The House on Moon Creek Avenue by E. Reyes

When Cindy Flores moves into her grandmother’s house in Devil’s Hill, it seems she and her daughter aren’t the only inhabitants.

Things have begun to look up for Cindy. At 21, she’s a single mother with an abusive ex, has a job in the local food market (familiar to those who have read the author’s other works), and is a college student. Moving into her nana’s old house, with an offer from her father to pay her utility bills until she’s finished college, seems too good to be true.

Unfortunately, it is. A series of increasingly disturbing apparitions in the house cause Cindy to fear for the lives of her and her daughter. Unable to sleep, she turns to a group of ghost hunters to help her rid her house of the unwanted guests. However, Cindy discovers that there is more to her haunting than appears at first glance.

It is hard to bring something new to the haunted house genre, but E. Reyes manages to do just that. Throughout his collections of short stories, and now in his first full length novel, he has created a world in Devil’s Hill where the veil between the worlds has thinned and demons in many forms run amok.

Cindy was an instantly relatable and likable character. Difficulties with her family, and more recently with her ex, hadn’t stopped her from trying to do the best for her and her daughter. I loved her fighting spirit, from how she dealt with the weeds in her garden, to the rough element in her neighborhood. She tackled the ghosts with that same steel strong core, which was refreshing.

As for the ghosts, they were terrifying. Perhaps it was because I read this book in one sitting in the dark, late at night, but I could easily imagine the creepy things that crawled around Cindy’s house lurking at the edges of my bedroom, and I know I wouldn’t have been as brave as the fictional character if they had appeared before me.

The plot was strong and well paced, layered with a more complex story than at first appeared. My only quibble was with the ending. It was well wrapped up and satisfactory, but I hoped it would go in a different direction.

I award The House on Moon Creek Avenue…

The House on Moon Creek Avenue is available for $3.97 ebook and $7.99 print book on Amazon.

Read my review of E. Reyes’ collection of Halloween horror stories, set in Devil’s Hill.

Read my review of E. Reyes’ second collection of dark short stories, Tales of the Macabre.