She Waits Where Shadows Gather

With a spirit called “She Who Creeps Between”, there’s no question that She Waits Where Shadows Gather by Michelle Tang is going to stick with me for a while. She Waits Where Shadows Gather  is a Filipino Gothic horror novel complete with a haunted house, Filipino folklore, and a fractured family.

Carlos has a successful Ghost Hunters-style television show where he debunks hauntings, and when his family asks him to come home to help settle things with their old family home, he decides to take the show to Manila. He and his wife Avery insist on staying in the family home that everyone else says is haunted. After all, there’s no such thing as ghosts.

But after Carlos has a brush with death and is bed-ridden, recuperating at the house, they both soon realize there is something - or things - in the house with them.

She Waits Where Shadows Gather had some very creepy moments which Michelle Tang expertly paints with evocative language, and though the main characters - especially Carlos - are far, far, far, far, far, far from perfect, we care about what happens to them, and that makes this not only a haunting, but also a heartwarming, read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the advance copy for my unbiased review.