Review: Kate's House

Kate's House by Harriet Waugh
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Four year old Kate gets a dollhouse for Christmas. Somehow, her activities with the dollhouse influence the goings on in a rooming house not far away. Unfortunately, Kate does not play nice...

Chalk another one up to Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction. My wife surprised me with this after I showed her the cover in that hallowed tome. It wasn't what I expected.

Harriet Waugh, spawn of Evelyn Waugh, is a chip off the old block. Kate's House is an amusing social commentary on life in England in the 1980s and certainly not a horror novel despite being marketed as one. There's far more dry wit than dripping blood.

While I was amused by the antics of the characters in the book, particularly the ones whose lives Kate controlled, I kept thinking about how another writer, one actually dedicated to writing horror, could have made hay with a concept like this.

If you're looking for clever word play and dry British wit, you might have better luck with Kate's House than I did. Don't judge a book by its cover. Two out of five stars.

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