When Father Hammond calls Sirius Knott back into the work, it isn’t for a haunting—it’s for the kind of case that erases people. Children fleeing empty roads. Families fracturing overnight. Names vanishing from records as if the missing never existed. All signs point to the abandoned manor on Holloway Hill.
Sirius—once almost a priest, later a soldier—has seen war twist men, but Holloway Hill twists identity itself. With Natalia Crane at his side, he enters the estate and feels the house watching them. Portraits lose their subjects. Ledgers shed their entries. Rooms shift and breathe like something alive.
This is not a spirit. It’s a presence rooted beneath the floorboards, patient and intelligent—reshaping memory, rewriting whoever steps inside, claiming identities one by one.
It doesn’t want them dead.
It wants them changed.
To survive, Sirius and Natalia must confront the thing beneath the hill—the one that remembers every name it has taken…
and has been waiting for theirs.
Sirius Knott is my favorite author of 2026 so far, and he’s going to be a high bar to reach.
The second book in his Sirius Knott series--wait, I’m going to refer to the author as Knott and the character as Sirius, hope that’s not confusing--The House that Devours Names brings us back into the world of Sirius and Natalia (and Raptor, because his dog is important, too!), the best supernatural investigation duo in the genre I’ve read in a really long time.
This time, their adversary isn’t a dangerous and daunting remnant of a living person, but a whole house. Or rather a presence that has imbued every nook and cranny, from foundation to roof, of the abandoned structure perched on top of Holloway Hill.
Doesn’t sound scary, right? I mean, what’s an empty house without a spooky poltergeist? Knott takes that challenge and spins it so hard. Your breath will catch in your throat, while your heart threatens to break through its cage with each page flip.
Sirius and Natalia may have been a united front in this case (and let’s not forget the larger role Father Hammond held this time!), but the power that breathed inside those walls was unimpressed. With tendrils reaching beyond the property that dripped dread down the backs of everyone who trespassed, its voice whispered its want and need.
And the deeper you get, the clearer what that is: Sirius.
Following our intrepid team, I found myself in familiar spaces. Not because the story was a cookie cutter copy of the first book, but instead, how invested and intertwined I became as it unfolded in front of me (and inside my head.)
Watching the progression, all the little crumbs, the sudden right turns, the realistic hesitations and clipped dialogue--all of it was deliciously delightful. An urban fantasy done right, The House that Devours Names gave everything my little paranormal thriller heart desired and then some. And if you’ve followed my reviews, you know how rarely I say that.
I’d tell you more--whew! that final encounter!--but I want your brain to revel in it, just like mine did.
Bravo, Mr. Knott. I am, and will forever remain, a fan.
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