Phillip’s fifteen year old daughter Jessie is the only one in the house when Karen arrives.  Jessie and Karen have never met.  Phillip didn’t even tell Jessie about Karen until after the wedding ceremony.  Not a great start for their relationship.

Shortly after moving in, Karen realizes how much her husband didn’t tell her and how little she really knows about him.  Jessie’s been home schooled and sheltered ever since finding her mother hanging in the attic.  It is Jessie’s home school teacher who reveals to Karen that Phillip’s first wife hanged herself.  She also reveals that they live in Lettie Hatch’s house.

Lettie Hatch is Provincetown, Massachusetts’ local version of Lizzie Borden.  Like Lizzie, Lettie also has a charming children’s rhyme:

Lettie Hatch took a butcher knife, and with it took her father’s life.  To put an end to all her strife, she used it then on her father’s wife.

Back in the early 1920’s Lettie was tried for the murder of her father Horace and stepmother Sarah Jane.  While Lettie was found not guilty, everyone still believes that Lettie did it.

Horace married Sarah Jane, who was barely older than Lettie, only telling Lettie after the fact.  Horace was a chauvinistic pig.  Sarah Jane was a suffragist when Horace, a senator, met her in Washington, DC.  After marriage he treated her like chattel and left her behind in Provincetown.  He barely acknowledged his own daughter.  Horace expected Lettie to make a respectable marriage from which he could benefit.  Sarah Jane and Lettie were resentful of their own lives and took it out on each other.

History starts to repeat itself.  Creepy houses might be good for a horror novelist but not for a family.  Jessie is dreaming of Lettie’s life and hearing Lettie’s voice in her head.  Karen is dreaming of Sarah Jane’s life and hearing Sarah Jane’s voice in her head.  Chris, Jessie’s boyfriend, is having the same dreams and thoughts of Samuel, Lettie’s boyfriend.  Then Karen finds Lettie’s diary in the attic.  This is Karen’s big break; she can write the real story of the Hatch family.  As Karen becomes obsessed with the story, the voices begin to take over. 

Ross has created a well written story where the characters actions make sense in the context.  It’s not hard to believe that Karen becomes obsessed and possessed with the house and the past.  Karen’s star struck when she marries Phillip.  She’s sure that her marriage will be perfect and rosy because he’s the perfect man.  She doesn’t see that after six months she barely knows him or that no man is perfect.  Anyone that naïve can be credibly portrayed as a woman convinced by an evil that the world is out get her.

Karen’s and Jessie’s relationship is turbulent from the start.  What teenaged girl wants a new mom only eight years older?  Another sign of Karen’s immaturity is taking Jessie’s coldness as rejection.  She’s a teenager.  They’re not known for dealing well with emotions.  Jessie’s feelings of loneliness and Karen’s feelings of rejection help feed the house’s evil spirits.

In the first few pages it is obvious that Phillip is a self-centered jerk.  The man barely knows his daughter because and tells her about his marriage afterwards.  He insists that Karen move into his home while he is traveling.  Only a jerk would leave his new wife alone to move into his home and then wouldn’t be there to introduce his daughter.

Never Look Back is a fast read that goes on a little too long.  It’s very obvious early on that today’s characters are being possessed by history’s characters.  The possession of the characters is bit overdone.  Waiting for the story to move on is what keeps Never Look Back from a recommendation.  Otherwise lovers of gothic horror novels will want to read this book.

--Terry Lawrence