We Used to Live Here
Marcus Kliewer, 2024
Mystery, thriller & crime HorrorContemporary fiction
A couple in a remote inherited house let a family in for five minutes; the house, and the family, refuse to stay put.
Feels like dread and unease. About home.
A page from the book
The private trick one woman uses to avoid ever saying no.
Of course, a well-adjusted individual would’ve simply told him no. But self-destructive people-pleasing was another of Eve’s plentiful idiosyncrasies. She had a crippling fear of disappointing anyone, even complete strangers—even people she disliked. Over the years she’d found a cheap trick to get around this. Internally called the “Let Me Check with Charlie” card. It had become something of a conflict-avoidant mantra. Eve would never have to say no to anyone if her girlfriend did it for her. At first, Charlie had had no problem shutting people down—in fact, she rather quite enjoyed it. Though, after a while, she started to encourage Eve to stand up for herself a little more. Marcus Kliewer.We Used to Live Here is Marcus Kliewer’s debut; its title is the line the stranded family uses to explain why they’ve come back.
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Questions readers ask
- What is We Used to Live Here like?
- Feels like dread and unease. About home.
- What should I read after We Used to Live Here?
- If you liked We Used to Live Here, try In a Dark, Dark Wood (Ruth Ware), Behind Closed Doors (B.A. Paris) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson).
A taste of the feed
When the light feels like a trap, the darkness is watching.
The night was drawing in, and the house felt more and more like a glass cage, blasting its light blindly out into the dusk, like a lantern in the dark. I imagined a thousand moths circling and shivering, drawn inexorably to its glow, only to perish against the cold inhospitable glass.
In a Dark, Dark Wood · Ruth Ware
Perfect manners can be the most frightening thing about a person.
We go downstairs and in the hall, he takes my coat from the cupboard and holds it open while I slip my arms into it. In the drive outside, he holds the car door for me and waits until I’m in. As he closes it behind me, I can’t help thinking it’s a shame he’s such a sadistic bastard, because he has wonderful manners.
Behind Closed Doors · B.A. Paris
A self-portrait in dislikes, lucky fingers, and one very flat sentence.
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle · Shirley Jackson
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