The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer
Atria/Emily Bestler Books (April 21, 2026)
There is no sophomore slump for Marcus Kliewer, whose We Used to Live Here terrified readers with its ominous tone underscoring perfectly paced horror. The Caretaker has this same feel, with a simple premise that takes an old story and makes it seem like something new.
EXCITING OPPORTUNITY:
Caretaker urgently needed. Three days of work. Competitive pay. Serious applicants only.
Macy Mullins is hanging on a thread, with rent overdue and her younger sister Jemma dependent upon her after their father’s death in a car accident three years prior. The ad Macy sees on Craigslist does seem like the stuff of horror movies, but she has no other options. She’s buried in college debt and unable to find other work that can keep her and her sister afloat. She boards a bus to a find herself in Brooksview Heights, an affluent, wooded area of Oregon where Grace Carnswell needs a weekend house caretaker who is able to maintain the “rites” vigilantly followed by her deceased husband, David.
Everything about the set-up screams for Macy to run–from the eerie setting in the middle of nowhere, to the suspiciously generous salary for a weekend job, to the VHS tape Grace provides featuring David outlining the bizarre rites to follow no matter what. At 3:00 AM–the witching hour–Macy is to ensure the lights stay on. She is to answer landline calls from mysterious “visitors” and strictly follow any instructions they provide. Never allow rabbits inside–especially white rabbits–and always, always, FOLLOW THE RITES.
Despite the red flags, Macy takes the job. She’s on the verge of homelessness, and the money is simply too much to pass up. She reports for duty.
Already buzzing with trepidation, Macy settles in for a long first night, allowing dark thoughts of her own to filter in as she waits for the witching hour. Truly, the weight of the world is in her shoulders, from the death of her own parent to the responsibility of caring fora teenager when she’s barely an adult herself.
Mostly, Macy feels like a failure, a nothing. Someone without a purpose except to protect Jemma, but she can’t even afford her sister’s asthma inhaler that’s been sitting at CVS for three months.
Her phone alarm buzzes. It’s nearly three in the morning, time for the witching hour.
Macy doesn’t really believe the rites are necessary, that they aren’t the product of the paranoid delusions of an eccentric, wealthy man. At least, she doesn’t want to believe they’re necessary. She can feel there’s something more to this property, the tasks with which she’s been entrusted, and so can the reader. The undercurrent of energy foretells that something awful is around the corner..
At the arrival of this witching hour, the action ratchets from a slow simmer to a boil and stays there.
Macy slips. A light switches off and remains dark for longer than the allotted three minutes. This creates a snowball effect of Macy needing to satisfy the rites, to follow the instructions provided in letters left behind by David or in phone calls from strangers who know her name. They warn Macy that if she fails to follow the rites, to redeem her mistakes by adhering to their instructions, a red sun will rise and doom humanity.
The Caretaker has the perfect pitch, the perfect tone, for horror, with Macy stumbling from one mistake to another as she tries to survive the horror of unearthly visitors and save humanity from damnation. It’s Cabin in the Woods, elevated, with a protagonist who is only too aware of her past failings and unsure of her ability to pull through when the stakes literally could not be higher.
The atmosphere and the individual scenes are fantastic, to include the details added to enhance the horror. The pale blue eyes of the visitors, the popping of lightbulbs, the feel of the dank, dark woods . . . Kliewer captures it all, trapping the reader alongside Macy as she fights and claws to the end of not letting a red sun rise. The demons she faces are both unearthly and personal, the manifestations of her darkest fears.
Macy cannot fail here, not again. This time, more than her own future is at stake.
Lightning strikes twice, with Kliewer’s follow-up to We Used to Live Here pulling off the same magic in another skin-crawling horror masterpiece with an utterly shattering ending.
About the reviewer: A writer of dark comedy thrillers, Sarah Reida is currently seeking representation for her sophomore novel, Murder Boat. Her debut, Neighborhood Watch, received a Kirkus Star and was honored as an Amazon editorial pick as one of the Best Books of the Year So Far 2024. Join Sarah’s elite group of Instagram followers here.
