Catherine House: A Novel

Written by Elisabeth Thomas

Narrated by Inés del Castillo

“Elisabeth Thomas had me mesmerized from the first page. Dreamy and brimming with dread, Catherine House will swallow you whole.""  — Rory Power, New York Times bestselling author of Wilder Girls

Trust us, you belong here.

A gothic-infused debut of literary suspense, set within a secluded, elite university and following a dangerously curious, rebellious undergraduate who uncovers a shocking secret about an exclusive circle of students . . . and the dark truth beneath her school’s promise of prestige.

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years—summers included—completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.

Among this year’s incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline—only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. Even the school’s enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves within the formidable iron gates of Catherine. For Ines, it is the closest thing to a home she’s ever had. But the House’s strange protocols soon make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school—in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence—might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.

Combining the haunting sophistication and dusky, atmospheric style of Sarah Waters with the unsettling isolation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Catherine House is a devious, deliciously steamy, and suspenseful page-turner with shocking twists and sharp edges that is sure to leave readers breathless.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: May 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9780063005181

Elisabeth Thomas

Elisabeth Thomas grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where she still lives and now writes. She graduated from Yale University and currently works as an archivist for a modern art museum. This is her first novel.

Reviews for Catherine House

[ShaTonya Wooley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Simply excellent!!! I loved it! I can’t wait until I can read the next book!

[Meghan Macivor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is the equivalent of meandering through a fever dream. Gorgeous, lush, dark and sinister. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand it but I know it will always be with me.

[Iman Benet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A 5 STAR READ (Or listen) an absolutely incredible book. The atmosphere of this spooky boarding school is captured expertly - the dialogue is believable and heart felt and you’ll find yourself falling in love with even the most vicious of characters. Elizabeth Thomas you have OUT DONE yourself with this novel, I cannot wait to read what you’ve got up your sleeve next.

[Daniela Romero · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Super well written and engaging but I think it could have been much shorter due to its content. I wish there was more growth in the main character (her personality was very blah) and the ending fell flat for me. Pretty creative concept though and a lot of potential on the author.

[andy5185 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was awesome! Creepy, gothic college steeped in mystery. An antihero young woman protagonist with a dark past. I highly recommend this to anyone that likes suspenseful coming of age stories with a satisfying reveal. I am impressed this is a debut novel for Elisabeth Thomas and look forward to reading more from her.

[xaverie_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This might be a rating I change when I think about the book more.

[ciesea · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Last four-five chapters really made his book worth it. Beginning and middle were slightly boring an repetitive. But when it starts to pick up it really pick up.

[Jason Doerr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the claustrophobic atmosphere. I'm also glad I wasn't able to figure out the ending.

[Kady Hinckley · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought it would be more spooky than it is.

[eadieb-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thanks to LibraryThing and Harper Collins Publishers for a free book for an honest review. The book was part mystery & gothic realism. It‘s a bit slow but you have to stick with it in order to understand what is going on. I expected more mystery & horror as stated in book blurb so was disappointed in that respect. The book does have merit with the atmospheric house acting as a character having dark & disturbing secrets. Recommended

[claire9y · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Just didn’t click with me. And that chanting…OMG. Characters just exuded entitlement and self centeredness.

[leslie · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book was so boring, it’s just rambled on and on and on. The main character never got her act together despite her talents and her teachers encouragement.Even the big reveal of what the school is all about was easy to anticipate. I was so looking forward to this book and it was so disappointing.

[Rkookie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It wasn’t as creepy as the book cover is honestly I was coming up with ideas over and over again but non of the things mentioned in the book were like “WHOOOOAAAAAH”. I enjoyed it in both cases. Was a fun read.

[gingerbreadandtea · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Unlike any book I read, I thought it was amazing. Very atmospheric, focused on the location, it’s a book about a place more than anything else.

[Laura I Wise · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The writing is good and I found the premise and main character pretty compelling. The ending was anticlimactic as they come though.

[Susan Terendy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this creepy boarding school and its mysterious classes. The build was slow and methodical and although there was a bit of a lull in the middle enough weirdness kept happening to keep me enthralled. There wasn't any big climax or anything but I found the series of slow reveals to be just as horrific. The ending was straight out of The Handmaid's Tale playbook and its abruptness surprised me but I'm fine with imagining what came next. This was most definitely strange book and it won' be for everyone but it is a story that will haunt me for a long time. I need to listen to an ear-worm like "Baby Shark" to get that hypnotic chant out of my head! "You are in the house and the house is in the woods..."

I listened to the audiobook and the narration was excellent. She really nailed every character from the apathetic teens to the elegant teachers. Hearing that chant over and over it felt like I was the one being hypnotized and it was even more disturbing than in print.

[sashastorylover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Such fascinating unique adult novel about a cult like private university and its secrets (paranormal secrets?). The protagonist is rather apathetic and going-with-the-flow protagonist, I liked her. She was well crafted and real. The best part is the gothic haunted house vibe like story. Inés del Castillo has done great job narrating the book.
Also kudos to casual queerness, the MC is bi/pan/queer plus they are other queer side characters.

[Ashley Reynolds · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

loved this book so much, I finished it all in one night!!!!

[Nikki Hummel · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have less than three hours left and I literally cannot bring myself to finish this book. I keep trying and immediately stopping because I am so over the monotony. In the beginning, I really was enjoying the book just due to the beautiful imagery alone. However, once I was halfway through and realized there REALLY is no plot, I started to lose interest. This book just drags on and onnnn about absolutely nothing at all. If the book was cut in half I probably would enjoy it a lot more but at this point I am so completely annoyed by it that I don’t even want to know how it ends.

[Alexandra Jane Welcome · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I do not understand what I just read. Literally nothing happens. Ines is boring and not unique, yet she's for some reason treated like the most intriguing individual at the school. I've also never read a book with so many descriptions of smells.

[Miriam Gomez · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It was good I enjoy thee narrator tell the story that you feel you in each character I would say to pick it up or listen it done well

[adriannavila · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved the author's writing style, I would read another of their books. I especially enjoyed the setting of this book. This book made me think a lot about my own schooling and college experience.

[muddyboy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A really captivating novel about a secluded school (Catherine House) where students are forced to leave their pasts behind. The novel reminds me of the song Hotel California as for some once they get there they may never leave. There are lots of secrets at the school including a substance called plasma that some of the faculty are experimenting with on both animal and human subjects. The primary character (Ines) is struggling with her relationships with others and her place at the school. She becomes a renegade trying to get to the bottom of the school's secrets. Areally great novel.

[katybee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is an otherworldly quality to this novel that is very unsettling. Set inside an exclusive private college, the carefully selected students are allowed no contact with the outside world at all for 3 years. Descriptions of the strange coursework, the food and decadent partying, the louche ennui, and the hypnotic rituals conducted by the school are dreamlike and creepy. Students in need of 'rehabilitation' are taken to a horrible isolation tower that is a nightmare. Some of the scenes of the warm, intense bonding of 18-to-20-year-olds 'finding their own people' in a demanding college are well imagined. And the revelations about secret pseudo-science research projects are mildly interesting. By the end, it was a relief to close the book and leave this time-warped, shadowy world behind.

[lorifox · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Random. Odd. Intriguing. Subtly dark, with an ambiguous ending. These words flitted through my mind as I stumbled through a story that felt like a weird episode of The Magicians. Even after finishing the book, I still don’t really get the point of the story. It felt unfinished, anti-climactic, unknowable, like a vivid dream recently awoken from that is too tangled and too random to describe coherently. There is a house, a school, students, professors, mind-control and mass hypnosis, plasm, secret experiments, mystery, ambiguity. Yet how to link them into any sort of decipherable pattern defies logic. I liked the writing. The plot was intriguing, but the ending left me with a what-the-hell-did-I-just-read kind of feeling. I have a feeling that this book will stay with me for a while, not in a pleasant recall of the story, but as a haunting, an eerie mind-fuck that is as unforgettable as it is indecipherable.

[janarose1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

When accepted into Catherine House, it's students agree to give up the next three years of their life in complete devotion. They are not allowed contact with the outside world, and have no access to the internet or television. Ines, running from her past, is a disinterested and lackluster student. As she begins to learn the secrets of the house, she is both fascinated and repelled by its experiments and hidden agenda.This book was a bit bland. The characters lacked personality and the plot line moved extremely slowly. There wasn't enough of a mystery, or secret, to keep me engaged and I found myself just plodding along. Overall, a bust.

[over.the.edge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Catherine Houseby Elisabeth ThomasCustom House2020Thanks to Custom House, LibraryThing and the author for sending this ARC for review. A gothic novel, with sci-fi twists and a mysterious school of dubious intent.Catherine House is a posh, private school, said to have produced some of the best minds in the world. Inventors, writers, artists; all were admitted to this school. Admission was not easy- you must give up her past and everything about yourself. Including your family.In return, they promised success for four years at the House.Ines is one of a group admitted to the school, it is considered an honor. She is not doing well, missing her family, cutting class and staying in an alcohol induced oblivion, barely passing her classes. Once the headmistress sees Ines having problems, she sends her for Restoration Treatment to help her forget her past. Ines begins to learn secrets about the school and its treatment that changes everything for her.I really loved the slow build, and the diversity of characters, which is unusual in many gothic themed novels. The story is easy to follow and become involved with, and has a few twists that keep the story flowing.I am impressed by this first novel by Elizabeth Thomas and definitely am enthusiastic to read more by her.

[upstairsgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So strange and beautifully written. Slightly unsatisfying narratively but just delightfully weird.

[bookczuk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Pandemic read. Had some interesting elements, but didn't quite hang together for me, and the end was quite abrupt.

[wcath · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Catherine House is an exclusive boarding school that gives it's students a free education and pretty much guarantees graduates a successfull career and extremely beneficial networking with it's rich and powerful alumnae. In exchange, students are required to give the school four years, completely cut off from the outside world. No phones, no TV, no Internet or social media. Communication with family or friends is earned and must be paid for with points. The gothic touches were good but sometimes the hints at a dark secret were a little too vague and arcane and eventually lost some of their suspense. Ines, the title character has come to Catherine House because she is running away from a dark past. Her hopes are to remake herself into a better person and to insure that her future is successful. She finds that there are few rules for behaviour and many of the students while away their days in hedonistic pleasures. There are, however, strict rules about where students can and cannot go on campus. Also, you can do pretty much whatever you want but you cannot leave the grounds until after graduation.I enjoyed the book and rated it 4 stars out of 5. I can't say that it will end up on my top 10 list for the year, but it is a good story, if a bit esoteric. The students do drink and have a lot of sex and there is language that some might find offensive. So if any of that is off-putting I would say to steer clear. If you like Gothic suspense and you don't mind waiting a while for a real payoff, you may enjoy Catherine House. (Review based on complimentary Advance Reader copy.)