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by Kerry Cullen
A haunting and seductive tale of a young career woman who slides quickly into the role of stepmother, in a life that may still belong to someone else. "Vivid, addictive, and crackling with life (yes, even the ghost), House of Beth asks us to consider how and why we make the lives we make" (Lynn Steger Strong).
After a heart-wrenching breakup with her girlfriend and a shocking incident at her job, Cassie flees her life as an overworked assistant in New York for her hometown in New Jersey, along the Delaware. There, she reconnects with her high school best friend, Eli, now a widowed father of two. Their bond reignites, and within a few short months, Cassie is married to Eli, living in his house in the woods, homeschooling the kids, and getting to know her reserved neighbor, Joan.
But Cassie's fresh start is less idyllic than she'd hoped. She grapples with harm OCD, her mind haunted by gory, graphic images. And she's afraid that she'll never measure up to Eli's late spouse, who was a committed homemaker and traditional wife. No matter what Cassie does, Beth's shadow still permeates every corner of their home.
Soon, Cassie starts hearing a voice narrating the house's secrets. As she listens, the voice grows stronger, guiding Cassie down a path to uncover the truth about Beth's untimely death.
"[A] singular tale of supernatural sisterhood...Cullen handles the gothic story line gracefully, pulling her heroines together in surprising ways without laying on the fantasy elements too thick. She's less adroit with the mystery of Beth's death...Still, evocative prose, quirky characters, and thought-provoking questions of agency vs. destiny make this an auspicious first outing." —Publishers Weekly
"Modern gothic meets psychological suspense in this wholly original work." —Kirkus Reviews
"House of Beth is the ghost story I've been waiting for—steamy and audacious; terrifically paced. What begins as an unsettling tale of precipitated marriage and loneliness twists and explodes into an exquisite finale." —Sanaë Lemoine, author of The Margot Affair
"Vivid, addictive, and crackling with life (yes, even the ghost), Kerry Cullen's House of Beth asks us to consider how and why we make the lives we make; how blurry, complicated, and misunderstood our own thoughts and yearnings can be, and where and how we might both love and be loved amidst the mess. I loved this book for its acuity, its urgency, but most of all its beautiful beating heart." —Lynn Steger Strong, author of Flight, Want, and Hold Still
This information about House of Beth was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kerry Cullen's fiction has been published in The Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, One Teen Story, and more. She earned her MFA at Columbia University, and she lives in New York.
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