# Read the first page of How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix Read the opening of How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix free, no signup. A woman returns home to clear her late parents' puppet-filled house. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/how-to-sell-a-haunted-house-grady-hendrix - Genre: Horror - Year: 2023 - ISBN: 9780593201282 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780593201282&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780593201282 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9780593201282 ## The opening Louise thought it might not go well, so she told her parents she was pregnant over the phone, from three thousand miles away, in San Francisco. It wasn't that she had a single doubt about her decision. When those two parallel pink lines had ghosted into view, all her panic dissolved and she heard a clear, certain voice inside her head say: I'm a mother now. But even in the twenty-first century it was hard to predict how a pair of Southern parents would react to the news that their thirty-four-year-old unmarried daughter was pregnant. Louise spent all day rehearsing different scripts that would ease them into it, but the minute her mom answered and her dad picked up the kitchen extension, her mind went blank and she blurted out: "I'm pregnant." She braced herself for the barrage of questions. Are you sure? Does Ian know? Are you going to keep it? Have you thought about moving back to Charleston? Are you certain this is the best thing? Do you have any idea how hard this will be alone? How are you going to manage? In the long silence, she prepared her answers: Yes, not yet, of course, God no, but I'm doing it anyway, yes, I'll manage. Over the phone she heard someone inhale through what sounded like a mouthful of water and realized her mom was crying. "Oh, Louise," her mother said in a thick voice, and Louise prepared herself for the worst. "I'm so happy. You're going to be the mother I wasn't." Her dad only had one question: her exact street address. "I don't want any confusion with the cab driver when we land." "Dad," Louise said, "you don't have to come right now." "Of course we do," he said. "You're our Louise." She waited for them on the sidewalk, her heart pounding every time a car turned the corner, until finally a dark blue Nissan slowed to a stop in front of her building and her dad helped her mom out of the back seat, and she couldn't wait—she threw herself into her mom's arms like she was a little kid again. They took her crib shopping and stroller shopping and told Louise she was crazy to even consider a cloth diaper service, and discussed feeding techniques and vaccinations and a million decisions Louise would have to make, and bought snot suckers and diapers and onesies, and receiving blankets and changing pads and wipes, and rash cream and burp cloths and rattles and night-lights, and Louise would've thought they'd bought way too much if her mother hadn't said, "You've hardly bought anything at all." She couldn't even blame them for having a hard time with the whole Ian issue. "Married or not, we have to meet his family," her mom said. "We're going to be co-grandparents." ## Books with a similar feel - [The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-drowning-kind-jennifer-mcmahon.md) - [A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman](https://uncovered.ink/read/a-house-at-the-bottom-of-a-lake-josh-malerman.md) - [Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay Chapman](https://uncovered.ink/read/wake-up-and-open-your-eyes-clay-chapman.md) - [We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer](https://uncovered.ink/read/we-used-to-live-here-marcus-kliewer.md) - [The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-last-house-on-needless-street-catriona-ward.md) - [The Handyman Method by Nick Cutter](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-handyman-method-nick-cutter.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.