The Haunting of William Thorn by Ben Alderson Review

How to Sell a Haunted House meets The Haunting of Hill House in this split timeline queer romance, set against the backdrop of a haunted English manor from #1 bestselling author Ben Alderson.
 

William Thorn had his life all planned out… until he discovered his long-term boyfriend Archie in bed with another man. Distraught, William kicks him out of their home, where tragedy strikes when Archie is killed instantly in a car accident.
 

Riddled with guilt, William is shocked to learn that he’s inherited a manor in the quaint village of Stonewall, left to him in Archie’s will. He leaves the city with plans to make a new start for himself, but is surprised by the rundown state of the manor, and the unwelcoming villagers who want him gone. His only ally is Edward, a seemingly friendly local with secrets of his own...
 

However, it’s not only the villagers who are adverse to his presence. A malevolent spirit roams the manor, one that seeks to drive William out for good. But when he uncovers the heartbreaking tale of two men in love in the 1920’s, William strives to find peace for the spirit, ending the haunting once and for all.
 

But what dark secrets lie hidden in the manor walls? And will William be able to put aside his own grief to save his new home...and his life?
 

An evocative tale from #1 bestselling author Ben Alderson, exploring grief, trauma and the bones of the past, The Haunting of William Thorn is the perfect read for fans of the gothic.

A queer M/M take on the classic haunted mansion with a historical forbidden love premise, Ben Alderson’s the Haunting of William Thorn is a paranormal romance book that has a lot of great ideas and concepts. Featuring a gothic and eerie setting, a layered multi-generational mystery, and light horror elements that aren’t overly graphic, with its attractive cast of male characters and pining attraction, by all accounts this book should be an appealing and accessible read. Unfortunately, like its hallmark mansion, despite its good bones and a promising start, the execution leaves a lot to be desired across the board and despite giving it my best effort, I struggled to finish this book only to arrive at an eyebrow-raising ending.

Set in a rural small-town village of Stonewall, the story follows William Thorn who has been gifted the decrepit Hanbury Manor by his late boyfriend Archie. Not long after arriving, what was meant to be a weeklong stay of isolation is intruded upon by an overly friendly man named Edward who has his own connection to the Hanbury Manor and its past. The book’s strongest element for me was the intrigue behind the manor’s history and presumed death of Robert Thomas in the 1920’s, the son of the Thomas family and original owners of the estate. Relieving Robert’s life and his love for manor’s gardener Teddy through his journal found at the manor, William and Archie work together to unravel the mystery of what happened to Robert and Teddy and why something about the manor feels amiss. The opening prologue chapter where the police discover Robert’s lifeless body and the subsequent events surrounding his death grabbed my attention, particularly the level of detail with inspector Callum Dean’s characterization and conflicted thoughts about the unusual circumstances.

And that is the last time Callum Dean is mentioned. While I had a lot of issues with this book, the most notable problem is that this book is excessively overwritten and way too long for the amount of narrative content it has. The prologue started off very promising and the last hundred pages are very narratively dense, but almost everything in between felt like unnecessary filler (so much detail on Callum Dean who is a one-off character), like repetitive wandering around and overly wordy conversations. Particularly the book’s dialogue feels like Alderson uses twice the number of sentences than necessary on top of William and Edward’s explorations of the manor and self-reflections going around in circles. In another world I could see this story being reworked to be an incredible novella, but as currently written, this book felt like it was over two hundred pages too long that either needed to be edited down or filled with more compelling content. The lost and directionless exploration also doesn’t make sense when all the clues to what happened in the past lay in Robert’s journal which they could read at any point in time. William repeatedly only reads one chapter dramatically per day but especially when bizarre paranormal occurrences happen and Edward wants to dig deeper into the mansion’s history, basic character logic would be to keep on reading instead of wasting time sitting around. This is not an oversight specific to this book and is in fact a common overlooked detail in many dual timeline stories featuring some form of written record, but is nonetheless a crucial detail that should’ve been accommodated for either through the reading being interrupted, the journal going missing, pages being omitted, something that makes sense.

While slow pacing and reflective character moments are usually points I appreciate and look for in a book, this one was unfortunately both very slow paced and lacking strong character writing to justify its length. The story has a recurring theme of grief, regret, and the what-could-have-been’s as William is haunted both by the tragic love story of Robert and Teddy as well as the loss of Archie. The problem is that I felt the self-reflection, introspection, and important character moments were quite lackluster and lacking in depth. The ideas and concepts are common plot or character elements I’ve read in other queer books executed in far more memorable and moving fashion, and throughout the book I constantly felt disappointed by the basic character development and lack of nuance, often finding dramatic moments unintentionally funny due to William often overreacting. Especially when it came to Robert’s journal entries and his entire devotion and love for Teddy, their struggles and relationship felt very typical and forgettable for queer historical fiction while also being surprisingly quite absent in the book. Not only were Robert’s entries few and far between, but they were also overwritten through unnecessary circling around and finding different ways to phrase the same sentiment over and over. Robert’s entries are also written in a second person perspective and addressed to “the reader” who reads his journal which is not how journals are used, a prime example being Robert foreshadowing his future death which he should have no knowledge of. Outside of the narrative content, I also found the prose to be generally fine yet too casual for the premise as well as occasionally feeling awkwardly stilted. There were numerous sentences that technically work as far as grammar is concerned, but are not written in the way I would’ve phrased them for flow and natural sounding dialogue. Ordinarily I probably wouldn’t have noticed these concerns if the story had snappier pacing, but with so little happening in the story, the writing quality stood out more noticeably. Judging from other reviews that had read an ARC edition, however, the grammar and writing are substantially better than in the final published version that I read, though they’re still not a high point of the book.

Another issue I had with this book is that I wasn’t quite sure what exactly it was trying to accomplish or what kind of tone it was shooting for. While it features light spooks and a few unsettling paranormal occurrences like sleepwalking, I didn’t feel like the story was particularly dark or horror-like, perhaps being more of a horror adjacent book. The slow pacing robs the story of any sort of tension or suspense, and while the derelict mansion setting is gothic by default, the book lacks a strong atmospheric tone and the storytelling style itself doesn’t feel gothic. The book is perhaps best taken as a paranormal romance with a historical fiction angle given Robert and Teddy’s romance, but they have far fewer appearances than you’d expect. While marketed as a dual narrative, split timeline story, there’s very little 1920’s content actually in the book. That just leaves William and Edward whose dynamics are that of a moody jumpy cat and an overly friendly and supportive golden retriever. Their chemistry is more or less fine, but fairly generic for the trope. Like the overall story, what drags down their romance is the repetitive, overwritten conversations that are far too long with mundane or unnecessary details that don’t connect or contribute anything of value. With so-so romance and other less remarkable elements, I’m left confused at what this book was supposed to be.

I’m a persistent and patient reader that stubbornly refuses to DNF most books with the hope that the ending will make up for the journey to get there, but in this case, it might’ve been a better call to graciously bow out early. While the vast majority of the book was slow and underwhelming to me, I found it inoffensive albeit uninspired. However, the last quarter of the book felt like it tried to hit the gas on the story and accidentally plowed off the road in the process. While the ending arc had a lot of big reveals that connect different characters, storylines, or hauntings together, they felt increasingly unhinged and random due to having little to no setup or development. In mystery and horror novels, it’s imperative that the author leaves enough breadcrumbs to guide the reader in the right direction through clues, tone, or context. In this book, the surprise reveals aren’t so much of plot twists, instead being plot coincidences or “I guess that that makes sense” and fills in the gaps of the story. The mysterious disappearance of Teddy and the presumed death of Robert are revealed to be connected to a plot element that had scarce foreshadowing or clues as well as what could be considered the villain in the present-day timeline. The additional disappearances in Stonewall, some of the local’s connection to the manor’s history, Archie’s hidden relation to William, the circumstances surrounding Archie’s death and betrayal, all these storylines individually had the potential to be exciting but the way their reveals are handled ruins the excitement. As I got to the book’s ending, I found myself more bemused by what was happening and even more confused by poor use of earlier pages and the uneven pacing.

However, all the seemingly random and questionable reveals pale in comparison to the biggest plot twist in the book’s ending involving William and the haunting in the manor (it’s quite notable and lost what little credibility it had up to that point for me).

Despite having great ideas and a very promising premise, I unfortunately found the numerous problems too difficult to overlook. The general outline of the book’s story is great but something in the writing process felt like it went wrong with how off balanced its pacing is. Between its major plot twist that directly contradicts half of the book’s earlier events along with how overwritten it feels, there’s a general sense of roughness that I think heavier editing or beta reading should’ve caught and addressed, which is surprising given Alderson isn’t a new author and Angry Robot isn’t an obscure indie publisher (the book cover is beautiful and well-presented). That said, I would give another Alderson book a second chance since this one did have a lot of potential. While I can see a prospective readership of this book for those that are in the mood for a pleasant and horror/gothic adjacent story featuring gay characters that isn’t too intense to read, I cannot in good faith recommend this book to others with its all-around weak execution and baffling closing arc.