I have a lot of mixed thoughts about T. Kingfisher’s “A House With Good Bones”. On the one hand, it’s a haunting, deeply effective look at the oppressiveness of familial trauma mixed with an incredibly creepy dose of unknowable horror. But on the other hand, it feels like a book that gets lost in its own ideas, bouncing back and forth between them.

Samantha Montgomery returns to her childhood home after getting furloughed from her latest archaeological dig. When she arrives, she finds the house repainted and her mom in a deep state of anxiety – as though something, or someone, is haunting her. And to make matters worse, strange occurrences keep piling up. Vultures seem to circle the house, as though keeping a close eye on all those inside it. There appear to be no bugs in the garden, yet swarms of ladybugs flood the house. And worst of all, Samantha’s mother seems to believe her grandmother, Grama Mae, is alive, twenty years after her death.