This House Will Feed

thank you to kensington and maria tureaud from who i received an ARC in exchange for a review.<br/><br/>"this house will feed" is a gothic horror in all of the classic literary fashions while subverting the very same genre's expectations of accountability, climax, and resolution of not just the major conflict in the novel but of the source of the horrors itself. while this is a ghost story with spirits and myth, it is also deeply based in reality and chronicles the great hunger in ireland—which takes focus as the gothic horror's central theme and source of terror. unique among its genre companions, the monster isn't a creature in the dark or villain in the night, but the truth of what happened to ireland and its people. and tureaud doesn't sugar coat a second of it.<br/><br/>maggie, our heroine against all odds, is often blinded by love, foolishness, and perhaps ignorance. throughout the novel, maggie's failure to make an educated leap from moment to moment keeps her in a tailspin of victimhood and some manner of helplessness. this helps ground maggie's character in how truly limited her options for security are (even though it may have annoyed me) and drives the ultimate conflict of the novel. the pacing at times left me wanting as we danced back and forth between memories unfolding and maggie's inability to progress while awake. ultimately, well written and deeply researched, tureaud's novel was truly haunting for more than just the ghosts.