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    Homebody: A Novel
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    Homebody: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Homebody: A Novel
    Ebook387 pages6 hours

    Homebody: A Novel

    By Orson Scott Card

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From a beloved and bestselling master of speculative fiction comes this chilling tale of a soulful loner who must overcome demons from his past -- and the demons he unwittingly unleashes -- when he starts renovating a faded Southern mansion. As Homebody eloquently proves, no contemporary writer outshines Orson Scott Card in crafting unlikely heroes or in suffusing the everyday world with an otherworldly glow.

    Don Lark's cheery name belies his tragic past. When his alcoholic ex-wife killed their daughter in a car wreck, he retreated from the sort of settled, sociable lifestyle one takes for granted. Only the prospect of putting a roof over other people's heads seems to comfort Lark, and he goes from town to town, looking for dilapidated houses he can buy, restore and resell at a profit. In Greensboro, North Carolina, Lark finds his biggest challenge yet -- a huge, sturdy, gorgeous shell that's suffered almost a century of abuse at the hands of greedy landlords and transient tenants. As he sinks his teeth into this new project, Lark's new neighborhood starts to work its charms on him. He strikes up a romance with the wry real estate agent who sold him the house. His neighbors, two charming, chatty old ladies, ply him endlessly with delicious Southern cooking. Even Sylvie, the squatter Lark was once desperate to evict from the old house, is now growing on him.

    But when Lark unearths an old tunnel in the cellar, the house's enchantments start to turn ominous. Sylvie turns cantankerous, even dangerous. There's still a steady supply of food from next door, but it now comes laced with increasingly passionate pleas for Lark to vacate the house at once. In short, everybody seems to want to get rid of him. Whether this is for his own good or theirs, Lark digs in his heels for reasons even he's not sure of. He embarks on a struggle for his life -- and his friends'-- against a house with a past even more tragic than his own. If Lark wins, he gets the kind of home and community he's always dreamed of. If he loses, all is lost....

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMar 5, 2013
    ISBN9780062281425
    Unavailable
    Homebody: A Novel
    Author

    Orson Scott Card

    Orson Scott Card is best known for his science fiction novel Ender's Game and its many sequels that expand the Ender Universe into the far future and the near past. Those books are organized into the Ender Saga, which chronicles the life of Ender Wiggin; the Shadow Series, which follows on the novel Ender's Shadow and is set on Earth; and the Formic Wars series, written with co-author Aaron Johnston, which tells of the terrible first contact between humans and the alien "Buggers." Card has been a working writer since the 1970s. Beginning with dozens of plays and musical comedies produced in the 1960s and 70s, Card's first published fiction appeared in 1977--the short story "Gert Fram" in the July issue of The Ensign, and the novelette version of "Ender's Game" in the August issue of Analog. The novel-length version of Ender's Game, published in 1984 and continuously in print since then, became the basis of the 2013 film, starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin. Card was born in Washington state, and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he runs occasional writers' workshops and directs plays. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University. He is the author many science fiction and fantasy novels, including the American frontier fantasy series "The Tales of Alvin Maker" (beginning with Seventh Son), and stand-alone novels like Pastwatch and Hart's Hope. He has collaborated with his daughter Emily Card on a manga series, Laddertop. He has also written contemporary thrillers like Empire and historical novels like the monumental Saints and the religious novels Sarah and Rachel and Leah. Card's work also includes the Mithermages books (Lost Gate, Gate Thief), contemporary magical fantasy for readers both young and old. Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card. He and Kristine are the parents of five children and several grandchildren.

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    Reviews for Homebody

    3.5/5

    180 ratings16 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Man who lost everything and is haunted by his past purchases house that has a squatter refusing to leave. The book has few characters and they're pretty well developed. What I thought would be a boring tale about a carpenter ends up as a ghost story...surprise, surprise!
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars When Don buys a run-down, falling apart home to restore it, he is surprised to find a squatter living there. He learns more about the house from the squatter and the neighbours and things don't quite go as planned. I enjoyed it, mostly, but I was hoping for creepy and I really didn't find it creepy. I can't say I liked the end, either. Hmmm, my comments don't make it sound like I enjoyed it, but really I mostly did!
    • 4/5
      Normally a reader of adventurous SciFi I was quite pleased at the smoothness of Card as he drew me into a story that never really got "exciting" until almost 2 thirds through the book: when you're expecting excitement it would be easy to kiss off the story of a guy who just lost his family and is buying a house to fix up and sell and starts to get romantically involved with his realtor and discovers that she has family issues, etc. The plot is well laid out and progresses smoothly "almost" into fantasy...until it jumps feet first into the fantastical. The only weakness I found involved my inability to emotionally accept the love interest at the end...but that may just be me. I recommend this book for the non-scifi readers for not being heavily "strange".
    • 3/5
      Back and forth between liking this one and...yawn. Got really out there in weirdness towards the end but as the subject of the book deals with the paranormal that's to be expected. Different kind of haunted house/ghost story that's for sure.
    • 4/5
      This is certainly not OSC's best work, but it is a quick read, and doesn't suck you into a long and involved epic. The characters don't seem as fully fledged, or if there is a hint of a full character, it gets lost in the shuffle of a story that isn't fully explained. It almost feels like it was intended to be a series, but his editor didn't believe there was enough draw to extend it beyond one book.All in all, I am generally in love with his work, and that won't change. This one, though, well, it will not keep a place in my heart for long. (It will keep a place on my shelf, though. It wasn't *that* bad.)
    • 4/5
      The main character, Don Lark, is an architect- builder who moves into a haunted house in Greensboro, NC with plans to renovate the house and then sell it. The story starts off lonely and depressing, but the plot quickly jumps around to new events and changes that take place in Don's life. Several characters play a role in his discoveries, the biggest discovery being that the house is haunted. This book seemed to throw me off at first because I wasn't sure where the leads were tying into the previous details. I realized that the style of this book simply had several sub-plots within an overall plot that recurrently picked back up. This book was unique and enjoyable due to its ability to create suspense and interest in its small mysteries without depicting horror or disturbing scenes. Although the house in this book is haunted, the suspense is appeasing and delightful and not at all scary. The plot and sub-plots are slightly random and obscure, but the characters are likable and well developed and descriptions are detailed and wonderful!
    • 1/5
      Predictable, sappy, if it were a movie it would be on Lifetime.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I'm not usually into horror or thrillers or whatever you want to call it, but I really liked this one. Its not creepy and scary to no purpose, and its just scary enough to keep you riveted, as well as the interest in exactly what is going to happen to the real and not so real characters. If you like 'hard' horror novels, you won't care for this, but if you like contemporary fiction that's a bit of a ghost story, this is excellent.
    • 3/5
      This is my first Orson Scott Card novel and I have to say it reads very quickly. I can't say this is the height of suspense and some things about the house weren't credibly explained. The characters were very likeable, although a couple minor characters were just plain odd. Overall, I have to say I enjoyed it and will look forward to reading more of his works.
    • 5/5
      Homebody was a wonderful book! I'm going to have to recommend it to many others. It starts off with a lonely carpenter who buys and refurbishes houses for a living just because he likes the solitude. He finds an old house that intrigues his fancy and upon falling for the house, many things are fallen upon him. The realtor, a woman, comes into his life and the issues that brings into his solitude forces him to look beyond his front door. All of a sudden, after starting to work on the house, mysteries things began happening. Tools are missing and footsteps are hear, all the while, the two crazy next door neighbors are telling him to leave the house alone or tear it down! From the thrills, the mystery, and the suspense this book is a number one on my shelf. The characters are well thought out, deeply moving, and one can relate to them and their tribulations. I will recommend this book every chance I get!
    • 1/5
      Reviewed Feb 1999Don Lark has had a painful past few years, his drug addicted wife was awarded custody of their daughter. She then kills herself and the daughter by driving off a bridge while drunk. So now Don, ex-construction contractor drives around North Carolina finding old forgotten homes to rebuild and then sell making a profit. He finds a wonderfully strong home which he quickly offers a price and moves in. Then the book starts a series of beginnings that dwindle away without being tidied up.1. begins an affair with real estate-agent2. threatens her co-worker3. has money extorted from himAll three of these events are just dropped, and other topics picked up, very odd style of writing.Don is befriended by 2 old ladies next door and he finds a woman living in his house. Then almost halfway through the book we begin to find out that the house is possessed. A tunnel is uncovered and a body is found. This novel is a quick read but has various plots and subplots leading off nowhere. When Don meets up with Gladys the stereotypical black magic woman, he is faced with so many oddities that he just takes at face value that the story is unbelievable. This book has one common element running throughout, and that is dirt. Don is constally putting it on, scrubbing it off or thinking about cleaning it up. 5-1999
    • 4/5
      I love Orson Scott Card, he writes a great tale of a darker side you hope is non-existent but somehow come to believe his imaginative yarn is closer to the truth than fiction. This old house is supposed to be Don Lark's "find of a lifetime" for the financial sercurity he desperately lacks. Remodeling and restoring becomes his purpose and he's driven to keep out his own demons of "things past". But as he dumps more and more cash into the project, he is starting to believe that the house, itself, does not wish to be healed at all. Spooky.
    • 3/5
      This is middle Card. It is a good book, but not a great one: his mastery of character and exposition is in full swing, but the underlying plot is not extraordinary. Read this after you're sure you like Orson Scott Card, not before.
    • 2/5
      This one just did not work for me. Did not feel it was scary.
    • 5/5
      Card is a magnificent storyteller.
    • 3/5
      I am not typically a horror fan, but this was well written and suspensful although, I feel Card is weak in his description of romantic scenes.