A House Divided Horror Book Review

Keith Lafleur, Louisiana’s largest and greediest building contractor, thinks he’s cut the deal of a lifetime.  The huge old, tow-story, clapboard house is his for the taking as long as he can move it to a new location.  It’s too big to move as it is, but Lafleur’s solution is simple:  divide it in half.  He has no idea, though, that by splitting the house he’ll be dividing a family - a family long dead, a family that still exists in the house, including a mother who will destroy anyone who keeps her apart from her children.


This was a first read for me by this author.  Set in the bayou area of Louisiana the author allows a subtle glimpse of the rich Cajun history of the region.  Laura and her longtime friend, Tawana, have just opened up a beauty shop in one half of the house LaFleur split.  They live upstairs with Tawana’s mentally challenged cousin, Moweez.  A single father, Matt, and his young son, Seth, moved into the other half where they reside and Matt has opened a café on the ground level.  Each of the halves are located on the same block of the street.  As soon as both halves are occupied, things start going strange.  Piles of dead crows in both yards.  People start dying and Moweez, who has the gift of “sight”, begins drawing strange photos that Laura and Tawana soon realize are foreshadowing events that are about to happen. 


This book has very diverse characters that are made very real by this talented author.  She combines bits of supernatural with murder and mayhem in such a way that you will find it difficult to find a stopping place.  She has written a very imaginative, yet believable chiller and the story continues to build on that throughout, suspense filling each page, until you reach it’s powerful conclusion.  It scared the hell out of me! 


It’s been a long time since I read a book from start to finish in one sitting and this is one book I couldn’t put down until the very end.  It left me wanting to sleep with the lights on.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone that loves a good, scary and very believable ghost story.