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Book Review: These Familiar Walls by CJ Dotson

These Familiar Walls by CJ Dotson

St. Martin’s Press, 2026

ISBN: 9781250336583

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

These Familiar Walls is a taut thriller, a major improvement over CJ Dotson’s debut novel, The Cut : it avoids all the problems that plagued that novel. It is a tightly written story that sticks to its premise, and does an outstanding job of throwing the reader off-base in terms of guessing the ending. No sophomore jinx with this book: it’s certainly worth the read.

The book starts with a prologue, where thirty-something protagonist Amber Hughes’s parents are brutally murdered in a home invasion, and one of the killers(killed in the attack) turns out to have been Amber’s disturbed childhood friend, Nathan. Amber inherits the house, and she and her husband Ben, and their two kids move in. Strange things start happening, and the author does a good job slowly building up the level of tension over the course of the book. Dotson uses fairly basic items like sounds and images, but does it well, especially when using mirrors. With a number of the incidents, it’s almost more psychological, as it seems like some of the characters go into a sort of fugue state, as they find themselves doing things, and being there, but not mentally in the moment. It adds a nice touch, and will make the reader wonder: is the house really haunted, or are the characters mentally unstable, and dealing with the results? The scene with the multiple candles, and the barbeque scene are good examples: they keep the story riveting while providing for some uncertainty for the reader.

The narrative is a split narrative, with parts taking place in the present, and sections in the past that document Amber’s time growing up as a teen with Nathan, who is every concerned parent’s worst nightmare. Worth noting: there is a bit of animal cruelty associated with Nathan, and some people might want to skip those two sections. It makes sense in terms of the plot, but can still be difficult to deal with. The timelines tie together in the end, as the mystery of the house, as well as the mystery of the killer who escaped the night Amber’s parents were slain, are all resolved.

As good as the book is, it’s the last third of the book that’s a real gut punch, as all the answers are truly stunning and will completely throw the reader off. As much as this is a thriller about a haunted house, it’s also a prime example of how the worst things in the world aren’t always supernatural: they can be contained within ourselves.

In closing, These Familiar Walls is a vast improvement over Dotson’s debut novel: let’s hope the author can keep it going in the future. Recommended.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

The Curse of Hester Gardens by Tamika Thompson

The Curse of Hester Gardens by Tamika Thompson
Erewhon Books, 2026
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1645663195
Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook
Buy: Amazon.com | Bookshop.org

Hester Gardens is a housing project cursed by a history of violence, especially gun violence, and the residents are haunted by its victims.

Nona believed she was living a law-abiding life, until ten years ago, when she stumbled on her husband pistol-whipping a drug-addicted teenager to death in an alleyway and helped him cover it up. Now her husband is in prison for drug-dealing, and her oldest son is dead, a victim of a gang shooting. Her youngest son, Lance, is just starting to join in the activities of the local gang.

If only there were a way to escape Hester Gardens. It is possible– Nona’s nephew Harlan, an investigative journalist, made it out, and nursing student Kiandra is only held there by her younger brother.

Nona’s second son, recent high school graduate Marcus, has a ticket out, with a full scholarship to Brown University in the fall… if he can only make it through the summer. But Marcus, always the “good kid”, has a lot of anger and grief over Kendall’s murder, and he can’t quite keep it under the surface anymore. Thompson creates a disorienting atmosphere in Nona’s apartment, which already has an unstable feeling to it ,due to the disturbing changes in Marcus. It is just haunted enough to make her and her sons uneasy… until it suddenly escalates into a life-and-death situation.

Thompson’s talent is not just in creating an uncanny atmosphere, but in bringing the neighborhood and characters to life. There are ghosts… maybe… in the alleyways, and a smart person keeps a sharp eye out. While mainly told from Nona’s point of view, we also occasionally get the point of view of other characters: Harlan, Nona’s nephew; Lance, her youngest son and Marcus’ brother; Gretchen, Marcus’ girlfriend and gang leader Peter’s baby mama; Donnell, a gang member; Kiandra; and police officer Sgt. Victoria Prager, who was in charge of Kendall’s case and is involved in the ending of the terrible, shocking, night where six young people were silently executed with a rifle.

Readers will grow to care about, cheer for, and fear for characters who could easily have been cardboard cutouts. Gretchen, for instance, as a point of view character, is shaped by the trauma of having her twin murdered in a drive-by shooting right next to her and the stress of raising a child in an unpredictable environment. She’s much more fleshed out than she would be if we were limited to only Nona’s judgmental mindset. We get to see Donnell’s regrets and terror because he did not stop the execution of a boy about to escape Hester Gardens for college, and now can’t escape his ghost. In a “closed community” like Hester Gardens, lives are entangled because everyone knows everyone: the same kids who were friends with your own kids, could grow up to be the killers of someone you loved, and Thompson does a great job of revealing that complexity. Thompson convincingly creates a claustrophobic and terrifying atmosphere: to escape Hester Gardens, its history of violence, and tangled relationships, isn’t easy. It’s a place that doesn’t want its residents to leave alive.

There’s a lot packed into these pages, and I found myself going back to this more than once. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski