Book Review: A Good House for Children

Collins, Kate. A Good House for Children. Mariner Books, NY & Boston: 2023.

Front cover of the advanced reader’s edition of A Good House for Children by Kate Collins

Thank you, Mariner Books & LibraryThing for this free ARC.

Slow burn gothic spookiness. Fans of Shirley Jackson and Daphne Du Maurier will relish this book.

The novel has a dual timeline: 1976 and 2017–23. The fact that characters decades apart have similar, unsettling experiences with the house gives the reader no excuse to accuse the main characters of being unreliable narrators. (I’m thinking of The Turn of the Screw, with its two alternatives — either it’s a supernatural tale, or the nanny was insane. I always believed it was a supernatural tale, and she was sane. Misogynists try to gaslight us in this reality — that’s more than enough.) I like how one time frame is from the perspective of the person unraveling and the other time frame is from the perspective of someone observing the person who’s unraveling under the influence of the house.

Gothic tropes include a brooding atmosphere, a character who questions her own sanity (and in this case, the house truly makes characters unravel), and a possibly sentient house with a personality. This book has all the above. It becomes more and more unsettling the more you read.

Urgh, Nick is a sexist asshole who waves narcissist red flags.