Customer Reviews

The Good House

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Tananarive Due gets better and better with each release! Her latest novel, The Good House, examines the consequences of misusing magic and the power of heritage and family.

The story is set in the remote town of Sacajawea, Washington where in the early 1900's, Marie Touissant relocates from Louisiana guided by her inner voice to a place that can be described in modern terms as the "epicenter of the sprit world". Marie is a trained, experienced, favored vodou priestess and often uses her powers to help and heal others. Through a series of events, Marie (in anger) misuses her talents, is abandoned by the "good" spirits for her actions, and unleashes a vengeful, unrelenting evil spirit that is determined to destroy her and her progeny. Marie watches helplessly as her daughter is possessed and tormented by the spirit. She patiently waits for the opportunity to redeem herself but time is not her friend and she passes before she can banish the spirit.

Fast forward to present day. Marie's granddaughter, Angela, is clueless about her grandmother's secrets; but when tragedy strikes at the family home (The Good House) and a destructive pattern emerges at the expense of her loved ones, she begins to suspect and believe that there is no such thing as coincidence. She must quickly discover the cause of these bizarre fatalities, her dead grandmother's role in it, and a method of containing or eradicating the evil before it consumes her and all her loved ones.

This book is a suspenseful page-turner from beginning to end. It is wonderfully conceived and superbly written!! Due exhibits great expertise when she weaves together the spiritual aspects (Christianity, Vodou, Native American and African/Caribbean spiritualism), the history of the great Northwest, racial sensitivities, and family values. It is my opinion that very few authors could have blended such a diverse set of topics so brilliantly. Keep `em coming, Ms. Due....we can't get enough!!

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub, The Nubian Circle Book Club

You read "My Soul to Keep," and you enjoyed the sequel, "The Living Blood," but nothing in either of those two earlier Tananarive Due books could have prepared her dedicated fans for this one!

Angela Toussaint returns to her late gramma Marie's house for the summer hoping for some healing powers that would bring her own family closer together. She's separated from her husband Tariq, and her teenage son, Corey, splits his time between both parents. While gramma Marie has been trying to communicate or reach out to Angie, Angie has not been receptive so gramma reached the only other blood relative, Corey. Things pick up and start spinning wildly and unworldly out of control on the evening of Angie's 4th of July party. WARNING: if you're a big scradie-cat don't read this book at night just before going to bed.

Gramma Marie was a well-respected voodoo priestess and before her death, in a fit of anger, she enlisted the help of the evil "baka" to punish her enemies. The baka, once called upon never wants to return and is bent on destroying anything and everything that attempts to send it back -- particularly anyone from the Troussaint bloodline.

Get ready, prepare yourself for this wild ride. "House on a Haunted Hill," "The Blair Witch Project," and "The Exorcist," all in one -- and then some. Ms. Due, you've outdone yourself.

Angela Toussaint has mixed feelings about the offer to buy her family home in Sacajawea, Washington. The property has been in her family for decades (her grandmother, Marie Touissaint, is a local legend). It's also the place where her teenaged son, Corey, died two years earlier under suspicious circumstances (though his death was officially declared a suicide). Although she fled the house after the tragedy, she decides she must return to the home, known by the locals as "The Goode House," before making her final decision.

On her return to Sacajawea, Angela slowly comes to realize that something strange and lethal is going on there, and that the Goode House is at the epicenter of the mystery. She investigates, hoping to uncover the source of misery that has plagued her family and the citizens of Sacajawea since her grandmother's time. Doing so, she stirs up vengeful ancient forces that seek her destruction.

As in previous novels, Due focuses intensely on family dynamics. Angela and her husband, Tariq, were having problems even before Corey's death. Negatively influenced by the entity that seeks retribution on Angela, Tariq later becomes a warped symbol of their failed marriage. Here, however, the focus is not so much on spouses as it is on the bonds between a mother and her child. Despite the intimacy inherent in that bond, mothers and children are often strangers to each other--Due seems to suggest that complete understanding is beyond either party. Acceptance, however, can lead to greater affinity.

Due takes her time with her narrative, allowing for extensive development of her characters and painstaking stage setting. As in previous works, her characters stand out--she cares about the people who populate her novels, and is eager to explore their frailties and hidden strengths. Angela is the best example; an able, tough-minded heroine, her fears, doubts and motivations all ring true. Due also does a masterful job of maintaining readers' interest, using changes in perspective and point of view to gradually illuminate the book's central mysteries.

THE GOOD HOUSE shows Due to be a writer of great scope, depth, and empathy. An absorbing and frightening tale, THE GOOD HOUSE firmly establishes her as one of the modern masters of the horror genre, a writer who shows us more with each successive effort.

Tananarive Due has done it again!! The Good House is a super-natural thriller that captures its reader from the very first line. The heroin of this book, Angela Toussaint, has returned to the home in which she was raised in Sacajawea, WA. The home that locals have named the Goode House in part because of its original owner, Elijah Goode, but mainly because of Mr. Goode's "companion," Marie Toussaint, Angela's deceased grandmother. Here at the Goode House, Angela hopes to mend her soul from a tragic loss she suffered two years ago. But as Angela embarks on the road to recovery, she soon realizes that the Goode house might not be as "good" as everyone thinks.

Upon her return, Angela discovers that she isn't the only one who has suffered tragedy in the past two years. She will soon realize that something evil was unleashed in the Goode House - something so old and sinister that it invades the very souls of neighbors, friends, and loved ones. Through a well thought out plot, Ms. Due takes her heroin and the reader on a paranormal thrill ride that does not end until the very last page.

The Goode House is sure to find new fans and assures the old fans that Tananarive Due is definately here to stay! Excellent read!

Tananarive Due is a brillant storyteller, her mastery of the written word can actually transport you to clearly visualize the characters and the locales in her writing.
This is a story of a family, it begins with the grandmere Marie who leaves New Orleans to find her santuarty in a small town in Washington State with her young daughter. The daughter plays a small part in the book. The granddaughter and great grandson are much like their grandmother who has "SIGHT" and dabbles in the world of voodoo. These gifts are unknown to the granddaughter and great grandson at first until the grandson finds some papers and tries some spells and unwittingly releases some evil spirits that the grandmother had banished some 70 years prior.
The grandmere dies before she has the opportunity to share the legacy and the curse with her grand daughter. The grandmother is still spiritually attached to her grand daughter, but she can't hear the warnings because she is so involved in her own grief. She is forced to face some very evil and diabolical forces and finally realizes her grandmother is still with her,
guiding her. This is such an engrossing and wonderfully written book. It deals with love, hate, jealousy, evil spirits.

If you enjoyed My Soul to Keep or the Living Blood you'll also enjoy The Good House. I strongly recommend this book.

"The Good House" was the first novel I've read by Due and well worth the read until the last few pages. Due writes with a grace and lyricism that makes her stories believable and interesting and her characters worth rooting for.

Her heroine, Angela Toussaint, is on the verge of collapse. She returns from her high-paced job as a Hollywood talent agent to Sacajawea, WA to the "Good House" where she was raised by her Grandmother. She's not been back in two years---since her son Corey was killed at a party.

She learns her childhood home is haunted by a Voodoo spirit who was her Grandma Marie Toussaint's patron. Angela also learns she has her Grandmother's talent to work the magic to heal the situation. Her Grandma always had faith that she'd make the old curse she activated right, but can Angela learn what to do in time?

I have two complaints about this book which merit the 4 star rating. First, the ending. No spoilers here, but I don't like this type of story. Second, the subtle 'advertising'. I totally agree with Tananarive Due's character's comments that Steven Barnes (Due's husband) is a great writer. I was just hoping books were someplace that kind of advertisement would be taboo. The whole scene felt like it was written for the sole purpose of mentioning Barnes' books.

This is the story of Angela Toussaint, a woman searching for the inherited power that can save her hometown of Sacajawea from evil forces. She lives in what the townspeople refer to as the Good House, once owned by Marie Toussaint, Angela's grandmother and local healer. But something has gone wrong. There's now an evil presence prevailing over the house. Did her teenage son, Corey, reawaken something that should have been left sleeping? The sudden and senseless tragedies in the community seem to support that theory. Angela herself suffers a shocking and unexpected tragedy that rips her family apart and sends her spiraling into a nervous breakdown. Two years later she returns to set things right. Whatever is going on, it is somehow linked to a terrifying entity Angela's grandmother battled in 1929, and she must now listen for clues from beyond the grave and summon her own hidden gifts if she is to survive a face-to-face confrontation with the timeless adversary that stalks her.

The Good House is a chilling supernatural tale that will keep you reading frantically to the end. But it is more than that, as well. It's a story of family, grief, lost love, bigotry, community, and the search for meaning. Never heavy-handed and always entertaining, this book delivers a haunting yet humanistic tale.

Two years ago Angela Toussaint and husband Tariq Hill went to her family home in Sacajawea, Washington to save their marriage. Angela hoped that some of that mystical healing that her grandmother provided to the locals, who dubbed the place the GOOD HOUSE, would turn the trick, but tragedy occurred with her beloved Corey lies laying on the kitchen floor bleeding from a gunshot wound. Her sandwich relatives died in this house and her mother committed suicide here years ago.

Two years later, divorced and somewhat recovered but still shaky, Angela returns to the house that she inherited because someone wants to buy it. Angela soon realizes that her beloved Corey found her deceased granny's magic tools to include the misuse of her gift by enacting revenge on a racist incident. Others have also died. Tariq, who suffered from the guilt of knowing his son died using his gun, has turned into a malevolent being under the house's influence. Angela prepares for a final confrontation that has only her former boyfriend Myles Fisher standing by her side against Tariq and the GOOD HOUSE.

Fans of the classic haunted house story will fully enjoy this rich tale that uses the typical elements strengthened by moral responsibility of a member of a family. The story line is powerfully written as it grips the reader inside a potent supernatural plot enhanced by occurrences like racism and ethics to the community. Angela, the core of the horror, is a believable character. She keeps the terrific tale together as she changes from disbeliever to skeptic to born again challenger of the evil that resides within the GOOD HOUSE that turned bad.

Harriet Klausner

I am a fan of Ms. Due's and have read My Soul to Keep and The Living Blood. Although I typically don't care for voodoo laced context, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Ms. Due held my interest as she integrated her well-developed characters and family into the supernatural story line. The book's end was a little disappointing but I didn't dwell on it too much as I was so engrossed in the story that my stomach ached! This book offers a great storyline! Great Reading!

Edited to include a WARNING that several of the earlier reviews include MAJOR SPOILERS for the end of the book. Glad I didn't read them before reading the book.

Wow. Just wow. An exciting story, well-developed characters (all of them, not just the Red Shirts), structure that makes excellent use of flashbacks, foreshadowing that serves the story (not just teasing), pacing that requires a stop to catch your breath, realistic dialogue, this book has it all.

Maybe the best part is the respect that Ms. Due shows for history and for her characters -- it's like they were real people to her, and she's not going to cheapen anything about them, to titillate or scare or for a cheap thrill. And it was creepy as hell.

Everything held together -- there wasn't one single unbelievable "Nah, nobody in their right mind would do that!" moment.

What an accomplishment. I am so glad I read this book.