Cherie Priest’s “It Was Her House First” is a haunted house tale, and quite a haunted house it is!
Ronnie Mitchell is a house remodeler/salvager/flipper in Seattle who purchases the collapsing, rotting hulk of a mansion that once belonged to silent film star Venita Rost, who died under tragic and mysterious circumstances. Ronnie is haunted by her own tragedies, particularly the death of her brother and business partner in a house fire, and in the Rost mansion job she sees an opportunity for redemption.
The house is haunted by Venita, of course, but also by detective Bartholomew Sloan, who made some sort of nefarious pact to enhance his powers of deduction, by a past remodeler who died in the house, and by a person who is very much alive and has his own designs on the house and its past.
Priest doles out the hints in tantalizing bits, and sprinkles a few red herrings into the mix that keep the reader guessing about the mansion and its ghosts. This is a great dark and stormy night read, the sort that makes you want to leave your night light burning past the last page.
