The Haunting of James Hastings

 Christopher Ransom

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Horror

The Haunting of James Hastings follows James, a man who is struggling with the death of his wife, Sarah. His grief takes an increasingly unsettling turn when he begins to believe that she may somehow be returning—or perhaps haunting him through another woman. From there, the line between the supernatural and James's deteriorating state of mind becomes less clear. Is he genuinely being haunted, or is grief pushing him toward a complete break from reality? The story plays with that uncertainty throughout, though the answers, or lack of them, may not work equally well for everyone.

I had owned this book for years and finally picked it up as part of my attempt to make some progress on my physical TBR. Honestly, I have no idea why I bought it in the first place. My best guess is that I found it heavily discounted at a bookshop, thought the cover looked suitably creepy, and decided that was reason enough to bring it home. Since the ratings weren't exactly encouraging, I went in with very low expectations. In a way, that may have helped, because I wasn't waiting for it to become the next great horror novel.

There were moments when the book showed some promise. The idea of mixing grief, psychological instability, and a possible haunting could have made for something genuinely unsettling, and at times the story does create a suitably strange atmosphere. Still, it never quite came together for me. The pacing often feels sluggish, and the plot appears to wander into directions that add more confusion than tension. James himself is also not the easiest character to spend several hundred pages with. That may be intentional—he is clearly not meant to be a straightforwardly sympathetic protagonist—but it also made it harder for me to become invested in what was happening to him.

In the end, The Haunting of James Hastings was neither as bad as its lower ratings had led me to expect nor good enough to surprise me. I can see why some readers might appreciate its psychological ambiguity and the increasingly strange direction the story takes. For me, though, very little of it stuck once I finished. It wasn't terrible, and I don't regret finally taking it off my physical TBR, but it was ultimately a forgettable read. One more book cleared from the shelves—and, unfortunately for this one, straight into the unhaul pile.

Key Themes:

• Grief
• Loss
• Guilt
• Reality vs. Illusion