Temple Fall

If you ever wanted to experience a real haunted house without having to experience the real haunted house, reading Temple Fall by R. L. Boyle is possibly the closest you can get.

Flynn’s photographer boyfriend Jackson wants to camp out on the grounds of an abandoned Gothic mansion for his 18th birthday, and she and their friends begrudgingly comply.

As soon as they are dropped off and the van drives away, they start to regret it as the skies open up and they flee inside to escape the dangerous weather.

The teenagers try to make the best of it, presenting Jackson with a birthday cake, putting on some music, but everything feels off-kilter with everyone behaving out of character and confusing gaps in time. Things only get worse when they decide to have a seance which ends up with them being cursed to die on their 18th birthday and only Flynn has the power to break the curse.

Temple Fall is an atmospheric Gothic haunted house story, but it’s also a mind and time-bendy supernatural tale with a dose of the importance of found family.

R. L. Boyle’s descriptive prose puts the reader right in the story and makes it feel cinematic, bringing to mind shows like Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House or films like The Grudge with the pervasive way the curse from the house follows them - which, to me, are the scariest kinda of hauntings - the ones that you can’t escape just by leaving the house.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for the advance copy for my unbiased review.