(19) Your House is on Fire, Your Children All Gone

Title: Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone: A Novel by Stefan Kiesbye
Publisher: Penguin
198 pages
Genre: Horror

Synopsis: A village on the Devil‘s Moor: a place untouched by time and shrouded in superstition. There is the grand manor house whose occupants despise the villagers, the small pub whose regulars talk of revenants, the old mill no one dares to mention. This is where four young friends come of age—in an atmosphere thick with fear and suspicion. Their innocent games soon bring them face-to-face with the village‘s darkest secrets in this eerily dispassionate, astonishingly assured novel.


Review: This is truly one of the most disturbing books I have read in a long time.  Not because of what goes on in this creepy little town but because of the lack of remorse from any of the characters.  Within the first 40 pages a boy murders his sister and a town bludgeons to death a family of 5 and life goes on. There were many moments when I almost just set this book down and walked away, which is rare for me to do with any book, but there was just nothing I found in any way redeeming about the characters. Each chapter is written in the voice of one of the children of the town and I actually felt like I needed a shower and to go to confession (I'm not even Catholic!) after reading some of their stories. I kept reading in the hope that there would be something redeeming to this book but I didn't find it. If you are into creepy stories then this one might be for you, it just wasn't for me.