As was the case when Fresh Fiction was amazing enough to feature the Songs/Book match for my last novel, Beneath the Poet’s House, I offer up this playlist with the caveat that I’ve never been someone who can listen to music while writing, so the following songs are less of an author-curated track list than they are a collection of tunes that go along with the events and personalities of the characters in HOW TO FAKE A HAUNTING. Enjoy, and be warned, the vibe is creepy, sneaky, and overwhelmingly angry… what else would you expect from a woman hellbent on scaring her husband out of their house for good and her wild and crazy “brains-of-the-operation” best friend, Adelaide?
“Do You Want to Know a Secret?” The Beatles
The song that inspired the song that Adelaide and Lainey use to first scare Callum, “Do You Want to Know a Secret?” actually played out of nowhere on MY Amazon Echo while I was working on this book, at the exact point when I was trying to come up with something that had vibes similar to when Liv Tyler’s character in The Strangers is unknowingly sharing the house with a masked intruder and “Sprout and the Bean” (Joanna Newsom) blares out of nowhere over the record player. Described by Lainey as “acoustic guitars strumming as loud as sirens and a cascade of drums like a runaway heartbeat,” George Harrison’s disembodied voice rises from the depths of “Do You Want to Know a Secret” like a nasal taunt, all minor chords and off-key, off-kilter guitar strums. It really sets the stage for what’s to come with Lainey and Adelaide’s plan.
“Haunted House,” Florence + The Machine
“My heart is like a haunted house / There’s things in there that scratch about / They make their music in the night / And in the day they give me such a fright,” Florence Welch sings, echoing Lainey’s feelings regarding her relationship with her husband, Callum, the song itself like a haunting, the piano accompaniment as unmoored as a floating spirit. At the song’s halfway mark, Welch repeats “I’m not free at all” like an incantation, highlighting the consequences of not dealing with her fears and regrets, and again echoing Lainey’s reality: Lainey is not free as long as she’s in the house made haunted by both her and her husband’s actions.
“Call Me When You’re Sober,” Evanescence
A little on the nose for a book about a woman trying desperately to curb her husband’s alcoholism; still, it’s impossible not to include a song by Evanescence on a playlist for a novel rife with ghostly imagery, mirror reflections, missed chances, and moody interactions.
“Ghost,” Ella Henderson
“My friends had you figured out / Yeah, they saw what’s inside of you / You tried hiding another you / But your evil was coming through / These eyes sitting on the wall / They watch every move I make / Bright light living in the shade
Your cold heart makes my spirit shake”… another song that, like The Beatles’ “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” seems unnervingly upbeat for its subject matter, Henderson’s “Ghost” is a well-known anthem for women who feel their entire relationship is a metaphor for evil. I also love the line, included above, about the singer’s friends having things figured out before she did, as this mirrors what Lainey experiences with Adelaide, and Adelaide’s insistence that they turn the tables on this particular devil.
“Scars,” Papa Roach
Without giving too much away, I will saw that one of How to Fake a Haunting’s central characters ends the story with a few more broken pieces—literally and figuratively—than she started. “Our scars remind us / that the past is real / I tear myself open / Just to feel.” Both Lainey and Callum’s perception of the past will be altered by their experiences in their Newport, RI home… Lainey states, “The house is twenty-five hundred square feet. It’s not some gothic mansion. We’re not on a cursed burial ground. There wasn’t a murder here. We built it, remember? There’s no body beneath the floorboards.” But even without bad bones, there’s something rotten between them… and when the broken mirrors are mended and the strange noises stop sounding from behind the walls, they’ll have the scars to prove it.
Thanks so very much for coming along on this musical journey through HOW TO FAKE A HAUNTING!
HOW TO FAKE A HAUNTING by Christa Carmen
A desperate woman’s plot to frighten her husband out of her life takes a nightmarish turn in a chilling novel of modern horror by a Bram Stoker Award–winning author.
Lainey Taylor is being pushed to the brink by her alcoholic husband, Callum. Prone to hallucinations and erratic behavior, it’s only a matter of time before he puts Lainey’s life—and that of their daughter, Beatrix—in jeopardy. A divorce and full custody is out of the question. In Callum’s words: Over my dead body.
Lainey’s sympathetic friend Adelaide has a wild solution. They’ll stage a haunting so convincing it will drive Callum out of Lainey’s life for good. Nothing too over the top: strange smells, noises in the walls, and flies unleashed along the windowsills. It could work. Considering Callum’s alcohol-induced night terrors, he’s already close to broken. With each new scare, Lainey is closer to seeing the haunting through to its bitter, freeing end.
But in a house filled with so much rage, resentment, and fear, is it any wonder that Lainey and Adelaide’s plan goes horribly wrong? As their fake haunting spirals into something no one can control, Lainey discovers that the only way out of this frightening trap is to join forces with Callum, or die trying.
Thriller Paranormal – Supernatural | Thriller Psychological [ Thomas & Mercer, On Sale: October 7, 2025, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781662530746 / eISBN: 9781662530753 ]
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About Christa Carmen
Christa Carmen lives in Rhode Island and is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of the short story collection Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked. She has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from Boston College, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine.
When she’s not writing, she keeps chickens; uses a Ouija board to ghost-hug her dear, departed beagle; and sets out on adventures with her husband, daughter, and bloodhound–golden retriever mix. Most of her work comes from gazing upon the ghosts of the past or else into the dark corners of nature, those places where whorls of bark become owl eyes, and deer step through tunnels of hanging leaves and creeping briars only to disappear.
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