We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

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What started off as a reddit horror serial turned into this book called WE USED TO LIVE HERE. As a debut novel, this book was pretty well written. It's certainly a book you can make theories with and read multiple times to look for tiny clues between the pages. Imagine series like LOST and movies like MULHOLLAND DRIVE. This is a bit like that. The book doesn't answer all your questions in the end, although upon multiple readings and discussions, some of those questions will be answered on your own. The story is about a couple, Eve Palmer and her girlfriend Charlie, who had just moved into an old house. They are professional flippers, and that's what they were going to do with this house too. However, this house is very very old and in a pretty bad shape. Early in the novel, a man named Thomas shows up with his family and asks if they could tour the house. They claim that they used to live in the house years ago, so they wanted their kids to see what it's like inside. Reluctantly, Eve let them tour, even though it made her uncomfortable. After one reason or another, they stayed at the house for much longer than intended, but eventually left. A lot of weird things were happening during this time, which made Eve very frightened. Her girlfriend Charlie had become missing, and when she called her, Charlie seemed weird on the phone. Later, Charlie comes home just as the weird family was leaving, passing each other. Eve convinces Charlie to leave the house together and stay at a motel for the night because Eve believes the house is haunted. At the motel, Eve realizes her girlfriend Charlie is an imposter even though she can't prove it. She decides to go back to the house because she thinks she needs to go there to rescue the real Charlie. She sees Thomas and his family at the house and a show down happens. Thomas calls Eve "Emma" and Thomas's wife Paige is wearing Charlie's locket. Thomas acts like it's his house and "Emma" is not welcome. Eve demands to know what is going on. Eve ends up killing Paige and almost killing Thomas. Eve is arrested and the officer tells her her name is Emma. She is locked up in a psychiatric hospital and still trying to find the truth. One day, Thomas visits her at the hospital and gives her the locket, proving Eve's version of events to be true. However, it means there are multiple different timelines in the story and Eve is trapped in a different timeline than the one she was with Charlie (think BUTTERFLY EFFECT). It seems the old house alters people's timelines.

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