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A review by lanaconda
Coram House by Bailey Seybolt
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
🛶🛶🛶🛶🛶
"It’s incredible what a person can carry inside, unfathomable from the outside.”
Coram House is one of those books that stays with you. Based on the real history of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, VT, Coram House is a work of fiction that dives into the abuse that thousands of children suffered on that property.
We meet Alex, a true crime writer who is contracted to write a novel about Coram House. Grieving the death of her husband and looking for a fresh start, she ventures to snowy Vermont partnering with a local detective and the police department to make sense of the conflicting stories of the orphanage. Seybolt masterfully weaves a web of mystery surrounding an unsolved case of a boy named Tommy. Alex starts to see pieces of a puzzle and will stop at nothing to put those pieces together, and what she finds is corruption, murder, and ghosts who deserve to be remembered along the way.
Coram House, Bailey Seybolt’s debut novel (!) will be released on April 15th. Read this book! It’s a classic mystery with an ending you won't see coming. I read it slowly because I simply didn’t want it to end!! Calling it now, it’s already one of my favorites of 2025. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Atria Books for the arc!
"It’s incredible what a person can carry inside, unfathomable from the outside.”
Coram House is one of those books that stays with you. Based on the real history of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, VT, Coram House is a work of fiction that dives into the abuse that thousands of children suffered on that property.
We meet Alex, a true crime writer who is contracted to write a novel about Coram House. Grieving the death of her husband and looking for a fresh start, she ventures to snowy Vermont partnering with a local detective and the police department to make sense of the conflicting stories of the orphanage. Seybolt masterfully weaves a web of mystery surrounding an unsolved case of a boy named Tommy. Alex starts to see pieces of a puzzle and will stop at nothing to put those pieces together, and what she finds is corruption, murder, and ghosts who deserve to be remembered along the way.
Coram House, Bailey Seybolt’s debut novel (!) will be released on April 15th. Read this book! It’s a classic mystery with an ending you won't see coming. I read it slowly because I simply didn’t want it to end!! Calling it now, it’s already one of my favorites of 2025. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Atria Books for the arc!