The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong
The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
October 14, 2025
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
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.
The Haunting of Paynes Hollow is a retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Sam is struggling financially. She had to drop out of med school to take care of her mother, who is a patient in a memory care center. All the money she makes as a lab tech goes to her mother’s care. And it’s not enough – she’s fallen behind on her payments to the facility, and her mother is in danger of being evicted.
When Sam was a child, she saw her father buying the body of a young boy and turned him in for murdering him. Her father claimed he was innocent and took his own life His father, Sam’s grandfather, also always maintained his innocence.
When Sam’s grandfather dies, the family is called together for the reading of his will. Sam’s grandfather has never forgiven Sam for turning his son in for murder. So, it’s a surprise when he leaves her the family vacation property worth ten million dollars. The catch is that she has to live on the property in one of the cabins for 30 days. This could prove to be challenging because there have been rumors for years that the property is haunted because people have mysteriously disappeared from there.
Sam’s aunt is worried about her safety and begs her not to do it, offering her part of her inheritance instead. But Sam insists on going. If she can make it the whole 30 days, she can sell the property and have more than enough money for her mother’s care for as long as she lives and she will be able to finish med school.
As soon as Sam and her aunt get to the property, weird things start happening, like finding dismembered animals posed outside the cabin door. The caretaker is the older brother of the boy her dad allegedly killed, which is awkward to say the least. Will Sam be able to stay the whole 30 days or will she get scared off the property?
I found the reveal at the end confusing. I listed to it on audio – it might have been less confusing if I could flip back and reread the explanation of why all the strange events were happening. However, I did enjoy this book overall. It’s a good one for spooky season.
(I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook for review.)
