Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publication: St. Martin's Press (October 14, 2025)
Description: From New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong comes a nail-biting supernatural horror about a haunted lakeside property and twisted family secrets.
When Samantha Payne’s grandfather dies, she figures she won’t even get a mention in the will. After all, she hasn’t seen him in fourteen years, not since her father took his own life after being accused of murdering a child at their lakefront cottage. Her grandfather always insisted her father was innocent, despite Sam having caught him burying the child’s body, his clothing streaked with blood.
But when she does attend the reading of the will at the behest of her aunt, she discovers that her grandfather left her the very valuable lakefront property where the family cottage sits. There’s one catch: Sam needs to stay in the cottage for a month. To finally face the fact she was wrong and her father was innocent, in her grandfather's words.
Traveling to Paynes Hollow, Sam is faced with the realities of her childhood and the secrets kept hidden in the shadows of her memories. When her aunt goes missing a couple days into their stay, Sam begins to question everything again. Plagued by nightmares and paranoia, she begins hearing sounds in the forest and seeing shapes crawling from the water as the rippling waves of the lake promise something unspeakably dark lurking just below their surface.
My Thoughts: For more than a touch of spooky, THE HAUNTING OF PAYNES HOLLOW really fits the bill.
Sam Payne hasn't seen her grandfather for fourteen years. She attends his funeral with her aunt as her last obligation to him. She is pressured into attending the reading of the will certain that there is nothing in it for her. However, she is surprised to learn that she will inherit a 300 acre property worth $10 million if she only spends one month living on the property.
The summer camp is the source of many good childhood memories and the most horrible memories of her entire life. She sees her beloved father burying a child and learns that he committed suicide afterwards. She is the one who turns him in. Her grandfather refuses to believe that his son was a murderer and cuts Sam and her mother off from any support.
When Sam's mother comes down with an inherited early dementia, Sam has to change her life plans to support her. Instead of attending medical school, she has a low-paying lab assistant job and a crappy apartment so that she can afford her mother's care.
As soon as she arrives at the property the dreams and visions start. Everything has preserved to be exactly like it was when she left fourteen years earlier. And the caretaker - the older brother of the boy her father murdered - is to be her keeper and make sure she follows all the terms of the will including the ankle bracelet that proves she hasn't left the property.
Then her aunt disappears after an argument about Sam staying on the land and the local sheriff is less than helpful in trying to find her. As events get even more creepy, Sam has to decided what is real and what might be only in her mind.
This was a terrifying - read only in the daytime - sort of story for me. I liked the way the horror kept building. I enjoyed Sam's determination to fulfill the terms of the will both as a proof to herself of her own strength and to get the better of her cruel grandfather.
