Homes as Protagonists: Thrillers Where the House is the Main Character
By Catherine Steadman
The call is coming from inside the house’…might be one of the most ominous phrases around but you can’t deny there is no better hook in a thriller than finding that the location itself is the life threating obstacle preventing a character from leaving, either in body or in mind. After all, people can be reasoned with, mostly, but solid walls can’t!
In my new book, Look in the Mirror, two women in separate timelines are lured to a beautiful architectural dream house in the British Virgin Islands only to discover too late that they have wandered into a trap, a trap where the house itself is the antagonist and it will take every shred of their physical and psychological strength to escape when it suddenly locks down around them. If you like the sound of that…here are five more deadly homes to keep you going!
Jules secures the dream job, apartment sitting in a prestigious New York apartment building. When Ingrid, the only other person there her age, begins to express concerns over strange events in the building, Jules thinks nothing of it. Until Ingrid disappears and Jules’ investigation unearths secrets that reveal staying at The Bartholomew could cost her a lot more than she is being paid.
Format
Trade Paperback
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around May 5, 2020. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
A found footage style thriller about a house. It contains notes written by a family, and others, who have discovered that the house they are living in is much larger on the inside than on the outside. As you read each person’s notes you discover that each inhabitant tried to map the ongoing space they found beneath the house and they document their findings. Chilling, with the feel of a true crime.
Format
Trade Paperback
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around March 7, 2000. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’ for the internet generation. A woman watches the lives of her fellow apartment block residents play out through their wall-to-ceiling windows, their routines becoming second nature until someone else sees her and they are signalling for help!!
Format
Hardcover
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around April 25, 2017. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
A family move to the titular dream home, and find a secret room hidden behind a partition wall. The room contains personal trinkets that slowly begin to unravel a story of what happened in the house and what could still be happening now…
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around August 27, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Nina, still grieving from the loss of her father, discovers that she has inherited property in the British Virgin Islands—a vacation home she had no idea existed, until now. The house is extraordinary: state-of-the-art, all glass and marble. How did her sensible father come into enough money for this? Why did he keep it from her? And what else was he hiding?
Maria, once an ambitious medical student, is a nanny for the super-rich. The money’s better, and so are the destinations where her work takes her. Just one more gig, and she’ll be set. Finally, she’ll be secure. But when her wards never show, Maria begins to make herself at home, spending her days luxuriating by the pool and in the sauna. There’s just one rule: Don’t go in the basement. That room is off-limits. But her curiosity might just get the better of her. And soon, she’ll wish her only worry was not getting paid.
Format
Hardcover
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around July 30, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
