At this point, I only really trust a horror novel if it’s written by T. Kingfisher. Anyone else is on thin ice.

In The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher, Melissa (called Mouse by her friends) gets a call from her father one day. His health is in decline, but he never asks her for help with anything—until now. It’s time to finally clean out Mouse’s grandmother’s house, even though she moved into assisted living two years previous, and passed away a while back. Mouse agrees to do it, and heads to North Carolina. There, she finds the house to be a nightmare: turns out, her grandmother was a hoarder. She tackles the job, and soon finds something strange in the form of a diary written by her step-grandfather. The more she reads, the more concerned she is. What was really going on in this place? And what are the odd knocking noises at night? And where, exactly, did the strange carved stone in the front yard come from?

Like I implied, Kingfisher is, at this point, my favorite supernatural horror writer currently. There’s something about her writing style that draws you in. Maybe it’s the conversational narrative voice, or maybe it’s the vivid and sometimes horrifying imagery, but either way, I had a hard time putting this book down.

Mouse is a relatable protagonist, generally. She’s willing to help her father, even when the task seems insurmountable. Then, her curiosity fuels the rest of her actions, as does her desire to see this whole thing through to the end. She’s not really the stereotypical horror protagonist who bumbles down the dark corridor, and her actions make sense. I also really loved the other characters, especially Tomas, Enid, and Foxy. Oh, and Bongo the dog, of course.

Beyond the cast, there’s something about this setting that is so compelling, at once familiar—the wooded hills of eastern America—but also unsettling. You can almost smell the fresh air and hear the rustle of leaves. Yet it’s this palpable place that makes it even more thrilling and creepy when the strange things start happening. And the gradual escalation is done so well, building in intensity. The events coincide with Mouse discovering more and more of the truth, and the increased understanding of what’s happening makes it all the more horrible.

There’s one particularly memorable moment when Mouse wakes in the middle of the night to Bongo growling. She peers toward the window and finds… something, looking inside. It’s an absolutely chilling scene, and I cannot stop thinking about it. But I’m also trying to be vague to avoid spoilers. Just know that it’s a fantastic moment.

The final act of the book leans hard into the supernatural elements of the story. Somehow, at least for me, this made it a little less scary. What was happening was just so remote from reality that some of the horror and revulsion was lessened. Still, it’s a great sequence, with monsters and bizarre sights and magic. And then, the climactic moment is everything I wanted, full of heart-pounding fear and a fight for survival against intimidating odds. Everything comes together, the separate elements of the story united in a creepy but incredible scene.

In the end, The Twisted Ones is a marvelous story, full of layers and sinister, suspenseful moments. There’s kind of a metanarrative going on, not only with Mouse’s account of her experiences and her step-grandfather’s tale, but also in that the entire story is sort of in conversation with an Arthur Machen short story from last century called “The White People.” I’ve never read this story, but The Twisted Ones works as its own thing anyway. From its personable characters to its enrapturing setting, from its building intensity to its stunning apotheosis, I had a fantastic time reading it.