Moorland Fog, Post-Sepsis Paranoia, and Marital Rot: A Review of Sarah Pinborough’s We Live Here Now

Posted on Prairiefoxreads.com https://prairiefoxreads.blogspot.com/2026/10/moorland-fog-post-sepsis-paranoia-and.html

Book Details:

• Title: We Live Here Now
• Author: Sarah Pinborough
• Publisher: Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar (Published May 20, 2025)
• Format: Hardcover, 291 pages
• Genres: Gothic Horror, Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Paranormal

October is flying by, and the mornings are getting noticeably darker when my alarm goes off. Still, I wouldn’t trade my quiet pre-dawn hour for anything. With my husband and the kids still fast asleep upstairs, I brewed a strong pot of dark roast coffee, settled into my reading nook beneath the trailing vines of my favorite pothos and monsteras, and let my cat claim her rightful spot across my lap. Today’s spooky season selection is Sarah Pinborough’s We Live Here Now, a compact, razor-sharp Gothic thriller that had me questioning everything right up until the final page.

At 291 pages, this is a leaner, tighter read than some of the sprawling haunted house epics on my October nightstand, but it packs a massive psychological punch. Pinborough takes the classic “fresh start in the country” trope and subverts it into a claustrophobic examination of medical vulnerability, marital gaslighting, and the suffocating architecture of shared secrets.

The Post-Sepsis Haze and the Unreliable Host

The story follows Emily and Freddie Bennett, a married couple relocating from London to the wild, windswept expanses of Dartmoor after Emily wakes from a coma following a near-fatal fall. Their destination is Larkin Lodge, a striking country house meant to serve as a sanctuary for Emily’s convalescence. Almost immediately, however, the house feels hostile—at least to Emily. Old floorboards groan in the dead of night, fires mysteriously snuff themselves out, books leap from shelves, and a suffocating dread radiates from a room on the third floor.

What makes the premise so deliciously tense is the biological reality of Emily’s recovery. She isn’t just healing from broken bones; she is battling a post-sepsis condition known to trigger severe hallucinatory side effects.

My analytical brain is naturally wired to think about systemic infections, recovery baselines, and how a severe pathogen doesn’t just vanish without leaving lingering neurological static in its wake. Pinborough utilizes this medical fragility brilliantly. When your own body’s immune response has nearly killed you, and your brain chemistry is still misfiring from the systemic shock, how do you establish a reliable baseline for reality? Because the paranormal phenomena conveniently only occur when Emily is entirely alone, she is trapped in an agonizing diagnostic loop: is Larkin Lodge genuinely contaminated by a restless spirit, or is the contamination entirely inside her own bloodstream?

Mislabeling the Fresh Start

While Emily becomes increasingly convinced that a historical murder took place within the walls of Larkin Lodge—despite a complete lack of documented evidence—Freddie remains suspiciously oblivious. To him, the house is a dream, a pristine vessel for their second chance.

In my day-to-day life, I spend a lot of time scrutinizing claims of authenticity and looking closely at what lies beneath polished packaging. Just because something is labeled “pure,” “restorative,” or “a fresh start” doesn’t mean the underlying ingredients haven’t been thoroughly adulterated. Watching Freddie and Emily interact felt like examining a product with a gleaming, idyllic label that is actively hiding a toxic list of contents.

Pinborough splits the narrative between the two of them, and it becomes clear very quickly that neither is a completely reliable narrator, nor are they particularly innocent. Every marriage has its quiet compromises, of course—as any longtime spouse knows—but the Bennetts’ union is built on a foundation of concealed rot. Freddie’s dismissal of Emily’s terror walks a razor-thin line between a weary caregiver managing a sick spouse’s delusions and a man with a vested interest in keeping his wife doubting her own sanity.

Transplant Shock on the Moors

Setting the novel in Dartmoor was a masterstroke of Gothic atmosphere. The remote English moors act as a natural quarantine zone, cutting Emily off from her former life and trapping her inside a deteriorating domestic ecosystem.

Whenever I move one of my indoor plants to a new spot in the house or repot it into a different soil mix, I have to watch closely for transplant shock. If a plant is already stressed or recovering from a blight, suddenly changing its light, temperature, and environment can push it past the point of no return, especially if the new soil is harboring hidden pests.

Emily is experiencing the human equivalent of severe transplant shock. Uprooted from London while still physically weak, she has been placed into the cold, damp, secretive soil of Larkin Lodge. Instead of healing, she is withering under the weight of the house’s oppressive presence and the crumbling trust in her marriage. As she becomes obsessed with unearthing the truth about the third-floor room, the boundaries between the house’s dark history and the couple’s own buried transgressions begin to blur into one single, lethal hazard.

Final Verdict

We Live Here Now is a darkly satisfying, atmospheric slow-burn that sharpens into a truly wicked edge. Pinborough excels at making the reader feel just as disoriented and claustrophobic as her protagonist, culminating in a twist that recontextualizes all the creeping dread that came before it. Even my cat seemed unsettled by the mood of this one, giving me a wide-eyed stare whenever a floorboard creaked in our own hallway.

If you enjoy your haunted house stories laced with domestic noir, medical paranoia, and deeply flawed characters who are just as dangerous as the ghosts they fear, pour yourself a second cup of coffee and take a trip to Larkin Lodge.

Prairiefox Rating: 🦊🦊🦊🦊 / 5 Foxes