I love spooky, dank old country houses full of secrets, I love well-constructed stories with something to say, and I really love when an author manages to combine the two. I’m especially excited about this book because it’s the first time I’ve been approved for a NetGalley ARC, and I was lucky enough to get a book I enjoyed. Zoë Apostolides’ debut, The Homecoming, is a skin of slow-burn horror mystery spread over the bones of a deeper narrative about how modern society offers women the freedom to be and do anything yet seems to resent it when we’re unwilling to use that freedom to everyone’s benefit but our own.

Ellen is a ghostwriter who has been hired to write the memoirs of Catherine Carey, an elderly woman who lives alone in her family’s remote ancestral estate, Elver House. Ellen quickly runs into snags completing the interview process that she normally uses to collect the details for a memoir; navigating the ups and downs of her subjects’ lives with sensitivity in order to get them to open up is the core of her job, but Catherine is at turns forthcoming about her past and ominously tight-lipped according to her own whims. Ellen’s time in the house is punctuated by events that might be unremarkable or easily explicable in another context, yet set against the backdrop of an unfamiliar and secluded environment, they take on a sinister quality. As she gets to know Catherine and the house, it becomes apparent that something about the whole situation is off, and her task becomes as much about unraveling the mystery of Elver House as it is about preserving Catherine’s story.

Apostolides takes her time, deftly building a tense, eerie atmosphere. The plot bears the hallmarks of horror without descending into cliché: there’s no ambiguity about whether something supernatural is happening or someone is just tilting wildly down the path to madness, and the locals from the nearby village, rather than treating Ellen with hostility as an outsider, are instead friendly and talk freely about local history, ultimately helping Ellen come to terms with the truth of Catherine’s and Elver House’s story. That moment of clarity also could easily have been nothing more than a well-worn trope, but here it’s imbued with meaning and prompts Ellen to empathetic reflection. Anyone who has cared for an aging parent will find a poignant familiarity in Ellen’s attempts to navigate Catherine’s seeming cognitive decline, her uncertainty about how much help she can or should offer a grown person (and a client) with a sometimes tenuous hold on the moment. It’s a rainy-weekend-snuggled-indoors haunted house read that’s inhabited by the ghosts of untapped potential and moribund dreams.

Thank you NetGalley and Salt Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I had a suspicion that I would fall in love with this book 😭🫂 A huge thank you Salt Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced copy read of this hauntingly gorgeous book.

I was captivated by the beautiful writing style, the steady pacing of the chapters and the relatable quotes about life's transistions written throughout this Gothic horror masterpiece and that truly made the reading experience deeply memorable, and emotionally felt 🖤

Just waiting to get my hands on a physical copy and excited to read anything Zoë's releases next 👀 What a debut!!! 🙌

This book is a captivating and immersive read from start to finish. The writing is engaging, the pacing well-balanced, and the characters are richly developed with relatable emotions and motivations. The story unfolds in a way that keeps the reader hooked, offering just the right mix of tension, heart, and thought-provoking themes.

This ended up being a book that I enjoyed more than I thought would. It's a ghost story / history tale. I enjoyed the spookiness, and the prose was beautiful. I even loved the cover. I will be buying this one.

I'm kind of conflicted on this. I love a good gothic horror story, but this is kind of not a horror story? It's marketed as such but I would say it's more of a mystery. So I went into this expecting something that ultimately wasn't delivered.

It feels like there's two stories here clashing for dominance. On one hand it's a slow burn gothic ghost story/memoir set in a worn down estate about one woman's long life, and with a nice little mystery attached to it. On the other the gothic vibes fizzle out about half way through and we're left with a underbaked story about women's roles in society--when women were expected to be wives and bear children--and how that left so many women feeling unfulfilled and isolated with their lives and reaching the end of their life with regret.

Apostolides' writing is fantastic and really sets the mood in the house. She's able to write dread very well, and is great at building up tension and having us on the edge of our seat waiting for something to happen. However I had some issues with the pacing of the story and the major twist of the story is quite predictable early on, so I felt myself get a little irritated waiting for the story to get to that point.

I feel like with a bit of cleaning up, this could've been a great gothic ghost story about legacy and the horrors of gender roles for young women before the push of equal rights. But for a debut novel this is a great starting point, so I am excited to see Zoe Apostolides further down the line.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Salt publishing for an arc copy of this book. All opinions expressed are entirely my own*

For a debut novel this book was good! However I would not say this is Horror maybe mystery or suspense but in my opinion not horror.

Short summary, Ghost-writer sent to record the memoirs of an elderly woman living in a remote Northumberland manor. Elver House is dilapidated, its faded beauty falling to ruin.

While reading this book you will constantly feel like something is coming or going to happen and then when the twist happens you may or may not see it coming. I enjoyed it though and it didn't take me long to figure it out!

This book was a slow burn with a gothic writing style and the author's writing is beautiful and made the book much more enjoyable to read.

So, I'd like to preface that when I saw the book tag as 'horror,' I was expecting something completely different. I had certain expectations and kept waiting for the shoe to drop — and when it didn't, it did leave me a bit disappointed.

But backing up. I think The Homecoming is a beautiful novel—NOT a horror novel though. More mysterious and suspenseful than anything else. Zoe Apostolides has such unique voice. Her descriptions were incredible beautiful; I felt like I was at Elver House with Ellen and could see the land perfectly.

I also think, looking back at the novel with the context that it's not a horror, I can appreciate the actual story. It's a little more of a slow-burn, really building you to trust and get invested. I was able to piece together the ending before the novel was finish, but not because of poor writing. Quite the opposite—of the details that Apostolides strung together for the reader.

I struggled with the pace a bit and, again, my expectations were on a completely different level.

3.75 stars, rounded to four stars.

"The Homecoming" is a slow burn ghost story, with a smattering of the gothic sensibilities of an old, crumbling manor house, a larger peek into the lives of two women, and touch of eels. I enjoyed it quite a bit, as I needed a slower paced, introspective story after the ramshackle pace of my last read.

Ellen is a young, modern woman, working in London as a ghost-writer, when she goes on assignment to a forgotten manor house in Northumberland to interview the elderly spinster, Miss Carey, who lives there alone. It's a week-long assignment, after which Ellen will return to London to ghost write Miss Carey's memoire.

But the situation is a little bit off from the get-go. There's no road to the house, and one must walk the final path on foot. The house is seemingly abandoned, and when Miss Carey does finally show up, she is forgetful and seemingly out of sorts. There was a passage in the story where Ellen hears Miss Carey's shuffling down the hall, and I half-expected (and entirely wanted) the shuffling sound to come from the eel-feet of Miss Carey! Alas, that was not the case, as the eels in the story remained firmly in their river.

Apostolides' writing is quite lovely, and the descriptions of the manor and its former life are vivid and real. Sometimes it felt a bit jarring when Ellen's story suddenly introduced the second person "you" into the narrative, and I quickly understood that Ellen was also writing to her childhood friend in the city, from whom she is estranged. As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that this is much more than a ghost story, but it is also a story about the choices that women make, when they choose to remain unmarried and childless in the face of familial or work obligation, in contrast to the more natural lifecycle that the eels represent.

Overall, I'm really glad that I picked up this book (thanks to those eel-feet!), and that Netgalley and Christopher at Salt Publishing allowed me the opportunity for an early read. I thought this was wonderful.

This book was mostly unexpected.

Following the protagonist through the motions, I anticipated wrong. At every turn of e-page, at every beginning of a new chapter, I thought I could tell what would happen. But I did not.

We follow Ellen's POV while she reaches Elver House, once a glorious estate in Northumberland, now almost falling into pieces. There she meets Miss Catherine Carey, whose memories she needs to record and then edit into a ghostwritten memoir. Only that the feeling is eerie, the villagers, sus, and Ellen is plagued with memories and glimpses of her own life, in retrospective.

I would definitely follow the author's further books, as this is an intriguing debut. There's not as much going here in terms of action as in terms of introspection, and the protagonist's inner life is rich and threads some important paths that interest me as well, such as motherhood vs the choice of staying childless, or career ethics.

--
Thank you Salt Publishing & Net Galley for the e-ARC.

Ellen is a ghost writer for clients wishing to write their memoirs. Her newest client, Miss Carey, has requested she stay at her home for the duration of the interviews. Unusual, but Ellen agrees, nonetheless.

From the beginning of her arrival to Elver House, things are unsettling, a foreboding eeriness and tone. That part I liked. The slow burn of a horror novel just starting out. We follow Ellen as she interviews Catherine and the townspeople to get a better picture for the book. The eeriness continues as our "twist" unfolds, which for me, was predictable.

This could have been a much shorter novel. There was a lot of internal monologues that didn't contribute to the plot and flashbacks to her friendship that she only refers to as "you". The flashbacks to this friendship felt random and almost interrupted the story, creating more of an annoyance than helping the story progress.

This was labeled as a horror novel, but I would disagree. I would say this would fall more along the lines of literacy fiction. The writing style was beautiful, and I really felt like I was at Elver House, or the brook, contemplating the life of eels.

What I really liked, was the age-old discussion of being childfree, choosing to be childfree and living with that decision. Ellen never wanted kids, "you" had one and she felt shafted and alone. Miss Carey's mother did not want her, and you feel Catherine's sadness as she grapples with those heavy emotions and childhood. As someone who is childfree by choice, this resonated with me, and I appreciated seeing this in mainstream media because I do believe it is a topic that is hardly written about.

There are a few things that didn't make sense to me. Obviously, the friendship part didn't really need to be in the novel. I feel like it didn't contribute to the plot at all. I think Miss Carey's character was underdeveloped and I didn't feel connected to her or her history. I was hoping for more. A big AHA moment in Miss Carey's life that never came. She was an old lady who lived at a historic house. And that was about it.

It wasn't all bad. Imagery and writing style were spot on and I did feel like it read at a quick pace. It kept my interest, and I read quickly to get to that twist. And I felt like Ellen was my friend, relatable, easy going and a go-getter.

I wouldn't say I would read it again, but I didn't mind it.

3/5 stars rounded up. I want to thank NetGalley, the author and publishers for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a book!!!! I enjoyed this book so much. The prose was beautiful, delicate and elegant but also impactful and so so so important with setting the tone of the book. I loved the little parallels to Ellen’s own life, the descriptions of Elver House, the eels. Very funny (in a creepy twisted way) the fact that Ellen’s job is to be a ghost writer, considering.

I really loved all the parallels drawn between Miss Carey and Ellen’s best friend and I loved the fact that the friendship between Ellen and her best friend was itself a kind of Haunting that plagued Ellen, with its own final homecoming.

If you love horror books about spooky ancient houses and metaphors based on the life-cycle of eels, this is the perfect book for you.

Salt Publishing’s mantra is "Beautiful Books You Won’t Forget," and The Homecoming certainly lives up to that claim. This eerie, nuanced tale is a masterclass in storytelling trickery. It explores loneliness from multiple perspectives, each beautifully intertwined.

The story revolves around Miss Carey, who has lived in the isolated Elver House since before the Second World War, either with her ailing mother or alone. Then there’s Ellen, Miss Carey’s ghostwriter, who is mourning the loss of a friendship.

When Ellen arrives at Elver House on a dark and stormy night for her ghostwriting assignment with Miss Carey—the manor's only resident—she finds the house abandoned but mysteriously unlocked. Inside, entire rooms have been upturned, and Miss Carey is nowhere to be found. Just as she’s about to give up and head home, Miss Carey, a frail 87-year-old woman, suddenly appears, claiming she’s simply been out for a walk… in the dark… in the rain. Naturally, Ellen is unnerved, but a paycheck is a paycheck, so she gets to work the next day, curious to hear Miss Carey’s story.

But things don’t go as planned. Miss Carey seems reluctant, even unable, to talk about her past, and the eerie, empty house soon begins to get under Ellen’s skin. What exactly is happening on the wild, sprawling estate of Elver House?

The Homecoming belongs under the category of Ghosts, Haunted Houses, and Hauntings;  however, to discuss this theme further would veer dangerously close to spoiler territory, so I’ll highlight what this book does so well.

The beauty of The Homecoming lies in its delicate writing and the way Apostolides weaves together different forms of loss. She explores how death, loneliness, and the fading of friendships intertwine, highlighting the unique grief experienced by women. Particularly poignant is its exploration of the mourning felt when a friend becomes a mother. While we often hear about the isolation mothers face, this novel gives voice to the sadness of those left behind. It's not an angry realisation, but one filled with quiet, lingering grief.

And then there’s the author’s sleight of hand with the ending, which gave me goosebumps and left me feeling profound sorrow for the protagonists. It’s incredible how the quietest ghost stories can leave the loudest impressions.

Final Verdict: If you’re a horror addict, don’t let the slower pace of The Homecoming deter you. Instead, cozy up with a hot beverage on a cold, stormy day, or do like the Victorians did and read it aloud on Christmas Eve. Put aside supernatural jump scares for this eerie and emotional mystery that recalls other ghost stories like Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand or Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. An early contender for my best-of-the-year list, no doubt.

At first, “The Homecoming” felt like a modern homage to the classic gothic tale. An isolated and dilapidated manor house, fallen from grandeur. A young woman sent on her own to spend time secluded alone with the mysterious and elusive lady of Elver House. A nearby river holds secrets as well as hordes of juvenile eels that writhe and roll below the surface.
I was getting serious “The Woman in Black”/Poe vibes.

Then the story kind of stalls. Sure, the atmosphere is still there, but the creeping eeriness and sense of dread fizzles out. We get a lot of internal monologue which felt so unnecessary (I really don’t need a detailed account of all the ingredients used in each meal the narrator makes thanks). You can see the big “twist” from a mile away, and while there’s still a slight sense of foreboding, the reader is left in limbo.

I can appreciate the author wanting to tell a secondary story about the main characters below the surface level “horror”: the historical role of women and how it translates to present day. The expectations to become mothers and caretakers while giving up our own friendships and dreams. The isolation created by our “roles”. This was a great story in itself, but really took away from the original plot and also throws readers out of any attempt to be present in the dank, dreary and bizarrely terrifying encounters Ellen was presently having.

The eels are more metaphoric/symbolic than actually front row characters in themselves, and this was a bit disappointing. I had hoped for a more central (possibly supernatural) part for them.

Ellen and Catherine were uniquely developed, but even though one is there to ghost write a biography, and one is supposed to tell their life story, minimal time was actually spent hearing about Catherine’s life as the lady and sole heir of the historical house and its expansive lands.

I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled for more works by Apostolides, but hope that future books are more in theme with their synopses. If you’re going to put a tale in a horror category- make it true to that genre.

Lastly, I looked online, throughout the book and even on the publisher’s website, but I couldn’t find a credited cover artist. It’s a wonderfully eye catching piece of work, so it’d be great to know who created it (even if it’s the author or publishing company themselves).

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Salt Publishing for a copy.

Despite the flowing writing and all that rain, the Homecoming's dampness didn't really get to me.

The first half was honestly quite convincing. I easily pictured the darkness, the lingering smell of mold, the cold of the house and the rain drumming on the windows. It was genuinely unsettling. I shared Ellen's discomfort and apprehension and it was delightful, exactly what I expected from this book. Even after settling in, these sensations persisted and I loved feeling on edge, knowing I couldn't really trust Elver and its tenant. The suspense was thick, and hard to untangle. It did take me a while to get a sense of what was truly happening and where the threat was actually coming from. This felt truly gothic and the unique eel imagery was a brilliant addition to it.
However, I can't really pinpoint why but after a while, this wasn't enough for me anymore and I got the impression we were heading nowhere. All the clues and mysterious details converged to one rather unsatisfactory answer and many of them turned out to have nothing horrific which was a big let down. The slowness of the pacing was a blessing at first, but in the end it just felt like we were dragging on for nothing.

3/5

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This is a fantastic debut for an author. The writing style is wonderful. I really enjoyed the twist and didn’t figure it out which I loved because I’ve read so many books and that just takes the fun out of it for me. I enjoyed the slow burn, gothic style horror. The writing is very descriptive and I’ve thought about it quite a bit since finishing it. I gave myself some time before writing this review. I can’t wait to read more from this author.

This was a very atmospheric book and I really enjoyed the gothic and gritty elements. I struggled a bit at the start, I thought this book would feature more horror-esque elements as I was under the assumption that this was a horror, where it’s really more mysterious. I still enjoyed my time reading but I found myself waiting for the horror aspect to start. A solid book, with an interesting mystery and writing style.

An old fashioned ghost story for the modern world, The Homecoming follows Ellen, a young ghostwriter hired to work with a woman whose last decades have been spent in an isolated mansion. Unsure what to expect from the job, and quickly aware that something is not quite right with both her client and the place she lives, Ellen resolves to do her job and tease out the story, unearthing old ghosts -- some of which may be more than just memories.

A quiet, eerie novel, The Homecoming is about the choices we make in life, the ways we confront death, and how we confront the very fact of our aging as the world around us changes. It is about family -- in particular motherhood -- and the ways in which the bonds between parents and children can age or even shatter under pressure.

The elegant, understated prose plays into the unsettling atmosphere in which Ellen finds herself, but this is not a horror story -- it is a ghost story in the purest sense, dealing as much with earth-bound troubles as those beyond, and using the idea of ghosts as a way to explore these people and this place in its most emotional corners. The last act twist is one you'll sense if you know the genre well, but that isn't the point -- atmosphere, intelligence, emotion are what drive this book and keep you turning those pages.

The Homecoming in two words: brooding & gothic. This book reads like a memoir and mystery, and can best be described as a slow burn.

I think it’s possible to tease out what’s going on in the book, though some readers might feel as though the gap between figuring out the plot and the plot actually reaching fruition is too large. While this is no horror story, the eerie ghost-like atmosphere that The Homecoming is steeped in is creepy and rich.

Thanks to Salt Publishing and NetGalley for the eArc.

A great debut! The book begins very atmospheric and I was waiting for ...something... the whole time but nothing happens, really. Things proceed calmly, but kind of claustrophobic at the same time? And then comes the twist in the last chapters. I did see it coming but that only made it a "HA!" kind of thing, not a disappointment.
I personally connected with the secondary friendship story on a very personal level. As the intentionally childfree friend this mirrored a lot of my own experience and I thought it was a nice tie in with the main story. I liked how the memories were interwoven and connected to what was happening in the present time, it all made sense in the end.
I also really enjoyed the gentle writing, the way that everything was made clear to me without describing it too much. A very enjoyable read for me, a nice modern gothic story.

Thank you Net Galley and Salt Publishing for the ARC and the chance to review!

Let me start off by saying that this book was market at least to me as horror and that to me is a misstep. I think I would have enjoyed it far more if I wasn’t waiting for the shoe to drop so to speak.

Ellen is a young(ish) woman who ghost writes the lives of her clients. In a way this mirror the way that she seem to be almost ghost writing her own life.

She’s on the cusp of many things, the women around her are staring to have children and shes not ready for that step in fact she might never be ready for that step but its clear that she at least to some existent resents the expectation of her to be a mother.

She’s not old yet and yet she feels her youth slipping away from her, reminiscing about the time she had with the mysterious YOU she seems almost to be writing this narrative for.

When shes contracted to write the biography of the mysterious Miss Carey int the sprawling Enver House Ellen is forced to dwell in a state of uncertainty. Miss Carey is mysterious and something is simply off.

What starts off as a memory laps reveals itself to be a gothic setting not only of house and home but also of memory, soul and body.

I enjoyed the gothic setting quite a bit. The decaying house, the possibility of ghosts past and present all made an enthralling backdrop for Ellen to explore.

Ellen herself was quite sad character. Both easy to root for, as a person in a similar life state and hard because the way she spoke of her loved one going through motherhood while raw and often and under represented perspective felt a bit resentful in a way that I personally didn’t love.

The twist unfortunately reveals itself self pretty early on, so if twist are important for you that might be a bit of a let down. I for one do not like a twist so it didn’t much matter to me.

I wish most of all that the Eels had more of a pay off. That they were sinister or more mysterious or housed the dead or something.

A fairly long book for how little happens but with beautiful prose and an emotional resonance.