101 Horror Books – The Switch House: Is That You Ma-me?

The Switch House by Tim Meyer is a short novel about a couple who recently lost their young son. As both an escape and a way to get extra money to help them afford to move from a home filled with too many disturbing memories, Angela and Terry Shepard agree to star in a reality TV show. In it, families switch houses for two months. The novel begins after the Shepards have returned home and Angela is having strange nightmares that bleed into the daytime.

All the books from 101 Horror books are linked back here.

So far, I haven’t been overly interested in the haunted house books from 101 Horror Books. The Switch House was a mystery nesting doll. Often my favorite part of a good horror novel is unraveling the reasons. I love the why. There were layers to what happened to Angela and Terry. Why was the house suddenly haunting them? Who could be trusted? What is real? And most importantly, what really happened to their son? The clues are well laid out and a careful reader will beat the story to the conclusion, but I don’t think that overly ruins the ending. The ‘haunting’ is both a deeply disturbing reflection of Angela’s guilt and mental state, but also is sometimes a bit corny. The term Dream Goblin really pulled me out of the narrative. But ultimately this is a solid recommendation and is available as of this writing on Kindle Unlimited or you can buy it like I did for $2.99.

Plot summary time. Skip out if you want to keep it a secret.

Angela is dreaming. She walks through a hellish nightmare realm and into a house that isn’t quite hers. It’s in a horrible state of neglect and ruin. She feels as if the house is alive. A small boy crawls into the living room. He looks up at her and says, ‘Ma-me’. A realization that what Angela sees is not a boy, but some type of evil rolls over her. (Girl, you are in a hellscape. Assume the children are evil.) It bites her and she wakes.

She is telling her therapist, Abbie, about her dream. Abbie asks what she thinks it means. May I just say that as a bit of a therapy connoisseur, this happens in books all the time but has never happened to me in real life. Is this a thing that they do? Angela says these dreams stopped for a while but restarted after she returned from filming for Switch two days ago. Terry and Angela were pushed by the directors to talk about the tragedy, but Terry wasn’t very open. We get the sense that their marriage hasn’t been great since the loss of their son. Which, I think, makes sense. That would mess up even the best relationship. It’s probably not helping that Angela is hiding her therapy from Terry. She thinks he’ll be judgemental.

Abbie asks how the sex is going between the couple. And is a little rude when Angela tells her that they haven’t had any. They even filmed a failed attempt for the show. This is why going on reality TV has never helped anyone’s relationship. Ever. Angela says she still loves Terry but doesn’t seem sure.

Terry must have felt the shift in the universe because when Angela arrives home, he’s making her a nice dinner. Trying to rekindle the love they once had. Angela questions his motives, which is a strange choice, and he apologizes for being a bit of an ass on the show. They agree to figure out a way to sell the house and get away from its memories.

That night, Angela takes a 3am bathroom break only to see a ship get capsized by a kraken through a pinhole in the wall. Must be a very tiny kraken. She wakes Terry who only sees insulation. He reasonably assumes she was having a waking dream. She’s calmed by his rationality and they kiss. I get it. I love a logical man.

It’s time for the Switch House premiere! Angela and Terry settle on the couch to watch. You could not pay me to watch myself on television. Sounds like torture, but they’re kinda excited. They do the standard opening, introduce the concept, then the cast, capitalize on the tragedy. Nothing isn’t for sale folks. Turns out the woman they switched with, Rosalyn Jefferies had recently lost her husband. Two families in the midst of grief. Compelling television. In the confession booth, Terry says he doesn’t blame Angela for the loss of their son. So, instantly, I wonder what she did? Why he would?

It isn’t until partway through the episode when things get weird. Terry is watching Rosalyn buy some ice cream. But Angela sees the home covered in strange symbols, with Rosalyn decapitating chickens and performing unsettling rituals. Through the TV, Rosalyn warns Angela to stay out of the house. Terry tells Angela he didn’t see anything like that. He thinks she’ll be fine, though. I feel like this is emergency room behavior.

Angela lets her therapist know what she saw at their next session. Abbie prescribes her medication to reduce the hallucinations. This is very reasonable to me. She tells her she needs to go to some off beat pharmacy because it isn’t FDA approved. This seems very unreasonable. Especially when Angela shows up, and the pharmacy doesn’t seem to stock any real medication. Just weird shit. And she doesn’t even have to pay for it? No ma’am. I’ll stick with the hallucinations. The pharmacy tech tells Angela she watched the show. She says, ‘Your son is still alive…. in your hearts’. Then she holds a cross and prays in an unknown language. Yea, this place is not on the up and up. Outside the pharmacy, Angela sees Rosalyn watching her.

Terry and Angela sit down to dinner, where he finally suggests she do something about her obvious mental crisis. She admits she has already started therapy, and he is totally chill with that. His understanding and support are a real turn on and for the first time since their loss, they sleep together. Terry even leaves a sweet love note for Angela to find in the morning. But Angela sees Rosalyn’s car outside and doesn’t have time to enjoy her newly renewed love. Instead, she calls the cops. Feels like a bit of an overreaction for her showing up, but I will say just showing up to someone’s house is serial killer behavior. I best get a text first. Rosalyn knows the score though and simply shouts through the door that Angela should seek her out if she needs help. She needs so much help. But maybe not Rosalyn’s kind of help.

That night Angela has her worst nightmare/hallucination, so I guess the drugs don’t work. She wakes up to get a glass of water but when she returns to her room it is, I assume, literal hell. People with eyes and mouths sewn shut in various forms of torture shuffle around her. Very Dante of them. She eventually finds Terry, who is drawn and quartered. But not by horses. When she wakes, everything seems fine. But this is a bridge too far for Angela and after lying to Terry about visiting her parents, she goes to find Rosalyn.

On the way, she calls the producer of Switch to get any information he has about Rosalyn. Turns out that although they did a background check that was clean, they missed she was part of a cult. A woman named Ester Moore ran it. Investigators discovered one immolated cult member, yet no charges were ever pursued. So it’s all good. Probably. Angela disagrees. She also calls Abbie to let her know that the drugs really, really didn’t work. She tells her she’s on her way to Rosalyn’s, which Abbie vehemently recommends against. There’s no stopping this train now though, and Angela keeps on driving.

Rosalyn’s not home when Angela gets there, so she lets herself in. The house is full of the same ritualistic chicken murder that Angela saw during the first episode of Switch. Before she can take it all in Rosalyn returns and offers to explain. Basically, Angela is being attacked by a mare, or dream goblin. It wants her house, and also the baby she is pregnant with! Angela is on the pill but the medication she is taking for her hallucinations has a warning label saying that it makes birth control not work. (I cannot stress enough that she had sex like 2 days ago. And never in the prior 9 months.) Apparently, these goblins can become a person in your life to trick you. So now she’s pretty suspicious of that pharmacy tech. Oh, and the goblin has her son. This is a lot to take in.

Angela agrees to do this location ritual and Rosalyn heads out to get her favorite grimoire. Because sometimes 2nd best won’t do. Angela waits for way too long and goes to look for Rosalyn. Surprise! She’s been decapitated by a saw. And she totally called the cops, so Angela needs to bust out. She races back home before the police arrive.

Abbie is at her house chatting up Terry. Inviting him to join one of the therapy sessions. This violates HIPPA. So many violations, actually. Angela is surprised, but when one flees from the police, they can’t focus too much on how their privacy has been invaded.

She’s taking a bath when an insane Terry comes in. He threatens her with a knife, forces her to say their son’s name, William, on penalty of death, and then makes her take a pregnancy test which is impossibly positive. He tells her he knew all about her trip to Rosalyn and that he killed her. And he tells her he talked to the crazy cult leader Ester. That if they give the goblin thing, the new baby, they can get their son back. He has lost it. Angela thinks he must be the dream goblin. I’d suspect I was hallucinating again, maybe first, but she isn’t all there.

Lots of info dump here but, we learn Angela told the cops she last saw William in the shed. She sticks with this story to Terry. Really, she took him to the mall and gave him over to some strangers who offered to take him because he was special. He has some type of special needs and Angela was overwhelmed and Terry was both unwilling to accept his diagnosis or be a helpful, involved parent. This is all inter-cut with Angel and Terry fighting in the shed until she kills him. And now the cops show up. Obviously, they knew she was the last person seen at Rosalyn’s. Girl is going to jail.

Cut to 10 months later…Angela is in jail and Barry, the producer, has come to see her. He wants to once again monetize her tragedy. There’s been a nationwide search for William, but he hasn’t been found. Angela believes she gave birth, but the jail says it didn’t happen and she was never pregnant. Dozens of negative tests were found at her house. She is charged with both the murder of Terry and Rosalyn, but insists she didn’t kill her. The guards say Angela is violently insane. But she signs the documents from Barry and a new reality show is set to begin.

Another 2 months later… A woman and young boy walk into Angela and Terry’s old house. To the shock of the real estate agent, they decide to buy. No one wants it given the disrepair and the tragedy that happened there. But this woman does. Abbie does. William looks up at his mom. He remembers that she goes by a lot of names. She used to be Ester.

And so it ends. How crazy is Angela? Is she at all? I had fun figuring everything out as I read. It’s a great, quick read. Pick it up here if you’re interested!