Happy, happy Friday! Let's get down to business now—book business, that is. Once again, you're reading Fully Booked with Briana Morgan, and today I'm reviewing Kealan Patrick Burke's The House on Abigail Lane. Kealan is a five-time Bram Stoker Award Nominee and a Bram Stoker Award Winner for his book The Turtle Boy. Two of his books, Sour Candy and The House on Abigail Lane, have been optioned for film. I'll probably review Sour Candy in the future. For now, we'll focus on The House on Abigail Lane.
Here's an overview of the book:
From the outside, it looks like an ordinary American home, but since its construction in 1956, people have vanished as soon as they go upstairs, the only clues the things they leave behind: a wedding ring, a phone...an eye.
In its sixty-year history, a record number of strange events have been attributed to the house, from the neighbors waking up to find themselves standing in the yard outside, to the grieving man who vanished before a police officer's eyes. The animals gathering in the yard as if summoned. The people who speak in reverse. The lights and sounds. The music. The grass dying overnight...and the ten-foot clown on the second floor.
And as long as there are mysteries, people will be compelled to solve them.
Here, then, is the most comprehensive account of the Abigail House phenomenon, the result of sixty years of eyewitness accounts, news reports, scientific research, and parapsychological investigations, all in an attempt to decode the enduring mystery that is...
...THE HOUSE ON ABIGAIL LANE.
Click Image to Purchase on Amazon
This book reminded me of Mark Z. Danielewsk's House of Leaves. Like that book, The House on Abigail Lane plays with warping space and time, as well as providing an unsettling and immersive atmosphere. Much like House of Leaves, The House on Abigail Lane unfolds via news reports, eyewitness accounts, and more documentary-style "footage," so to speak. I'm a self-proclaimed found footage fanatic when it comes to horror. I love The Blair Witch Project, The Houses October Built, Paranormal Activity, and all your standard found footage films. I'm also a sucker for found footage in video games, like sections of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (which I have played through twice this year). In books, some of my recent found footage favorites include Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (which you're welcome to read my review of here) and Devolution by Max Brooks. Now, I would add The House of Abigail Lane
to that list.
I love found footage so much that I'm working on writing my own found footage book--but I digress. In addition to providing an engrossing and engaging spooky atmosphere in The House of Abigail Lane, Kealan comments on issues such as post-Vietnam War PTSD and racial injustice. At its core, the book is a haunted house novella, but it is also so much more than that. As a credit to Kealan's storytelling, as I read, I was tempted to Google whether the events of the book actually happened. They haven't, of course, but they could. That's an earmark of good horror.
One of my favorite things about The House on Abigail Lane is how much terror and unease Kealan unleashes in 68 pages. It's a
Author, Kealan Patrick Burke
quick read that never lets up, and the tension throughout makes the novella difficult to put down. The worldbuilding here is phenomenal too--as I mentioned before, the events referenced in the book felt so real that I could believe they had really taken place. If it's not clear, I give The House on Abigail Lane by Kealan Patrick Burke five stars.
You can find Kealan's books on Amazon as well as other retailers. He's active on Twitter and Instagram and designs book covers as Elderlemon Design. Full disclosure: he's my cover designer, so maybe I'm biased, but his work is impeccable. What do you think of The House of Abigail Lane? Please let me know in the comments below! I'll see you all next Friday for more Fully Booked.
Briana Morgan (she/her) is a horror author and playwright of books such as THE TRICKER-TREATER AND OTHER STORIES, UNBOXED, and BLOOD AND WATER. She is also a proud member of the Horror Writers Association. Briana lives with her partner and two cats in Atlanta, GA.
