I've enjoyed a couple of earlier novels by Christina Henry but both of them were reworkings by a fresh hand of older stories by others: 'Lost Boy' was a retelling of 'Peter Pan' from the perspective of Captain Hook and 'The Girl in Red' was a postapocalyptic take on 'Little Red Riding Hood'. She's done that sort of thing a lot, some of her most known books being imaginative dips into the world of 'Alice in Wonderland'. This, however, is a completely original story, though it's easy to see where she got plenty of her inspiration.

'The House That Horror Built' is very clearly a gothic novel, right down to the house itself being a part of the title, a gothic tradition. However, it's dressed in modern-day horror movie clothing and unfolds as a combination of the two. I like both genres, but they're not as natural a fit together as you might expect and I can see a lot of readers being disappointed by how it ends because they're used to the conventions of horror movies but not those of gothics. I am aware of both and, frankly, the ending disappointed me too, even though I understand why Henry went that way.

Harry Adams is a domestic, helping Javier Castillo clean his mansion a few days a week. She's also a lot of other things that add up to her being the perfect lead character for a modern gothic. She was brought up by Christian fundamentalist parents, back when she was still Harriet Anne Schorr, who not only restrict her cultural exposure but burn her Stephen King novels and 'Fangoria' mags when they discover them during a search of her bedroom. So she becomes a runaway, spends some time homeless, and then becomes a single mum; her boyfriend Pete leaving the moment she says she's going to keep the baby.

For contemporary touches, she also lost her job in a restaurant due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is now looking for a new place to live because her landlord left his properties to his son, who wants to move to Arizona and sell them all. These are pressing concerns, probably all the more so given that it takes at least a year to get a new novel into print, even once it’s written. I should add here that nothing here seems political, just in case you're one of those snowflakes who get upset when Stephen King talks about vaccines in his latest books.

So she works for Javier Castillo in his Chicago mansion that's known as Bright Horses. Not only is it a huge building but it's a private museum for horror movie props and memorabilia, not only from a variety of Castillo's own movies but from the history of the genre. Just in case you weren't able to connect the dots and imagine Castillo in the form of Guillermo del Toro, Henry includes a prop from that director's 1992 movie, 'Cronos', in Castillo's collection and points out that he moved to Chicago after California wildfires threatened his collection, as indeed they did del Toro's recently.

The other telling director to get a mention is Charlie Chaplin, who was such a perfectionist in all aspects of the craft that it has been said that he would have got rid of his actors if he could have played every part himself. That's another aspect of Castillo's character here, because Henry tells us that he doesn't just direct his pictures, but writes them, produces them, edits them and even shoots them too, all in order to keep a personal control over the art to be released with his name on it. He's the quintessential auteur.

To keep the class focus of gothic fiction in play, Castillo is nouveau riche. He started out poor and remembers that life, so has much sympathy for Harry, but has made lots of money making movies, enough to maintain this mansion of film props. He's also a recluse nowadays, having become one after his wife and son disappeared, thus sparking the central mystery of the novel. Here's where that ending comes in, because, in keeping with gothic tradition, Henry really isn't interested in a mystery. She sets it up but never develops it, concentrating instead on establishing, building and maintaining mood.

With Castillo a recluse, there are very few characters to speak of. He lives alone, so most scenes in Bright Horses, where we spend the vast majority of our time, involve him and Harry alone. Late in the book, as he takes more of an interest in Harry, her son Gabe gets more and more attention, a third character in the house. The next step in expansion is a couple of surprise guests at dinner in Daniel Jensen and Amina Collucci, the stars of his film, A Messenger from Hell, the picture whose Sten suit has so captured Harry's attention, what with it reaching for her and tracking her around the room with its eyes. Daniel is clearly based on Doug Jones, down to him being thoroughly nice, but I have no idea who Amina was influenced by. I'd hope nobody, but I've met enough actors that I know better.

I can't say a lot more than that, partly because I want to avoid spoilers but partly because there's nothing else here to speak of. Henry's attention is firmly on mood and grounding this in a pair of different genres. The feel is all gothic, except for occasional jump scares that are clearly sourced in modern horror movies. The setting is both, the gothic mansion and the horror movie museum. The progression is all gothic, without any of the twists and turns of a horror movie. Harry is right out of a gothic, merely a contemporary one, while Castillo lives in both worlds and the remaining characters are thoroughly modern.

As an intellectual exercise, I found 'The House That Horror Built' fascinating. As a modern gothic, it's thoroughly enjoyable. I liked Harry a lot and found the challenges thrown at her impressively traditional but also utterly contemporary. She's most of the best things about the book. Castillo's worthy too, but far more one-dimensional than he should be; and then I think he was meant to be. Everyone else is firmly a supporting character, even Gabe who manages to spark a lot of depth in Harry. However, I think for most readers, this is going to come down to mood vs. mystery.

At its simplest, the people who are likely to enjoy this the most are going to be those who favour mood over mystery. All the best things about this book that aren't Harry are rooted in its mood, which Henry generates early and maintains wonderfully well. On the flipside, the people who are likely to enjoy this the least are those who favour mystery over mood, because they're going to be thoroughly disappointed. I can't say I knew everything that was inside a certain locked room, the only one Harry is forbidden to enter. However, there aren't a lot of possibilities and I was notably close just from reading the back cover blurb. I counted no twists, no turns and one red herring.

So, which are you? Mood or mystery? ~~ Hal C F Astell

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