‘House of Reckoning’ by John Saul

  Fourteen-year-old Sarah Crane’s mother is dead and her dad is mourning in the bottom of a bottle.
  She tries to ease his suffering by taking care of their farm and him, going so far as to get on her bike and ride down to the local tavern to fetch him.
  But she never makes it to the bar.
  Her father, after killing a man in a drunken brawl, runs her over with his car, landing himself in jail and an injured Sarah in a foster home.
  Though she’s prepared to make the best of things, Sarah’s situation worsens as she becomes a servant to her horrible foster family and an outcast at school.
  The teen finds comfort in her art teacher, Bettina Phillips, and Nick Dunnigan, a classmate who also is routinely ostracized.
  Sarah’s associations don’t make her any more popular around town. Most of the residents think Bettina a witch and Nick crazy.
  While Nick is haunted by the voices he hears in his head, Sarah begins to have disturbing experiences of her own. The teens discover that what the voices tell Nick, Sarah spontaneously draws, and as they begin to piece together the meaning of their visions, they are drawn to Bettina’s ancestral home — a mansion with a violent history.
  Readers looking for a good horror novel won’t be disappointed with John Saul’s “House of Reckoning.” Saul delivers the scares in a more traditional way, choosing sounds and setting over gore to keep his readers up at night.
  “House of Reckoning” will indeed have readers sleeping with the light on, wondering what that sound was just outside the bedroom door.