The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstong | Horror Fiction Review

I had no idea Kelley Armstrong was writing in the horror genre (and has been for a little bit). Guess I don't know everything, lol.

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The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong

Released October 14, 2025

Source: Netgalley

See more @ Goodreads

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I don’t think I’ve read a Kelley Armstrong book since Dime Store Magic and Bitten in 2004. Yikes, that was over 20 years ago! I gave both books a 4 but she somehow fell off my radar when I started reading more horror and less pnr. This brings me to The Haunting of Paynes Hollow which leans more on the horror-side so here I am again.

The cover is lovely and should’ve given me a clue or two about the supernatural aspect here, but I never pay close enough attention and just jump in. “Hollow” in the title was another clue that I missed which is lunacy considering I just read C.M. Nascosta’s Hollow in 2023 and have not forgotten it. Now that was a doozy of a book!

Anyhow, this was not at all like the Nascosta book except for the one thing I won’t mention. The Haunting of Paynes Hollow starts out when a young woman named Sam Payne discovers she’s been left a potential fortune by her recently deceased grandfather but there’s a catch because of course there’s a catch. She must spend 30 days on the land she’s supposed to inherit and can only leave for an hour at a time or she’ll lose her inheritance. Doesn’t sound so bad, right? This is a vacation compound for their family but it’s also the place where her life fell to pieces and she’d prefer to avoid it forever. TW for mention of parental suicide and while I’m at it here’s one for the death of a beloved pet, a child murder, a parent with dementia and far too many wild beastie mutilations too! I nearly put the book down after most of that hit me in chapter ONE.

She meets the grumpy caretaker who she knew as a child and would also prefer to avoid, learns she has to wear a freaking ankle monitor and must stick around when some creepster starts leaving animal parts on her steps. 30 days starts to feel like an eternity but ol’ grandpappy has a motive in there somewhere.

This is another one of those stories where the lead has big holes in their memory that return in disturbing bits and pieces and they’re unsure if what they’re seeing is a nightmare, a memory or a lie. I guessed a few things while reading and my guesses were mostly wrong so that was fun. In the end, I’d give this one a 3. I liked it well enough (I did keep reading after that trauma dump of an opening, after all) and though the writing was often snappy it also dragged in parts, and I was never fully invested in the plight of the main character which was a bummer. Could be me, could be the book.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Publisher Plot Synopsis 

From New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong comes a nail-biting supernatural horror about a haunted lakeside property and twisted family secrets.

When Samantha Payne’s grandfather dies, she figures she won’t even get a mention in the will. After all, she hasn’t seen him in fourteen years, not since her father took his own life after being accused of murdering a child at their lakefront cottage. Her grandfather always insisted her father was innocent, despite Sam having caught him burying the child’s body, his clothing streaked with blood.

But when she does attend the reading of the will at the behest of her aunt, she discovers that her grandfather left her the very valuable lakefront property where the family cottage sits. There’s one catch: Sam needs to stay in the cottage for a month. To finally face the fact she was wrong and her father was innocent, in her grandfather's words.

Traveling to Paynes Hollow, Sam is faced with the realities of her childhood and the secrets kept hidden in the shadows of her memories. When her aunt goes missing a couple days into their stay, Sam begins to question everything again. Plagued by nightmares and paranoia, she begins hearing sounds in the forest and seeing shapes crawling from the water as the rippling waves of the lake promise something unspeakably dark lurking just below their surface.