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A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! What do you do when the ghosts haunting your dream house are the least of your worries? When documentary filmmaker turned stay-at-home mom Tennessee Cherish moves into the dream house her husband bought for her, a brighter future seems to be on the horizon. Even if her husband is frustratingly absent due to his new high-paying job. Even if their two young children begin acting out in strange ways. Even if she feels lonelier than ever. Distracted by the endless details that come with moving into a new town, a new house, and new schools, Tenn doesn’t notice when odd things begin happening at home. The faucet that runs at all hours. The creepy doll that seems to show up in every room. The human tooth they found in the floorboards. As the kids’ outbursts and strange events start to escalate, the family finds themselves increasingly caught in loops, repeating everyday actions with dangerous—and then devastating—effects. Tenn realizes she must find the source of what is haunting her family, before it kills them all. Taut and twisty, scary and searing, Aimee Pokwatka's Accumulation lays bare the high price women pay for the promises of domesticity and motherhood, and the many ways in which families can be haunted. |
Book Club Discussion Guide
To learn more about Accumulation, check out my essay about its origins at Crime Reads.
To learn more about Accumulation, check out my essay about its origins at Crime Reads.
Praise and Reviews
“This unnerving haunted house tale from Pokwatka elegantly blends domestic drama and psychological horror . . .The author excels at crafting a creepy atmosphere, using shifting perspectives and domestic detail to blur the boundaries between literal haunting and psychological fracture.” --Publishers Weekly
“The mundane unease of moving house[s] steadily escalates and works in tandem with Pokwatka’s thoughtful attention to seemingly small details as the tone shifts from low-level dread to a rising tide of fear so intense that readers may need to step out of their own homes for some fresh air before finishing the novel. A must-read for those who crave immersive, disorienting haunted-house stories, in the vein of Jac Jemc’s The Grip of It, Carissa Orlando’s The September House, and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves.” --Library Journal
"Pokwatka has written a haunted house story that understands the house is not the source of the dread so much as its amplifier; what resonates through the rooms is the accumulation of fourteen years of compromise, swallowed resentment, artistic sacrifice, and the quiet bargain Tenn made when she traded filmmaking for family." —Jim Mcleod, Ginger Nuts of Horror
“Aimee Pokwatka reimagines the haunted house narrative through a strikingly modern lens, where the pressures of domestic life become the unsettling presence at the center of the story. With an eerie emotional undercurrent, the novel explores how everyday expectations can quietly shape fear and identity.” --OutSF
“Aimee Pokwatka’s Accumulation is a razor-sharp, loop-twisting domestic nightmare . . . This taut, haunting knockout is a bold excavation of the hidden costs women shoulder when chasing the shining ideal of home and motherhood.” —Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftover Woman
“I loved everything about Accumulation, a clever, dark, beautifully written ghost story that will have you racing through pages. Aimee Pokwatka exposes the way women can be buried by domesticity, and reminds to see the beauty in the everyday. What a feat!” —Araminta Hall, author of Unreliable Narrator
“Accumulation is the perfect title for a story that fills the reader with increasing dread and uncertainty. The characters have an incredible depth that many can relate to and makes it a fantastic deep dive into home-based horror. It was not what I expected, and I loved that. Big applause for yet another fierce female voice in horror.” —V Castro, author of The Haunting of Alejandra
“A classic but elevated haunted house tale that sneaks up on you like a cursed doll, Accumulation delivers tension and terror while probing a mother’s darkest fears around losing her children—and herself.”—Delilah Dawson, author of Bloom
“Accumulation is the perfect haunted house story for the 21st century, a paranoid spiral into old domestic horrors and the new terrors of money and surveillance. I couldn’t put it down.” —Stephanie Feldman, author of Saturnalia and The Angel of Losses
“This unnerving haunted house tale from Pokwatka elegantly blends domestic drama and psychological horror . . .The author excels at crafting a creepy atmosphere, using shifting perspectives and domestic detail to blur the boundaries between literal haunting and psychological fracture.” --Publishers Weekly
“The mundane unease of moving house[s] steadily escalates and works in tandem with Pokwatka’s thoughtful attention to seemingly small details as the tone shifts from low-level dread to a rising tide of fear so intense that readers may need to step out of their own homes for some fresh air before finishing the novel. A must-read for those who crave immersive, disorienting haunted-house stories, in the vein of Jac Jemc’s The Grip of It, Carissa Orlando’s The September House, and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves.” --Library Journal
"Pokwatka has written a haunted house story that understands the house is not the source of the dread so much as its amplifier; what resonates through the rooms is the accumulation of fourteen years of compromise, swallowed resentment, artistic sacrifice, and the quiet bargain Tenn made when she traded filmmaking for family." —Jim Mcleod, Ginger Nuts of Horror
“Aimee Pokwatka reimagines the haunted house narrative through a strikingly modern lens, where the pressures of domestic life become the unsettling presence at the center of the story. With an eerie emotional undercurrent, the novel explores how everyday expectations can quietly shape fear and identity.” --OutSF
“Aimee Pokwatka’s Accumulation is a razor-sharp, loop-twisting domestic nightmare . . . This taut, haunting knockout is a bold excavation of the hidden costs women shoulder when chasing the shining ideal of home and motherhood.” —Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftover Woman
“I loved everything about Accumulation, a clever, dark, beautifully written ghost story that will have you racing through pages. Aimee Pokwatka exposes the way women can be buried by domesticity, and reminds to see the beauty in the everyday. What a feat!” —Araminta Hall, author of Unreliable Narrator
“Accumulation is the perfect title for a story that fills the reader with increasing dread and uncertainty. The characters have an incredible depth that many can relate to and makes it a fantastic deep dive into home-based horror. It was not what I expected, and I loved that. Big applause for yet another fierce female voice in horror.” —V Castro, author of The Haunting of Alejandra
“A classic but elevated haunted house tale that sneaks up on you like a cursed doll, Accumulation delivers tension and terror while probing a mother’s darkest fears around losing her children—and herself.”—Delilah Dawson, author of Bloom
“Accumulation is the perfect haunted house story for the 21st century, a paranoid spiral into old domestic horrors and the new terrors of money and surveillance. I couldn’t put it down.” —Stephanie Feldman, author of Saturnalia and The Angel of Losses
Selected Interviews and Press
Macabre Daily's Paper Cuts: Spotify / Apple
CinemaChords: Spotify / Apple / YouTube
Ginger Nuts of Horror: Interview / Review
Behind the Books Podcast: Spotify
Bookwild: Spotify / Apple / YouTube
NY Post: "A creepy babydoll, coffin door and drawers that open on their own: Inside the real-life Westchester haunted house that inspired a new horror novel"
Crime Reads: "Aimee Pokwatka Never Thought She'd Write a Haunted House Novel. Then She Bought a Haunted House."
Macabre Daily's Paper Cuts: Spotify / Apple
CinemaChords: Spotify / Apple / YouTube
Ginger Nuts of Horror: Interview / Review
Behind the Books Podcast: Spotify
Bookwild: Spotify / Apple / YouTube
NY Post: "A creepy babydoll, coffin door and drawers that open on their own: Inside the real-life Westchester haunted house that inspired a new horror novel"
Crime Reads: "Aimee Pokwatka Never Thought She'd Write a Haunted House Novel. Then She Bought a Haunted House."