Alex doesn’t quite fit in with the other students at his university, being both poorer than most of them and marked by the tragic loss of his parents years earlier. Whereas the only two real friends he’s managed to make thus far have exciting plans for the upcoming Summer break, he has no idea what he’ll do while college is out and tries—unsuccessfully—to pass his lack of preparation off as a good thing. Still lingering around the campus well after nearly everyone else has gone, the school is beginning to strongly suggest he find somewhere else to be when fate intervenes and a summer job opportunity opens up that even includes housing.

He joins a group of his classmates clearing out the abandoned Marshlands asylum and neighboring Solace House, a sprawling Victorian mansion, to help facilitate the school’s purchasing of the distressed properties in order to expand their on-campus housing. While inherently creepy, Marshlands proves to be relatively easy work for the group, who manage to become something bordering on friends as they find ways to amuse themselves at the site. Solace House proves something else altogether, as the recently deceased owner Edwin Flayne was quite the hoarder, necessitating hours of work clearing out junk just to begin moving about the home.

But there’s something more that makes Solace House unpleasant work. A sense that it feels off, repelling some of the group and intriguing others. Alex fits into the latter camp and can’t help but venture ahead of his compatriots to seek out the building’s secrets. As the mysteries contained in and around the structure reveal themselves, they only seem to raise further questions; about Flayne, his aims, the house, and even reality itself.

From the beginning we know that something bad awaits these characters and so even though the first half of the book is largely without incident, a sense of dread haunts the pages. Though the characters aren’t especially well-developed and some even feel clichéd, they are enjoyable enough to spend time with that most readers are unlikely to mind and will still feel worry—and sorrow—over their fates. Maclean’s prose glistens, making every nook and cranny of Solace House seem real and alive while the use of relatively short chapters maintains a suspenseful momentum, even during the slower, early portions.

Flayne’s writings are discovered by the students and his poetry opens each chapter, offering a glimpse into his mind and of the answers Alex seeks. When the true nature of the poem is ascertained, it proves to be a marvel of construction that is impressive enough to warrant a read on its own and which must have proven a huge undertaking for the author. That it is surrounded by such a feast of a novel as well is all the more impressive.

Solace House is an enjoyably dense, mind-bending journey that leaves an irrepressible grin on the reader’s face as it sets their head spinning. It calls to mind other thrillingly thought-provoking writers like David Mitchell and Mark Z. Danielewski while remaining resolutely unique. While Maclean is adept at establishing eerie atmosphere, this isn’t a horror novel that is set on traditional scares, rather, it wants to leave a heavier, more impactful fear imprinted on readers, more akin to the cosmic, existential terror that Lovecraft’s best can elicit. Solace House succeeds on every front. ★★★★★