The House » (Reprint)

A Bram Stoker Award winner. Five strangers from across America are about to come together and open the door to a place of evil that they all call home. Inexplicably, four men and one woman are having heart-stopping nightmares revolving around the dark and forbidding houses where each of them was born. When recent terrifying events occur, they are each drawn to their identical childhood homes, only to confront a sinister supernatural presence which has pursued them all of their lives, and is now closer than ever to capturing their souls.

horroronline.com

Daniel, Laurie, Norton, Stormy, and Mark: four men and a woman separated by geography, background, interests, and age. Terrifyingly odd things are happening to each and each is suddenly aware of bizarre childhood memories that have remained -- until now -- forgotten. Each recalls a mysterious man who had lived with their families when they were growing up. Each has disturbing, highly sexual recollections of a little girl. They are each drawn back to the house of their childhood: Mark to a gothic Arizona ranch house, Laurie to a Victorian mansion surrounded by old-growth redwoods in Northern California, Norton to a bucolic midwestern farmhouse, Stormy to his parents' old house in Chicago, Daniel to a gloomy haunted mansion in Matty Groves, Maine. As the destinies of the five protagonists converge there is -- as in any haunted house tale -- evil to overcome and the past to confront as both readers and characters deal with the Other Side. But don't assume the extremely talented Mr. Little will allow you to comfortably settle into to a simplistic universe starkly divided between the forces of good and evil -- the cosmos of The House is far more subversive than traditional horror tropes would allow. The author of eight previous novels, including the dystopic paranoia of The Store) and his brilliant take on the fear of anonymity in The Ignored, Little is as thought-provoking as he is chilling. Suspenseful, scary, and smart, The House (first published as Houses in 1997 in England), stands as one of his best yet.