The Caretaker
A Novel
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3.3 • 44 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Instant New York Times Bestseller
Follow the Rites...
Nothing less than the survival of humanity is at stake.
From Marcus Kliewer, a new “titan of the macabre and unsettling” (Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author), comes an eerie supernatural horror about a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist, only to discover the position has consequences far greater—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined.
EXCITING OPPORTUNITY:
Caretaker urgently needed. Three days of work. Competitive pay. Serious applicants ONLY.
Macy Mullins can’t say why the job posting grabbed her attention—it had the pull of a fisherman’s lure, barbed hook and all—vaguely ominous. But after an endless string of failed job interviews, she's not exactly in the position to be picky. She has rent to pay, groceries to buy, and a younger sister to provide for.
Besides, it’s only three days’ work…
Three days, cooped up in a stranger’s house, surrounded by Oregon Coast wilderness.
What starts as a peculiar side gig soon becomes a waking nightmare. An incomprehensible evil may dwell on this property—and Macy Mullins might just be the only thing standing between it, and the rest of humanity.
Follow the Rites...
Follow the Rites...
Follow the Rites...
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PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This underwhelming horror outing from Kliewer (We Used to Live Here) follows a chronically unlucky protagonist who gets a chance at turning her life around—but at the cost of a possible apocalypse. It opens on David Carnswel, a man who knows he must repetitively perform a mysterious set of Rites on his property to preserve humanity and to keep the otherworldly entities who emerge from the neighboring woods, whom he terms Visitors, from crossing his threshold. The plot then cuts to months later, when hapless heroine Macy Mullins, who is out of both a job and money, responds to an ad posted by David's widow seeking a new caretaker for the house. Ignoring her sister's warning that the job sounds more dangerous than it appears, Macy takes the gig, eager to escape debt. Things on the property immediately go from weird to horrifying, and soon Macy will have to face a Visitor of her own. The setup is eerie and exciting, but the payoff disappoints, with most questions still left open at the novel's end. Worse, Macy proves a flat and frequently grating protagonist who is thwarted at every turn by her own incompetence. Readers will struggle to get invested.
