Steven LaChance Blog

Seventeen years ago my book The Uninvited was released into the world. At the time, my son Elliot looked at me and asked a question that has stayed with me ever since: “Who would want to read about our lives?” It was honest, simple, and impossible for me to answer back then.

What I did not know was how far that story would travel once it left the safety of our home. From small towns in America to readers across the globe, people connected with what we had lived through. Terror, survival, resilience—our private nightmare became a shared language. What began as something deeply personal grew into something much larger, something that reminded people they were not alone in the things that haunt them.

The response was overwhelming. Letters, emails, and late-night messages poured in from readers who had their own encounters with the unexplained, the terrifying, or the traumatic. Many of them told me they felt seen for the first time. Some simply wanted to say thank you for putting into words what they could not. Critics took notice as well. Entertainment Weekly called The Uninvited “a true horror classic,” a phrase I could never have imagined hearing when I was sitting at my desk in the quiet, trying to make sense of it all.

Now, seventeen years later, the book is still alive. It is still being passed from one person to another, whispered about the way only ghost stories can be. Every time I meet a new reader or receive a message from someone who has just discovered it, I am humbled all over again. Stories, when they matter, take on a life of their own.

Looking back, I realize Elliot’s question was the right one. Who would want to read about our lives? The answer turned out to be countless people around the world. People searching for understanding, for connection, for a reminder that fear can be survived and even transformed into strength.

I am grateful to every single person who has carried this story with them, who has kept it alive after all these years, and who has walked with me through the shadows. The Uninvited was never just about my life. It became, in some way, about all of ours.