{"id":489,"date":"2026-05-04T14:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/?p=489"},"modified":"2026-04-01T14:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T03:32:27","slug":"book-review-the-cold-house-by-ag-slatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/book-review-the-cold-house-by-ag-slatter\/","title":{"rendered":"Book review: The Cold House by AG Slatter"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"672\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover-672x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-490\" style=\"width:256px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover-672x1024.jpg 672w, https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover-768x1170.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover-1008x1536.jpg 1008w, https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover-1344x2048.jpg 1344w, https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover-39x60.jpg 39w, https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover-600x914.jpg 600w, https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Cold-House-cover.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 672px) 100vw, 672px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>AG Slatter\u2019s <em>The Cold House<\/em> is a novella about the hauntings of grief, lies and secrets, and one woman\u2019s journey to survive them. Slatter covers a lot of ground in such a short book, comprising solving an ancient and terrible mystery bound inside a sinister gothic mansion; a strange little ghost; a bizarre church with a huge hole inside it; and a dead husband who kept as many dark secrets as our gritty protagonist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everly Bainbridge is living through the aftermath of suddenly losing her husband and young daughter in a fiery car crash, when she learns that her husband was not who she thought he was. Richer than she could ever have imagined and unable to bear staying in her empty home, she goes to an isolated house on a small island to grieve, write and, hopefully, heal. But from her arrival at Morningthorpe Manor things aren\u2019t what they seem. The house is unnaturally cold, and one night she wakes standing over the black well in the house\u2019s cellar, her daughter\u2019s voice ringing in her ears. What\u2019s more, Everly has secrets of her own, manifesting as a small ghost who begins to appear as the situation in the house becomes stranger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Twisty, mysterious, thrilling and dark, the writing is pacy and never boring, keeping readers on the edge of their seat as secrets are uncovered. Slatter\u2019s <em>The Cold House<\/em> is another unputdownable story with a heroine who walks a tightrope between good and bad, who vibrates with rage at the universe and everything it has thrown at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perfect for lovers of gothic stories, magical mysteries, dark fantasy, and angry, unreliable narrators who just might stab you with a femur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This review first appeared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/aurealis.com.au\/\">Aurealis magazine<\/a>, issue #187.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AG Slatter\u2019s The Cold House is a novella about the hauntings of grief, lies and secrets, and one woman\u2019s journey to survive them. Slatter covers &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[462,131,248,54,44,108,463],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-ag-slatter","tag-angela-slatter","tag-aurealis","tag-australian-author","tag-dark-fantasy","tag-novella","tag-the-cold-house","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions\/493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddfeather.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}