The Ash House

🏚️🍃🩺🩸

by Angharad Walker

★★★★

Things I loved:

👀 Creepy, eye-catching front cover

🌫️ Dark dystopian atmosphere

🏚️ Unsettling Ash House setting

🐕 Shucks with glowing green eyes

⚡ Fast-paced, action-filled second half

🧠 Mysterious characters and unanswered questions

📚 Series potential I wanted more of

At a glance

✍🏼 Author: Angharad Walker

🎨 Cover artist: Olia Muza

📅 Release Date: 2nd September 2021

📚 Book type: Chapter, 368 pages

🌟 Reader level: Growing

Content warning

Blood, injury, death and violence

Dive Deeper

Review

The Ash House by Angharad Walker instantly caught my attention because of its creepy front cover and dark, unsettling blurb. I love a good dystopian story, and this one was completely my kind of book. From the very start, it felt eerie and mysterious, making me want to read just one more chapter… and then another.

One of my favourite things about this book was the concept and setting. The children live together in an abandoned greenhouse by a lake, surrounded by trees, watching drones, and terrifying Shucks — blood-thirsty dogs with glowing green eyes. The whole atmosphere is wonderfully creepy and tense, making it impossible to relax while reading (in the best way!).

The story is fairly fast-paced and packed with action, especially once you get past the halfway point. There was something about this book that completely hooked me, and I ended up finishing it in just a few hours. I couldn’t stop thinking about what might happen next and just had to find out!

By the end, I was left with lots of questions and honestly wished this was the first book in a series. There’s so much more to discover about the Headmaster, the Doctor and the other children who have lived such strange and isolated lives.

I’d highly recommend The Ash House to fans of The Maze Runner or anyone who enjoys dark, dystopian adventures. 👀📚

Blurb

A new boy arrives at the Ash House. He can't remember his name - or why he's been sent there.

Given the name Sol, and troubled by a mystery pain that no medicine can cure, he joins the gang of children living in the shadows of the secretive house.

Soon, however, there's more for him to face: the darkness that descends with the arrival of the Doctor ...

The story follows a boy who becomes known as Sol after being left behind at the Ash House following endless tests and visits to doctors. Sol can’t remember his past, and the Ash House is a strange, lonely place where the children are obsessed with showing “Niceness” and avoiding “Nastiness.” As Sol’s illness begins to reveal itself, the other children start to fear that he could be dangerous. Desperate to be cured and to escape, Sol searches for freedom — but the choices he faces come at a serious cost.