After reading The Caretaker, I knew that I had to read We Used to Live Here. What I’ve discovered is that Marcus Kliewer writes my kind of horror.

Right from the beginning, this book had me creeped out. Years ago, when my husband and I lived in our first home (which was over a hundred years old), I was pregnant and taking a nap upstairs in our bedroom when we had a knock at our door. When my husband answered it, it was a couple who said that they used to live in our house and they wondered if they could come in and take a look around. Thankfully, my husband did not let them come into our home. He said they actually looked put out that he denied their request. If I had woken up to strangers in the upstairs of my house, I would have screamed bloody murder. I told my husband that he would not make a good character in a horror novel or movie because he’s too logical: he wouldn’t go in the basement, he wouldn’t go out into the woods all alone, and he certainly wouldn’t let strangers into our home no matter how “normal” they appeared. Phew!

Unfortunately, Eve didn’t listen to her gut when a strange family showed up at her doorstep. But then again, if she had, the story would already be over. I liked Eve, but my goodness, she frustrated me. As with most characters in a horror novel, they just don’t listen to the reader when they are offering them good advice.

This novel kept me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t trust what was going on, and I certainly didn’t trust the Faust family. I wasn’t even sure that I could trust Eve and Charlie. It was eerie, gruesome, and it made my heart beat faster.

I am already looking forward to being scared by Marcus Kliewer’s next novel.

*5 Stars