Published April 21, 2026 by Atria/Emily Bestler Books/12:01 Books
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’m going to be honest straight off the bat about this book. I didn't understand the first thing about what was happening in The Caretaker. The rites? Weird as hell. The house? Completely bizarre. My understanding of what was happening? Hanging on by a thread.
The Caretaker is the kind of horror where (thankfully) you don't need all the answers. You just need to know that something is very, very wrong and keep reading as it gets worse. Kliewer piles on the weirdness, making the tension in this book so freaking good. I kept turning pages because I needed to know what fresh nightmare Macy was going to stumble into next.
Macy isn’t the clever horror girl who makes the right decisions. She's majorly the opposite, in fact. Annoying, but understandable. She’s desperate, grieving her father, and struggling financially. She knows the job is bonkers, but $9,000 is a lot of cash. The horror isn’t just that Macy is trapped in a house with these weird rituals. It’s that she feels like she can't afford to walk away, and she's very self-aware. It's what makes her more human and gives the story emotional consequence. Otherwise, this could have easily turned into two hundred pages of Look-at-this-creepy-house-doing-creepy-house-stuff.
It's not completely bleak though. Macy's relationship with her sister was actually one of my favorite parts and brought much-needed humor. The running horror-movie popcorn commentary in her sister's voice that Macy hears in her head, pointing out all the ways she's the dumb girl in the horror movie, was fantastic. You know, like running upstairs from the killer when the front door is right there. It was a good, if short, break from the weight of Macy's gloom.
Ultimately, the house gets creepier, the rites get stranger, and the tension keeps building as Macy races against the clock to complete the next ritual. Did I spend a good portion of this book thinking, "WTF is going on?" Yeah, most of it, in fact, but what I can tell you is I was completely hooked. I needed to know what was behind the next door, in the next envelope, what was going on with the rabbits, and exactly how catastrophic things were going to get.
The rites don’t need to make sense. They just need to be followed. What could possibly go wrong?
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