I acquired a assessment copy from the writer. This doesn’t have an effect on the contents of my assessment and all opinions are my very own.

Methods to Faux a Haunting by Christa Carmen

Mogsy’s Ranking: 4 of 5 stars 

Style: Horror

Sequence: Stand Alone

Writer: Thomas & Mercer (October 7, 2025)

Size: 349 pages

Writer Data: Web site | Twitter

You ever learn a horror novel with a premise that sounds completely ridiculous, however then someway seems to be genuinely creepy? That was Methods to Faux a Haunting for me. Christa Carmen takes the tongue-in-cheek setup of a lady staging a pretend haunting to scare her terrible, alcoholic husband into leaving their household residence, and spins it into one thing far darker than anticipated. The result’s half home suspense, half psychological ghost story, with simply sufficient hints of the supernatural to maintain you guessing.

From the skin trying in, Lainey seems to have the right life: a loving husband named Callum, their candy little woman named Beatrix, and the massive, lovely home all of them dwell in. However appearances are deceiving. In actuality, Callum has had a ingesting drawback for years, an dependancy that has turned their marriage right into a nightmare. After a very harrowing night time out at a celebration, a drunken Callum behind the wheel almost kills all of them in a automobile accident, and Lainey lastly decides she’s had sufficient.

Nonetheless, leaving Callum isn’t going to be so simple as submitting for divorce. His rich household’s connections inside native legislation enforcement and the courts enable them to make issues disappear, and his overbearing mom has by no means hesitated to make use of that energy to cowl up her son’s messes. Fearing that she might lose Beatrix in a custody battle, Lainey decides to hatch a plan to power Callum to depart them as an alternative. After confiding in her finest pal Adelaide, the 2 girls give you a wild plan to pretend a haunting so terrifying that it’s going to drive an already substance impaired and paranoid Callum out of the home for good.

What begins off as a bonkers revenge scheme verging on silliness shortly spirals into one thing far creepier. At first, Lainey and Adelaide’s “haunting” feels virtually playful and possibly even a bit flippant, contemplating the gravity of the state of affairs. In any case, Callum’s uncontrolled alcoholism definitely makes him harmful. Ought to this actually be the 2 girls’s precedence? However then, little by little, the tone shifts. Their juvenile, how-could-anyone-believe-this-would-ever-work methods begin to tackle actual menace, and the state of affairs turns into actually terrifying, with the satisfaction of watching Lainey’s asshole husband get what’s coming to him giving strategy to unease as each the characters and readers lose observe of the place the pretend scares finish and the actual ones start.

Earlier than lengthy, you’ll be able to’t assist however surprise—are Lainey and Adelaid nonetheless in command of the haunting, or has one thing else taken over fully? One of many best strengths of Methods to Faux a Haunting is the way in which it walks that skinny line between the psychological and the supernatural. The writer retains you always second-guessing what’s actual, and whether or not the more and more unusual occurrences are all a part of the ladies’s plan or indicators that they’ve really stirred up one thing a lot darker. The story performs with that ambiguity brilliantly and superbly, maintaining the solutions simply out of attain whereas letting the tensions construct. There got here a degree within the e-book the place I actually felt chills run down my backbone.

I really feel the one actual stumble got here within the last stretch. After a lot uncertainty, the writer had the choice of delivering a sudden, highly effective ending, however as an alternative selected to stretch the reveals a bit longer than mandatory. The thriller that had been constructing in the end misplaced a whole lot of its punch, leading to an ending that felt unusually muted. It’s a minor gripe, contemplating how tightly paced and interesting the plot was in any other case, nevertheless it did depart the e-book ending on a weaker be aware.

However total, Methods to Faux a Haunting is a quick, intelligent, and totally entertaining learn, delivering equal elements creepy and quirky. For a novel that originally got here throughout as messy and tonally in all places, I used to be pleasantly stunned and impressed at how properly all of it got here collectively. This spooky season, should you’re in search of a “haunted home” story that takes a recent spin on the style, this one could also be value trying out.