied into both narrative threads are ghostly apparitions. While the abuse Sara is currently experiencing is awful, Mary's story of abuse is the more terrifying, frightening, and nefarious - so much so that at times it is difficult to read. The

Both Sara and Mary (as a child) are well developed characters and the dual narratives unfold through their individual points-of-view. Sara's a wounded adult experiencing gaslighting and being manipulated, and controlled by her husband. Mary's story is mainly told through the eyes of a child which in many ways makes it so much more powerful and awful because she literally has no way to escape. The outcomes of both dark narratives are violent but necessary to reach the final denouement. The House of Ashes is an exceptional novel but all the violence and wicked behavior also makes it emotionally draining. 4.5 rounded down.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Soho Press/ Penguin Random House.
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4213141988 show less

Stuart Neville is an Irish novelist known for his crime de noir tales. His apex to date has been the Belfast trilogy, a collection up of books I strongly endorse. But now, it's time for something a little different. The Houses of Ashes is that and more.

The tale transpires both in the present-day, and 60 years in the past. In both cases, it involves women who are both physically and emotionally abused. In telling the two tales, Neville shows how the chains binding these women may have changed, but the result remains, they are still equally and effectively bound.

It's a harrowing tale and one that fully embraces the tradition of darkness that follows Irish writers. But it's also a tale that will spur the reader to delve deeper into show more thoughts about how we interact with the past and do we ever really learn from it?

Solid read and one that I strongly recommend. show less

I received an advance copy of Stuart Neville’s latest book, The House of Ashes, from his publisher, so I thought I’d take a chance, since I’d never read him before. Neville, the author of 9 books translated into several languages, has been described as “the king of Belfast noir.” (Apparently being the “king of ‘something’ noir” is a popular honorary title lately.) His books have been shortlisted for the Edgar, Macavity, Barry, Anthony and CWA Steel Dagger awards.
Onto the book:

Can a location, a house for instance, have an evil presence in it? Can the inhabitants be possessed by this presence to be evil themselves? Can two instances of violence and tragedy occurring 60 years apart be coincidence or is there a sinister show more force at hand?

Sara’s controlling husband, Damien, has her isolated in ‘The Ashes’, a run down, burned out farm house in the remote countryside. Damien restricts Sara’s movements and her contact with the outside world, and so she has lost all her former friends. The house, purchased for them by Damien’s father for a song, is in the process of being renovated and modernized. But there something under the basement floor that Damien is hiding. Sara realizes she must escape.
Sixty years earlier, ten-year-old Mary and her two mummies, Joy and Noreen, have been kept isolated in the basement of the same house for over 10 years by Ivan and his two sons, Tam and George. The women live in servitude, cleaning and cooking with the older women providing other services to the men. Joy feels she must escape.

Shortly after moving in, Sara and Mary meet as Mary has escaped from her care facility and has come back to her old homestead screaming that Sara must leave the house which belongs to Mary. She keeps asking if the children are OK, but Sara knows nothing about any children.
After Damien takes Mary back to her care home, Sara wonders about Mary and the house, about which there are many rumors. She reads old newspaper articles which describe Mary’s enslavement and some gruesome murders. Talking to townspeople, Sara learns that after the grisly events of 60 years ago, Mary, the sole survivor of the bloodshed, lived in The Ashes by herself, until the house inexplicably caught fire.

Then Sara begins seeing visions: blood on the floor that returns daily even after strenuous scrubbing, a woman in the stream with red ribbons floating from her waist.

What can this all mean? Will violence again visit The Ashes?

I would describe The House of Ashes more as a thriller than a mystery, with a touch of supernatural. While supernatural in a mystery is something I don’t ordinarily like, I really enjoyed it in The House of Ashes. It wasn’t overwhelming, added intrigue to the story and is fully explained by the end. The story is told from several viewpoints: Sara, Mary, Joy and Esther, Mary’s “sister.” (Quote, unquote). The men’s brutality is offset by the women’s courage and readers will align themselves with the women in the story.

If you are looking for something different, The House of Ashes definitely fits the bill. show less

Two extreme cases of gender abuse. The disgusting depravity of these two linked narratives make the novel hard to read. The victims' perspectives illustrate just how this type of abuse is often hidden and tolerated.

Dark and intense. A mystery set 60 years apart and centering around a house called The House of Ash.
This book pulled one of my triggers, the abuse and enforced servitude of women at the hands of what my granddaughter Rue, she's four, would call badies. Despicable men with little or no conscience. I think had I been reading and not listening I would have put the book aside. Not because it isn't good, it is, but because of the subject. The narrator though, Caroline Lennon hooked me completely and I wanted to find out the truth of what happened in this house as well as the fate of the current occupant.

Can houses where horrific events occured maintain the ghostly remnants of the past? I think so, and this story, this house, is a case in show more point. I felt for the characters in this book, their bravery in the face of adversity, their will to live and the hope they maintain against all odds. I loved young Mary and the present Mary, now in her seventies, as well. Plus, I needed to know who these children were, what was their purpose. All was answered in this difficult but well drawn read. show less