The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry
I'm a sucker for haunted house books. It turns out that this one is more cosmic horror, but I didn't mind that at all. The abandoned house on Jessie Campanelli's street eats people. It takes bites out of them and sometimes spits them out. Her little brother's friend, Paul, lost an arm in there. Her brother, who she'd dared to go inside, never came out. Years pass and the neighborhood changes. Fewer people know about the family that died in the house in the 1970s or the things that have happened since then. Jessie and a few of the older neighbors remain on the street watching and waitng and trying to warn newcomers away, because the house is still hungry. I really enjoyed this one. I was expecting it to be about a character who had moved away and then been pulled back home, because that seems to be the usual setup in books like this one, but Jessie has been in this awful situation since childhood so it's a different sort of conflict.
The Cold Case and the Corpse by Debra Sennefelder
I've been reading and enjoying the Food Blogger mystery series from the beginning. This one is a bit different, starting out with Hope and her friends at an expensive wellness retreat with an internet life coach. It's quickly revealed that their host isn't who she presents herself as online, but some of other guests already knew that. A worsening storm and the discovery of a body all combine to make the first half of the book an intriguing locked room mystery. But after that, it felt like the plot really slowed down. This one's not my favorite book in the series.
Behind the Door by M. S. Berry
The whole situation is odd. Anna is housesitting for a complete stranger, feeding his cats and spending three hours a day minding his old bookshop, which has almost customers, no cash register, and no sense of order. In exchange, she has privacy and plenty of time to finish her folklore thesis. Her unknown host has left a few rules, which she doesn't seem too concerned about following. The writing style took a bit of getting used to, but I did find myself drawn into the story. It was the locked door upstairs that bugged me. What's so strange an ominious about keeping personal items locked away from a stranger you've allowed into your house? I know it's the whole point of the story, but "I don't want strangers going through my stuff" seems like more than enough justification for a lock.
Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with advance review copies.
