Title: The Haunting of Paynes Hollow
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Published: October 14, 2025
Format: e-ARC
My Rating: 5 stars/5
Synopsis: When Samantha Payne’s grandfather dies, she figures she won’t even get a mention in the will. After all, she hasn’t seen him in fourteen years, not since her father took his own life after being accused of murdering a child at their lakefront cottage. Her grandfather always insisted her father was innocent, despite Sam having caught him burying the child’s body, his clothing streaked with blood.
But when she does attend the reading of the will at the behest of her aunt, she discovers that her grandfather left her the very valuable lakefront property where the family cottage sits. There’s one catch: Sam needs to stay in the cottage for a month. To finally face the fact she was wrong and her father was innocent, in her grandfather’s words.
Traveling to Paynes Hollow, Sam is faced with the realities of her childhood and the secrets kept hidden in the shadows of her memories. When her aunt goes missing a couple days into their stay, Sam begins to question everything again. Plagued by nightmares and paranoia, she begins hearing sounds in the forest and seeing shapes crawling from the water as the rippling waves of the lake promise something unspeakably dark lurking just below their surface.
My thoughts from the Vault
Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC of this book. I chose to review it and this in no way impacts my opinion of it.
Words can’t even begin to describe how excited I was when I received an e-mail from St. Martin’s Press offering me an e-ARC of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow. When I heard that Armstrong was releasing another standalone horror novel, I was stoked. I love horror and I love Kelley Armstrong books so I thought there is no losing with this release, and I was right.
We can guess going in that things won’t be going great for Samantha when she gets to the cottage, based on the fact that this is a horror novel, but just how horrible will her time be? One month isn’t a terribly long time for one to spend in a luxurious cottage on the lake but the reminders of her families history on the property haunt her while sleeping and awake.
I loved the suspense in this novel and trying to guess what was going on in Paynes Hollow. I really enjoyed how the novel was creepy and suspenseful while keeping me guessing about what was really going on throughout.
I tend to come into KA novels blind as she is an autobuy author for me and I enjoy not knowing whether a novel will include fantasy aspects or not. I find it fun to be reading and wondering “is it a ghost? or a human? werewolves? human? who knows”.
If you enjoy novels like The Inheritance Games (but darker) or The Shining, I think you will enjoy this dark, mysterious novel!
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