Ollie and Carl Harcourt and their daughter Jade view and buy Cold Hill House, a huge, dilapidated Georgian mansion but within days of moving in it becomes apparent that they aren’t the only residents of the house. A friend of Jade’s is the first to see the spectral woman, standing behind her as the girls talk on FaceTime. More sightings occur and becomes more malevolent and then the terrified family discover the house’s dark history.
This is classed as a horror but I think it’s more of a supernatural story than a horror although it had me slightly spooked. I didn’t realise that the author wrote supernatural novels, being used to,his crime ones.. The twist at the end was unexpected and it was an easy read. But I do think that the end was rushed. ( )

This is the third time I have read this book and it more than likely won't be the last. It's a perfect book at any time, but even more so during the Halloween season when the book sites have challenges that need haunted, ghostly, shivery books to fill challenges. I love Peter James's Roy Grace series so was slightly surprised when I encountered this jewel 7 years ago. I am the "ghost-story junkie" and this one was like an overdose of horror combined with heart pounding excitement that I just couldn't put down or be persuaded to turn the lights off. The story is based on an actual house in a real village. The house stayed vacant for years...no one that did move in ever stayed more than a few weeks or even days. Some say the house "wouldn't let them move in".... others say that it wouldn't let them leave. Doors and windows slammed and locked, the family in resident when this story takes place didn't notice anything for weeks and then the husband and father was first affected with the overbearing need to stay and try to appease something that he hadn't seen but only felt. The young daughter had been telling her parents from the day she walked in the door for the first time, that a lady was walking through the house. Rather it is really haunted or not is up for debate and seems to depend on the individual. Some that have stayed there for a night say diffidently...others felt or saw nothing. Does anyone reading this want to give it a try? Peter James wrote a second book, which I am also going to reread for the Halloween challenges, entitled The Secret of Cold Hill where he tells the reader what may have caused the stories to begin to start with and how some are affected by the houses atmosphere and others notice nothing they can put a finger on but all say they at times felt that they were being watched or sometimes worse. The family that this story is written about stay but their world as they know it is never the same. ( )

I really enjoyed this easy to read gripping ghost story ( )

Fairly predictable and not creepy at all 😟 ( )

I have long been a fan of the Roy Grace detective novels written by Peter James so when I saw that he had written a supernatural thriller, I quickly picked up a copy and tucked it away for a Halloween read. This was a classic ghost story about a small family who sink their life savings into the purchase of an old dilapidated country estate and move in, only to find that they are not alone in the house. At first it is only a ghostly sighting of an older woman but as the haunting becomes more malevolent and the house itself begins to turn on them, the terrified family realize that something or somebody has decided that they will never leave.

The House on Cold Hill was a tense and fast paced read that was perfect for this time of the year. The suspense was skillfully built from the very beginning when the enthusiastic family move into what they hope will become their dream home until they come to realize that they are trapped in a situation that is rapidly moving out of control. So, overall a good scary read although there were a few things that bothered me, for example the author often moved the plot along by having the characters withholding information from each other. This was supposed to be a close knit family yet they sure kept a lot of secrets from each other, secrets that should have been shared. Also I couldn’t help but notice the author’s liberal use of brand names, it wasn’t coffee, it was Nespresso, it wasn’t a vacuum, it was a Dyson, etc. To the point where I wondered if he was getting paid to include these brand names.

Although not a very original story, this book had all the elements one would expect to find in a ghost story and I did like that the author relied more on atmosphere rather than overdoing the blood and gore. ( )