House of Reckoning: A Novel »

House of Reckoning is John Saul’s thirty-sixth novel. His first novel, Suffer the Children, published in 1977, was an immediate million-copy bestseller. His other bestselling suspense novels include Faces of Fear, The Devil’s Labyrinth, In the Dark of the Night, Perfect Nightmare, Black Creek Crossing, Midnight Voices, The Manhattan Hunt Club, Nightshade, The Right Hand of Evil, The Presence, Black Lightning, The Homing, and Guardian. He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling serial thriller The Blackstone Chronicles, initially published in six installments and now available in one complete volume. Saul divides his time between Seattle, Washington, and Hawaii.
 

After the untimely death of her mother and the arrest of her father for killing a man in barroom brawl, fourteen-year-old Sarah Crane is forced to grow up fast. Left in the cold care of a foster family and alienated at school, Sarah befriends classmate Nick Dunnigan, a former mental patient still plagued by voices and visions, and the eccentric art instructor Bettina Phillips, a mentor eager to nurture Sarah’s talent for painting. But within the walls of Bettina’s ancestral mansion, Sarah finds that monstrous images from the house’s dark history seem to flow unbidden from her paintbrush—images echoed by Nick’s chilling hallucinations. It seems the violence and fury of long-dead generations have finally found a gateway from the grave into the world of the living. And Sarah and Nick have found a power they never had: to take control, and take revenge.

Publishers Weekly

Set in Vermont, this supernatural thriller from bestseller Saul (Faces of Fear) updates but adds nothing new to a traditional story. Six months after 14-year-old Sarah Crane's mother dies from cancer, Sarah's father, Ed, accidentally kills a man in a fight. On top of that, a drunken Ed hits Sarah with his truck while he's behind the wheel. After Ed goes to prison for manslaughter, Sarah, whose leg was badly injured in the truck accident, is placed with a foster family. Mitch and Angie Garvey and their two teenage children treat Sarah like Cinderella, expecting her to serve meals and do all the chores. Meanwhile, word of Sarah's circumstances makes her an outcast at her new school. Only two people reach out to her: Bettina Philips, an art teacher labeled a witch, and fellow student Nick Dunnigan, who's also isolated by his peers and prone to scary visions. Needless to say, the mystical abilities Sarah discovers she possesses come in handy in turning the tables. (Oct.)