Sam Wakefield's ancestral home, a decaying mansion built on the edge of a swamp, isn't a place for children. Its labyrinthine halls, built by her mad ancestors, are filled with echoes of the past: ghosts and memories knotted together as one. In the presence of phantoms, it's all Sam can do to disentangle past from present in her daily life. But when her pregnant sister Elizabeth moves in after a fight with her husband, something in the house shifts.
Already navigating her tumultuous relationship with Elizabeth, Sam is even more unsettled by the appearance of a new ghost: a faceless boy who commits disturbing acts—threatening animals, terrorizing other children, and following Sam into the depths of the house wielding a knife. When it becomes clear the boy is connected to a locked, forgotten room, one which is never entered, Sam realizes this ghost is not like the others.
This boy brings doom.
As Elizabeth's due date approaches, Sam must unravel the mysteries of Wakefield before her sister brings new life into a house marked by death. But as the faceless boy grows stronger, Sam will learn that some doors should stay closed—and some secrets are safer locked away forever.
Praise for It Will Just Be Us:
“A rich, dense supernatural thriller...Horror fiction fans will also want to check this out.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This novel is so clever and effortlessly atmospheric it deserves to find a wide audience beyond the traditional horror crowd...Highly recommended.”
—HorrorDNA
“Will leave you with chills.”
—Fresh Fiction
“A Gothic horror world that would make Shirley Jackson proud...wholly original, and utterly absorbing.”
—Kathleen Kaufman, author of Hag and the Diabhal trilogy
"A chilling, poetic, modern Gothic masterpiece. Evocative and reflective, this is a story that haunted my imagination for many a night."
—John Palisano, Bram Stoker Award-Winning author of Ghost Heart
“Marvelously atmospheric, emphatically suspenseful and beautifully written, Jo Kaplan’s It Will Just Be Us had my full attention from its deliciously creepy first page and kept frightening me straight through to the end.”
—Laird Hunt, author of In the House in the Dark of the Woods
"This mysterious world sucks you in and keeps you turning pages."
—Scott Kenemore, author of Zombie Ohio
"There are few new writing stars rising faster or shining brighter than Jo Kaplan...Beautifully hypnotic and eerie, this novel is a must-have for fans of the literary macabre."
—Eric J. Guignard, author of That Which Grows Wild
"Jo Kaplan channels Shirley Jackson adding her own depth and haunting style. The best haunted house novel I've read since Sarah Langan's Audrey's Door."
—Daniel Braum, author of The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales
"Kaplan writes with extraordinary skill and authority, balancing the supernatural with the psychological...A vibrant, thrilling novel of family love and conflict."
—S.P. Miskowski, author of I Wish I Was Like You
"It simmers with darkness and danger and kept me turning pages until late in the night. I loved it!"
—Damien Angelica Walters, author of The Dead Girls Club
“A truly chilling novel with an ending that will take your breath away. Mad Catherine's house is (literally) the stuff of nightmares, and in Julian, Jo has created one of the most frightening characters I've come across since Gabe from Pet Semetary.”
—Melanie Golding, author of Little Darlings
“A triumph of gothic fiction. Haunting and addictive, the evocative language leads the reader along a deliciously horrifying path to an ending we both dread and wait for with held breath. A must-read for horror fans.”
—Darcy Coates, USA Today Bestselling author of The Haunting of Ashburn House
About the Author
MY THOUGHTS/REVIEW:
Sam and her mother live in the Wakefield Manor, a decaying ancestral mansion situated right in the middle of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. The house has labyrinthine halls that were built by her mad ancestors, which reminded me a lot about the Winchester Mystery House I once visited in San Jose, California - a haunted mansion built to confuse ghosts and spirits with its odd configuration of rooms and hallways. Houses like this really gives me the creeps and the Wakefield Manor with phantom ghosts and memories present in every room, was absolutely terrifying. When Sam's sister Elizabeth shows up pregnant after a fight with her husband something suddenly changes. This causes a shift in the house, and a sinister faceless boy soon makes an apparition and starts causing havoc with disturbing acts and behaviors.
Jo Kaplan is a master of atmospheric and tense writing that was suspenseful and wonderfully creepy. Slowly revealing the secrets and mysteries of the house from the past and the new apparition was really spine tingling and chilling. This had everything I wanted in a gothic horror - a character so sinister and evil, a haunted house that never forgets, and an ending so shocking and twisted. I recommend this!!
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT:
Jo Kaplan writes and teaches in the Los Angeles area with much encouragement from her husband and two cats. Her fiction (as Joanna Parypinski) has appeared in Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, Haunted Nights edited by Ellen Datlow and Lisa Morton, New Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark edited by Jonathan Maberry, Vastarien, the Nightscript series, and publishers such as Independent Legions. She teaches English and creative writing at Glendale Community College, where she also plays cello in the GCC orchestra.
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