If there is a rock bottom, Jemma has hit hers. It’s 1962 and Jemma is grappling with a death in the family, a job loss, and her relationship coming to a screeching halt in quite a scandalous way. She’s living on the couch with her best friend when an opportunity knocks – she’s been hired to work for the Duchon family in Louisiana for a staggering amount of money. Naturally, Jemma accepts and heads south. But when Jemma arrives in New Orleans, she realizes something is more than a bubble off plumb. Townspeople are wary of the isolated and insular Duchons and warn her away from her new job. The Duchons know way more about her than they should. And... Jemma’s job is to break a curse?! Del Sandeen’s debut novel THIS CURSED HOUSE follows Jemma in her quest to uncover the secrets that could be the key to breaking the curse and freeing them all.
When summer fades into cool and crisp fall, there are few things more enchanting than hunkering down to read a Gothic novel. Sandeen delivers the spooky in spades. If you are a fan of Flowers in the Attic or the movie The Skeleton Key, you will find plenty to draw you into the salacious and sinister web that Sandeen weaves in THIS CURSED HOUSE. Colorism, cultural taboos, dysfunctional family dynamics, and creepy ghost sightings drive the novel forward. Sandeen unpacks shocks and surprises throughout the work, making for an immediately engaging read.
The pacing in the novel’s latter half cools down from a boil to a gentle simmer, and major plot points are often told to the reader rather than built up organically. Sandeen also misses an opportunity to spend more time showcasing the relationship development that undoubtedly happens between Jemma and the Duchons over her months-long tenure in their employ. As a result, some of you may wonder what is motivating Jemma and why she persists with the charge to break the curse. This can make it harder to fully connect with and appreciate the impact Sandeen was aiming for in the conclusion.
On the whole, if you are looking for a fall read to get you into the spirit of the season, Del Sandeen’s THIS CURSED HOUSE is a fun option with a twist or five to keep you on the edge of your seat!
In this Southern gothic horror debut, a young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover the dark truth: They’re under a curse, and they think she can break it.
In the fall of 1962, twenty-seven-year-old Jemma Barker is desperate to escape her life in Chicago—and the spirits she has always been able to see. When she receives an unexpected job offer from the Duchon family in New Orleans, she accepts, thinking it is her chance to start over.
But Jemma discovers that the Duchon family isn’t what it seems. Light enough to pass as white, the Black family members look down on brown-skinned Jemma. Their tenuous hold on reality extends to all the members of their eccentric clan, from haughty grandmother Honorine to beautiful yet inscrutable cousin Fosette. And soon the shocking truth comes out: The Duchons are under a curse. And they think Jemma has the power to break it.
As Jemma wrestles with the gift she’s run from all her life, she unravels deeper and more disturbing secrets about the mysterious Duchons. Secrets that stretch back over a century. Secrets that bind her to their fate if she fails.
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