Caretaker
A family relocating to northern New England finds a nightmare within their perfect new house in Halbert’s supernatural thriller.
After a careful search, the Keane family, formerly of Boston, have found the ideal New England property to relocate to. With a mixture of anticipation and reservation, married couple Ian and Lyana move to bucolic Littleton, New Hampshire, with their children—Ariel, who’s 15, and Zach, who’s 12 and on the autism spectrum. Hoping to slow their pace of life down and better connect with each other, the family becomes enchanted with an old English Tudor-style manor on Farr Hill. The house, “hugged by trees,” comes complete with a hidden driveway, an imposing rustic appearance, expansive gardens, and an architecturally “unique blend of masonry and woodwork.” The house was built in 1933 by a man who mysteriously disappeared 40 years later. The owner’s nephew, Marshall, eventually assumed control of the property and has remained as a groundskeeper for decades while assorted families moved in—and then hurriedly moved back out, claiming the house was haunted. As the town gossip mill churns, the rumors begin to seem real: Lyana hears whispers in the halls, the kids discover hidden rooms and doorways with cryptic symbols on the grounds, the image of a little girl appears in the pantry, the walls and floors begin to shift, and a series of horrifying, mind-bending dreams make Ian and Lyana begin to question their sanity. Marshall’s cabin, located on the manor grounds, offers more frights than answers, but the family stands together as the mystery deepens and their dream of a fresh start seems ever more elusive. Ian leans on his profession to understand the situation confronting his family. (He’s a professor of ancient history who studies ancient tribal communities and their role in creating the towns and villages that thrive in contemporary society.) He uses his knowledge to his advantage as the novel plays out, until a crushing medical malady stuns the Keane family.
In this inaugural volume of the Goodpasture Chronicles, Halbert puts a new spin on classic horror and suspense tropes of the “creepy old house with a malevolent entity embedded in its walls” variety. Though the story has moments of suspenseful tension, the narrative stumbles somewhat and loses momentum once Lyana’s tragedy is revealed and a rather implausible development results from it. Nevertheless, the author’s authentic, believable characters provide a sturdy framework for the drama taking place inside (and outside) the manor, and the short chapters keep things moving along at a brisk pace. Plenty of character backstory adds depth to the tale. Some of the most riveting scenes involve the adventurous children as they wander the property grounds discovering new areas of the “spooky woods,” which are chillingly depicted but never fully explored. Still, the author successfully and cleverly re-creates and refreshes the haunted house yarn with a fresh sense of dark wonder and mystery, adding plenty of eerie nuances that are creepy but ultimately harmless and devoid of anything that’s graphically terrorizing, which will appeal to adult and YA reading audiences alike. The concluding scene will have thriller fans primed for the next installment.
An imaginative series debut with a spooky plot, chilling details, and a wholesome family.
Read at KirkusReviews.com →Servant
An American kid travels back in time to an ancient society while his family fruitlessly searches for him in Halbert’s historical fantasy adventure.
It’s 2010, and the Keane family—mom Lyana, historian dad Ian, snarky teen daughter Ariel, and son Zach, a neurodivergent boy who obsessively counts things—are ensconced in a spooky old Tudor house in Littleton, Massachusetts. One night, Zach starts climbing the staircase and somehow ends up in an ancient society, where he befriends Akolo, a young boy brought to the city by the king after his village was raided. The king also brought back a chest. The two boys have ouroboros-shaped amulets that glow prettily near the chest, and the voice of God duly pronounces them “servants.” (Zach also miraculously gains the ability to speak the native language.) The king wants Zach and Akolo to harness the chest’s power for him, and is delighted when Zach figures out that objects placed beside the chest during a lunar eclipse—a blood moon—become imbued with divine mojo. Meanwhile, as months go by, the distraught Keanes refuse to entertain the likelihood that Zach is dead. Ian pursues seemingly unhinged theories regarding his disappearance while Lyana perceives whispering voices and unsettling visions of a blood-drenched girl. Their suspicions fall upon Marshall, the house’s informal caretaker, who lives in a cabin filled with rare ancient books and has an ouroboros tattoo; their misgivings heighten when Ariel discovers a photograph of him from the 1800s. Zach is working from his end to find a way back to the 21st century before the king takes him and Akolo back to Akolo’s village to help rebuild the temple, which will sever Zach’s access to the time-travel portal.
In this second installment of their Goodpasture Chronicles series, husband-and-wife authors Jason and Rhonda Halbert (writing under the pen name R.J. Halbert) create a richly textured portrait of an ancient society. Zach adroitly navigates palace intrigues, the king’s despotic whims, and the potentially fatal chest, portrayed by the Halberts in punchy, mordant prose. (“The sound was a muffled scream, as if the man was being strangled,” they write of a soldier forced to approach the chest as an experiment. “Akolo leaned forward to get a better look, then wished he hadn’t when he saw the man’s face—it was white as a tunic and frozen in fear. This man was dead.”) The contemporary branch of the narrative is a tense study of a family disintegrating under pressure, then struggling to regroup, written in evocative prose that strips bare the characters’ weaknesses and comforting delusions. (“Some of his best academic insights had come with a glass in his hand, the whiskey warming his thoughts until patterns emerged from chaos,” Ian tells himself as he hits the bottle. “Just one, he rationalized, already rising from his chair. Just enough to think clearly. For Zach.”) The result is a page turner with real literary depth.
An entertaining occult thriller that mixes captivating magic with bracing psychological realism.
Read at KirkusReviews.com →It's one thing to become attached
to your perfect home.
But what do you do when that home
becomes attached to you?
A family in search of a fresh start finds a mysterious New Hampshire manor.
Dark forces awaken — a curse is revealed.
The caretaker they fear may be the only one who can save them.
Three Books. Two Timelines.
One Sacrifice.
From a present-day New Hampshire manor to a captive city of the ancient world — generations bound by a single curse, and the family that must break it.
Epic Mystery • Ancient History
(And a dash of Therapy)
A supernatural suspense — with hope at its center.
Caretaker
The Keanes arrive at Farr Hill and the dream curdles. A mother fades into an illness no doctor can explain — and a staircase her son knows by heart leads somewhere it shouldn't.
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Servant
Zach has vanished — the family searches for weeks. He wakes in an ancient world beside a young captive boy. Both enter the temple of a sacred god, whose power is manifest during the blood moon.
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Architect
Zach returns — time has shifted. Two halves of a broken stone, separated by centuries, must be reunited — the cost is blood, sacrifice, and everything the family has left.
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Caretaker
A family in dire need of a fresh new start, a mysterious house tied to the past—its own, and theirs, with an enigmatic caretaker who holds all the secrets.
As past emotional wounds are re-opened, the Keane family's once-idyllic new home takes a sinister turn, threatening to end their new beginning forever.
Servant
A child vanishes. The family unravels. Ancient powers arise. A captive young boy named Akolo must find his purpose.
Two timelines, twenty-five centuries apart, begin to converge — and the truth about Farr Hill reaches further back than anyone imagined.
Architect
Time feels fractured. Memories don't align. As past and present begin to converge, the Keanes realize their lives are not simply being influenced by history... they are entangled within it.
A violent tornado splits the family across time. To break the curse, someone must give everything. The saga ends where it always promised: at the end of the dark night, there is light.
Step Inside Farr Hill
The #1 Amazon Bestseller,
Now an Audiobook.
A haunting and heartfelt supernatural thriller, Caretaker invites you into a world where memory, mystery, and the unseen collide. Featuring an extraordinary cast—Erick Avari, Kelly Clarkson, Henry Ian Cusick, Charles Esten, Brandon Engman, Amy Grant, Hayley Orrantia, Michael Shanks, and Josh Robert Thompson—this fully immersive audiobook blends original music by Joseph Trapanese with rich sound design and cinematic foley to elevate every chilling twist and tender moment. Written by R.J. Halbert, Caretaker is more than a story—it’s an experience.
Also featuring "Home (Lyana's Song)" by Amy Grant, written by Jill Pickering, inspired by the series.
Award-Winning Across the Trilogy
Read the First Three Chapters Free
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