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A Good House for Children

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

""A feminist gothic that evokes Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House."" — New York Times Book Review

Once upon a time Orla was: a woman, a painter, a lover. Now she is a mother and a wife, and when her husband Nick suggests that their city apartment has grown too small for their lives, she agrees, in part because she does agree, and in part because she is too tired to think about what she really does want. She agrees again when Nick announces with pride that he has found an antiquated Georgian house on the Dorset cliffs—a good house for children, he says, tons of space and gorgeous grounds. But as the family settles into the mansion—Nick absent all week, commuting to the city for work—Orla finds herself unsettled. She hears voices when no one is around; doors open and close on their own; and her son Sam, who has not spoken in six months, seems to have made an imaginary friend whose motives Orla does not trust.

Four decades earlier, Lydia moves into the same house as a live-in nanny to a grieving family. Lydia, too, becomes aware of intangible presences in the large house, and she, like Orla four decades later, becomes increasingly fearful for the safety of the children in her care. But no one in either woman's life believes her: the stories seem fanciful, the stuff of magic and mayhem, sprung from the imaginations of hysterical women who spend too much time in the company of children.

Are both families careening towards tragedy? Are Orla and Lydia seeing things that aren't there? What secrets is the house hiding? A feminist gothic tale perfectly suited for the current moment, A Good House for Children combines an atmospheric mystery with resonant themes of motherhood, madness, and the value of a woman's work.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 8, 2023
      Collins draws on the folk horror trend for her twisty gothic debut about a haunted house in England. The story develops from two parallel plot threads, both centered on the Reeve, a sprawling 19th-century mansion on the Dorset coast, feared by locals due to a history of children drowning in a pond on the property. In 1976, Londoner and recent widow Sara Robinson moves to the Reeve with her four kids and their nanny, Lydia. Four decades later, artist Orla McGrath and her husband Nick move from Bristol to the Reeve with their two young children, hoping the change of scenery will help break their young son Sam out of his voluntary mutism. Members of both households experience the Reeve as a prototypical creepy old house—they hear disembodied voices and footsteps and glimpse spectral figures. In both timelines, the story builds to a traditional Midsummer celebration, which a local woman tells Lydia is meant to placate mean fairies, ones who “curdle the milk, steal the children.” It’s here that Collins suggests who’s haunting the house and why. Along the way, she skillfully laces her narrative with clues that suggest the events unfolding are not as straightforward—or linear—as they seem. This one is sure to connect with fans of the weird and macabre. Agent: Lucy Carson, Friedrich Agency.

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  • English

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