The blurb:
Ronnie doesn't know it yet, but her fate rests in the hands of the dead.
Silent film star Venita Rost's malevolent spirit lurks spider-like in her cliffside mansion, a once-beautiful home that's claimed countless unlucky souls. And she's not alone. Snared in her terrible web, Inspector Bartholomew Sloan—her eternal nemesis—watches her wreak havoc in helpless horror, shackled by his own guilt and Venita's unrelenting wrath.
Now the house has yet another new owner. This time it's Ronnie Mitchell, a grieving woman who buys the run-down place sight unseen. She arrives armed with an unexpected inheritance, a strong background in renovation, and a blissful ignorance regarding the house's blood-soaked history. But her arrival has stirred up more than just dust and decay. In the shadows, unseen eyes watch. Then, a man comes knocking. He brings wild stories and a thinly veiled jealousy, as well as a secret connection to the house that can only lead to violence.
Venita's fury awakens, and a deadly game unfolds.
Caught between a vengeful ghost and a ruthless living threat, Ronnie's skepticism crumbles. The line between living and dead isn't as sharp as it seems, and she realizes too late that in Venita's house, survival might be just an illusion.
There's a lot I like about Cherie Priest's writing: she knows how to build a story, how to get some good creepy down on the page, and she really gets under her characters' skins. Those are all on show in It Was Her House First.
Spoilers in the next few paragraphs.
There is a bit of mismatch between the blurb and the novel, though, and I think it's the blurb's fault rather than the novel. The blurb does seem to set up a rather more explosive finale than happens in the book—the more tropey conclusion would be Venita's spirit doing something potentially fatal, Ronnie barely escaping by the skin of her teeth, possibly the house collapsing, you know the sort of thing. Instead, we get adifferent sort of conclusion in which the bad actor is punished, and Venita and Ronnie come to an understanding of sorts.
The novel's ending is much more satisfying than the blurb's promise, honestly, and it goes back to something I said in the first paragraph, about how Priest gets under her characters' skins. The traditional things-go-boom finale would put spectacle over character; what we get gives a much better conclusion to our characters' stories, which have all been about grief and wanting someone held accountable. Venita wants someone held accountable for her daughter's death; Ronnie holds herself accountable for her brother's death. Venita being exorcised wouldn't provide that, to either character. Instead we get both characters living with each other, and with their grief—not in misery or in any sort of Miss Havisham-ish delusion, but in a pretty healthy way. They're going to move forward, supporting each other in a way.
Grief doesn't magically go away. You have to learn how to live with it, and carry it, and the end of the novel shows that. I wish the blurb was something other than what it was, because the novel's delivering what it needs to, and what is satisfying for the reader.
It's one of the best things she's written, I think.
Started: 8 August 2025
Finished: 12 August 2025
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