Follow the Rites…

Nothing less than the survival of humanity is at stake.

From Marcus Kliewer, a new “titan of the macabre and unsettling” (Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author), comes a supernatural horror about a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist, only to discover the position has consequences far greater—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined.

EXCITING OPPORTUNITY:
Caretaker urgently needed. Three days of work. Competitive pay. Serious applicants ONLY.

Macy Mullins can’t say why the job posting grabbed her attention—it had the pull of a fisherman’s lure, barbed hook and all—vaguely ominous. But after an endless string of failed job interviews, she’s not exactly in the position to be picky. She has rent to pay, groceries to buy, and a younger sister to provide for.

Besides, it’s only three days’ work…

Three days, cooped up in a stranger’s house, surrounded by Oregon Coast wilderness.

What starts as a peculiar side gig soon becomes a waking nightmare. An incomprehensible evil may dwell on this property—and Macy Mullins might just be the only thing standing between it, and the rest of humanity.

Follow the Rites…

Follow the Rites…

Follow the Rites…

..— / ….. / —..

I read Marcus Kliewer’s We Live Here Now last year and thought it was a really fun, trippy read that messed with my head. I still think about that ending sometimes. So when this book was announced, I preordered it on the spot. I couldn’t wait to dive in.

Y’all. This book was absolutely nuts.

It’s tense, it’s creepy as hell, and it’s one of those books that’s almost impossible to put down. It clocks in at just under 300 pages, and it moves. Fast. I started it late at night thinking I’d read a chapter or two, and I had to force myself to put it away. This could easily be a single-sitting read if you’ve got the time.

Macy Mullins is in a rough spot. She’s been striking out on job interviews, the bills are piling up, and she’s looking after her asthmatic younger sister on top of it all. Then she stumbles across a job listing that’s hard to resist. Three days of caretaker work at a private property on the Oregon coast, the pay is solid, no real questions asked. She isn’t in any position to turn down good money (hello $9,000), and three days isn’t long, so off she goes. The house is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and ocean, and the longer she’s there, the more it becomes obvious that this isn’t a normal gig. Something is in this house. Or on the property. Or watching from the trees. And Macy may have just signed up to keep it from getting loose. All she has to do is follow some very specific rules and if she can do this, she prevents the world from ending. Of course the rules can’t be for real, but she’ll do them anyway. But the more time passes, the more she wonders if this isn’t for real, and how much is she willing to gamble that it’s not?

Kliewer is great at this kind of dread. The chapters are short, which keeps the engine running constantly, and every time you think you’ve got a handle on what’s happening, the floor shifts under you. The pacing is one of the biggest strengths here. There’s no warmup. The book gets its hooks in early and never really lets go.

What I loved most was how slippery the reality of the book stays. Macy is dealing with mental health stuff of her own, and the book does a great job making you constantly question what she’s actually seeing. Is the house haunted? Is she having a breakdown? Are the rules she’s being given real or imaginary? You’re in her head with her, second-guessing everything. It’s an effective trick because it raises the stakes in two directions at once. Either the supernatural threat is real, or her mind is unraveling. Both are scary.

The things she has to do to keep whatever this is contained are completely bonkers, and the book leans into that. The rites, the rules, the rituals that keep multiplying. There’s a moment where you, as the reader, have to make the same call she does. Could she walk away? Sure. But what if the warnings are real? What if the threats actually mean something? That uncertainty is what kept me locked in. The cost of bailing might be small, or it might be everything.

Macy is a great main character to spend a book with. She’s tired, scared, and resourceful. She’s making bad choices because the good ones aren’t really available to her, and that felt grounded. The supporting pieces of the story are creepy in a way that earns the scares instead of just trying to gross you out. The atmosphere is heavy without ever feeling overdone. The Oregon setting, all that fog and forest and isolation, is doing a lot of work too (even if some of the geography and the names were a little off.)

If you’re into horror that takes itself seriously, that builds dread instead of just relying on jump scares, that messes with your head and keeps you guessing about what’s real, this is the book. Believe the hype on this one. It earns it. I will absolutely reread this one. There’s enough going on under the surface that I think a second pass will pay off, and I want to see how the early stuff hits once I know where things end up.

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