The Family Plot

The summary on Goodreads for this book isn't accurate. Dahlia doesn't try to contact Augusta multiple times about the ONE body they find in the purportedly fake grave plot on the edge of the property. She's contacted once, shows up unannounced to tell Dahlia that it's fake graves and that her family owned a tombstone company, and then she leaves them to finish the work. A bad storm comes that doesn't ebate which impacts their work and how much time they have to spend inside the main house, where every crew is affected by the several ghosts that reside there. After they've finished disassembling the majority of the house, things kick off and in the span of about 20 minutes, one of the crew gets badly hurt by being scared off the now rail-less staircase and then Dahlia is possessed into attempting suicide after being mentally transported back in time to see the original events that caused “the curse” live.
This is a solid two stars in that it sticks to the classic haunted house plot with several sightings and strange noises or things appearing/opening on their own, etc. - however, it's marred by the deluge of unnecessary dialogue (there is a several pages long phone call between Dahlia and her dad that is just him asking “Why?” in different ways over and over that adds nothing to the story and explains nothing that wasn't already obvious to the reader) and a lot of descriptions of the house a la HGTV's several house restoration shows. There aren't any real frights in this and the antagonist ends up just being a whiny brat poltergeist that wants Dahlia to be her new friend FOREVER. Not a lot about the other ghosts is explained like why they're sticking around or why they appear as they do and what the living owner, Augusta, did during her time in the house. Just a lot of plot holes and too much dialogue made this hard to get through after the big reveal about 1/2 way through the book. I ended up skimming the last few chapters just to get some closure, which didn't even pay off. This ends like a lot of shock movies in that it doesn't, it just stops.