This was a fun ghost story that, with some additional editing, could have been really good.

The story centers on a 25 year old that does home renovations for his "Videotube" channel, and starts with him buying a rundown house in a dilapidated neighborhood as part of a 30 day challenge. The setup isn't bad, and the fact that the main character is along for much of the first half of the book works in the author's favour (more on this below). From there the book proceeds in the usual escalating scares and ends with a satisfying conclusion.

The first half of the book suffers from pacing issues as the main character narrating his drywall patching or plumbing work gets old fairly quickly. The pacing also suffers from too many asides by the main character about his father - the character thinks "what would dad have done?" so often that it becomes comical. Ultimately, this backstory doesn't impact the story in a meaningful way, and isn't that interesting on its own, so it feels as though it may have been included to pad the length or because someone told the author that main characters need extensive backstories.

The second half gets considerably more interesting from a pacing perspective, but suffers from a different issue - stilted, unnatural dialogue. In the second half, he's having long conversations with one character in particular - a gruff, older man - and he comes off like Data from Star Trek. Another editing pass, maybe involving the author reading the dialogue out loud, would have likely seen this issue resolved.

So, only a 3 out of 5 for me, but I would probably pickup the next book as a lot of the issues in this one were just editing issues.

A quick note about the audiobook narration: It was fairly good. A few times the narrator mispronounced words ("antithesis" as "anti-thesis"), but never often enough to break story immersion.

It's been SO long since I read a straight up haunted house book. No secret plot twist, no "humans are the real evil", no psychological ailment making the protagonist see things in a different way. Just spooky shenanigans.
It felt good to return to the basics.

The beginning starts kinda slow and cheesy, but from the middle onwards this picks UP. I'm glad I stuck around until the end, it's worth the patience.

The image of your own shadow stretching out to dreadful lengths is such an off-putting vision, I would have u-turned and left right away lmao.

Great book. Spoopy for the sake of being spoopy. Will definitely look forward to reading the second book.

The house of long shadows is a classic take on the trope of a creepy old house being bought for renovation, and the new owners eventually finding out that they got more than they bargained for with their new property. I liked the idea that the main character bought the house for a YouTube renovation series, and the prospect of people seeing things in the footage that he did not spot before hand. There were truly spooky elements to the house, especially the fact that all the shadows were somewhat distorted. I did however find that the ending to this book was a big let down. It left many questions unanswered, and I was certainly left feeling disappointed after such an excellent build up throughout the book.

The author is great at creating a sense of dread. It's very descriptive and I really found myself feeling the sense of dread and anxiety, as well as wanting to know what would happen to the main character next! The premise is a bit predictable, but the main problem I have with the book is its ending.

Spoiler

For one, why DIDN'T he try to get help from another priest in another city? And why go back to the house at all when the evil was so prevalent there? It just feels like the universe that was set up is a bit inconsistent. If the daughter couldn't be exorcised because she WANTED the souls inside her, but the main character clearly DIDN'T, then why not find an exorcist? Why did he have to go and get murdered by the same guy?

It just felt a bit contrived and like the only purpose to the ending was a setup for the next book.

Alright, well, I may not have liked the main character, FlipperKevin and his video-blog, but this was a great book ! Dude, how many warning signs are you going to ignore that something wants to like GET YOU?!
Well, for good ole Kevin that number is pretty high. For the reader this is unbelievable and hair-raising ! Just hang on to the book with one hand and the hair in the back of your neck with another!

I can respect him for his renovation skills. What he has done to make himself a self made man is ingenious. That is really cool, but his attitude about the whole thing was horrible. His ego had gotten inflated.
He wanted fame.
I felt sorry for him at times but we are responsible for who we become. What type of person we are is not set in stone. Oh, Kevin. Tisk tisk.
So, I guess my point is that I felt bad for him but was also like —that’s what you get for being so stupid — when the horror in this book got in his face. ( For the final time)

There are seriously original concepts and really freaky components in this book that also tend to be a characteristic of Ambrose Ibsen’s writing that amaze me. They didn’t push me too far or get too gory or nasty but the imagery was good at presenting mental pictures of fear and tension. It depends on your scare level, though. Some ppl might wet their pants. He comes up with some really great, hmm, we’ll say— beings.
He is now one of my favorites. This is book one in this series. Bring it on.

I like Ibsen's work. This was good but just more of a light read.

Paranormally spooky!

This books starts from the beginning grabbing your attention. From Kevin who just wants to land a television deal to the first whispering. This was an amazing book!

4 Stars

The House of Long Shadows (House of Souls Book #1) by Ambrose Ibsen.....

One of my choices for spooky month reading challenge - Halloween 2021

Full review to come.