The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong on October 14, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Horror / General, Fiction / Thrillers / Supernatural
Pages: 288
Format: Audiobook, Hardcover
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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.
There’s some interesting Dutch folklore to be found in this one, and it’s intertwined with the legend of the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving’s famous story. It’s all very creepy and entertaining, and there are definitely a few nightmare-worthy scenes. This book is a bit of a slow burn and it takes a while for the horror to really ramp up, but that doesn’t mean that the initial chapters are dull: I was totally invested in the story and its characters from the very beginning.
A sold four stars for this one. Overall, though, The Haunting of Payne’s Hollow doesn’t disappoint. It’s creepy and entertaining and there’s a brooding, handsome, and mysterious caretaker who totally won’t hold it against you if your father gets caught burying his younger brother’s corpse in the forest. What more can you ask for in a novel?