The Sisters of Crimson House by Melissa Anderson Sweazy: A Southern Gothic about family secrets and inherited expectations

Melissa Anderson Sweazy’s The Sisters of Crimson House is a Southern Gothic horror novel about a family of psychics, a haunted Memphis mansion, and the secrets that can shape a person’s entire understanding of who they are. I have to admit that I approached this book with some skepticism. Lately, just about every book I’ve read that has been compared to Practical Magic has turned out to be a dud for me, so when I opened the description of The Sisters of Crimson House and saw that comparison, I groaned. Out loud. But I had already received the ARC, so I figured I might as well give it a chance.

Fortunately, The Sisters of Crimson House turned out to be better than the recent Practical Magic comps that have disappointed me. It isn’t a book I would put in the same category as one of my favorites, but there was enough going on to keep me reading, and that’s something. At least I didn’t DNF this one.

At the center of the story is Charly Bryde, the only woman in her family’s long line of famous psychics who apparently didn’t inherit the family gift. Growing up in Crimson House, the Bryde family mansion in Memphis, Charly has spent much of her life feeling like the lesser sister, especially compared with Miranda, who possesses the abilities Charly lacks. When tragedy tears the family apart and Miranda disappears, Charly is left to figure out how to keep herself and the family legacy afloat.

Her solution is to turn Crimson House into a haunted attraction while taking on the public role of psychic herself. The problem, of course, is that Charly is a fraud. She doesn’t have the supernatural abilities her family is famous for, so she relies on carefully constructed readings, observation, and a willingness to play along with what people want to believe. It’s an entertaining setup, particularly once a skeptic begins questioning whether Charly is really what she claims to be.

But the skepticism surrounding Charly eventually exposes something much deeper than whether she can read tarot cards. The novel gradually reveals that Charly’s understanding of her own place in the Bryde family is based on assumptions and secrets that go back much further than she realizes. The haunted house isn’t the only thing in Crimson House with something buried beneath the surface.

That family dynamic is where I found the book most interesting. Charly has spent her entire life believing one thing about herself and her role within her family, only to discover that the truth is essentially the opposite of what she thought. That revelation doesn’t simply provide a late-story twist. It forces Charly to reconsider how she has understood herself, her sister, and the people who raised her. The novel is interested in what happens when a person builds an identity around a lie, even when that lie was supposedly intended to protect her.

---

---

It also asks what those secrets do to the people who keep them. Miranda and the other members of the Bryde family aren’t simply withholding information for the sake of creating a mystery. Their choices have consequences, and the longer those secrets remain hidden, the more complicated the relationships between the sisters become. The supernatural elements give those family tensions a darker dimension, but underneath the ghosts and psychic abilities, this is also a story about the damage that can be done when families decide they know what another person needs to know about her own life.

I also appreciated that the ending wasn’t what I expected. After spending much of the novel wondering where the various pieces were leading, I wasn’t able to completely predict how everything would come together. The resolution gives the story a distinctive direction rather than simply wrapping up the haunted-house elements in the most obvious way.

The writing is solid, and there is enough atmosphere and mystery to make Crimson House an effective setting for the story. I wouldn’t say that The Sisters of Crimson House completely overcame my general resistance to the recent Practical Magic comparison trend, but it did prove that not every book carrying that comparison is destined to disappoint me. This one held my attention, gave me some entertaining moments, and delivered an ending that surprised me. Sometimes that’s enough.

If you enjoy Southern Gothic horror, haunted houses, psychic families, and stories about the secrets families keep from one another, this may be worth adding to your fall reading list. And if you’re looking for another book about supernatural forces, family secrets, and things that refuse to stay buried, you might also enjoy my own novel, Demons of the Night. It explores some similar territory from a very different direction, with its own blend of supernatural horror and family secrets.

Have you read The Sisters of Crimson House or any of the other recent books compared to Practical Magic? Do those comparisons make you more likely to pick up a book—or make you more skeptical? Let me know in the comments.

The Sisters of Crimson House by Melissa Anderson Sweazy will be released September 29, 2026. An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Join the conversation

If you love books that stay with you—and enjoy thinking about them long after you’ve turned the final page—subscribe to get new literary analyses and writing tips from Write on the World!

Related Content

• Demons of the Night: A horror novel about good, evil, and finding your own path (Write on the World)
• Read more witch fiction! (Write on the World)
• How supernatural elements elevate crime fiction (Writers Digest)
• Why so many of the best psychological thrillers are driven by family secrets (CrimeReads)

Now available in print and on Kindle!

Now that Jack has been forced to reflect on everything he has to lose, he resolves to do better. He’s determined to spend more time at home with his family and repair the relationships that have suffered over the years while he’s been so focused on work. But as Callie’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, Jack realizes he has a lot more room to improve than he realized – and it might be too late to save his daughter after all.

For fans of We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Push, and Baby Teeth.