House of Thorns

by Isabel Strychacz

Overview

In the vein of The Haunting of Hill House, a teen returns to the mysterious house from her past to search for her missing sister and uncover the truth of Brier Hall in this atmospheric and eerie modern gothic novel.

Lia Peartree is haunted—by memories, by her past, by secrets, by the ones she left behind. Five years ago, the Peartrees fled their home—the infamous ancestral Brier Hall—and never looked back. But her oldest sister went missing that night, and there’s been no sign of her since.

In the aftermath, the Peartrees are traumatized and get by however they can. Lia’s remaining sister Ali says yes to any bad idea, and Lia tries so desperately to be the perfect daughter that it’s tearing her apart. But as the five year anniversary of the night they left nears, Lia begins seeing her missing sister everywhere, and memories of Brier Hall won’t leave her alone.

When Ali disappears with no warning except a cryptic phone call—“don’t follow me when I’m gone”—Lia is sure she’s gone back to Brier Hall. Lia must go home one final time and face what haunts her in an effort to find her sisters and uncover the truth of her past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665942591
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	08/20/2024
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	70,908
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.14(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Isabel Strychacz is from a small town in the San Francisco Bay Area. An alumna of Mills College with degrees in English and history, she is getting her MFA degree in creative writing from Manchester Metropolitan University. She currently lives in England with her husband and daughter where she works as a copywriter for a PR and communications agency. She’s the author of the novel Starling and House of Thorns. You can find her online @IsabelStrychaczAuthor (Instagram, TikTok, and Threads), @IsabelStrychacz (X, previously known as Twitter), and at IsabelStrychacz.com.

Editorial Reviews

05/13/2024

Five years ago, Lia Peartree and her family fled from their home, Brier Hall, after enduring months of escalating paranormal activity and psychological terror. In the ensuing chaos, her older sister Avery vanished without a trace. Now 18, Lia feels burdened by the time she’s spent contending with whispered rumors and dead-end investigations regarding Avery’s whereabouts, as well as by her complicated relationship with her other older sister Ali, who is navigating substance dependency. When Ali returns to Brier Hall in a last-ditch effort to find Avery, Lia follows, refusing to lose a second sister. Reconnecting with her childhood best friend and crush, 18-year-old Rafferty Pierce, Lia sets out to save Ali and, in confronting the house that destroyed her family, discovers that the past is not quite as buried as it seems. Strychacz (Starling) wields poetic prose to weave an atmosphere of creeping horror throughout the alternating first-person-present introspection and second-person flashback chapters. While characters are unevenly developed and some scares fail to land, Strychacz delivers a solid gothic horror that explores the lingering effects of trauma and the lasting power of family bonds. The Peartrees and Raff cue as white. Ages 12–up. Agent: Taylor Martindale Kean, Full Circle Literary. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Breathlessly tense and feverishly beautiful, House of Thorns will haunt you from the moment you step inside."

Tara Goedjen

House of Thorns is an addictive read brimming with tension and intrigue. Strychacz’s prose is what really sets the mood—it’s emotional and evocative, soft and sharp in all the right places. This is a story of sisterhood, of first love, of being haunted in more ways than one. I found myself saying ‘just one more chapter’ over and over again.

MK Lobb

"A beautifully creepy tale of love, loss, and healing, House of Thorns will keep you just as trapped as Brier Hall until the last page is turned."

Hannah Whitten

"Cleverly written, eerie and atmospheric, House of Thorns is an intricate gothic tale that lingers like a haunting dream."

Lyndall Clipstone

2024-05-17
In order to deal with her past, a teenage girl must return to the terrifying house her family ran away from.

When she was 13, Lia Peartree, her mother, and her sister Ali fled Brier Hall, the seemingly haunted house in Eastwind, California, that they'd inherited from her estranged father after his death. They lived there for two years, but after Lia’s eldest sister, Avery, vanished, they left in search of a fresh start. Five years later, Lia is trying to live a normal life in Daley, located several hours away, despite everything that’s constantly pulling her back there: the mystery of Avery’s disappearance, troubled Ali’s addiction, her connection to childhood crush Rafferty (who’s still in Eastwind), and what seems to be the house itself calling to her. When Ali tells Lia she’s going back to Brier Hall because she believes Avery is still alive, Lia decides to follow her—against Ali’s wishes—and face the secrets she’s been trying to forget. With the help of Ali and Rafferty, Lia confronts everything that’s been haunting her for the last five years. While the prose is lovely and frequently poetic, Lia’s redundant internal thoughts do little to push the slow-moving action along. The plot, which lacks any broader themes to elevate it, ultimately falls flat. Main characters present white.

An atmospheric but underwhelming take on the traditional haunted house story. (Supernatural thriller. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews