Book Review: I Bought a Haunted Thanksgiving Table by Sam Whittaker
I Bought a Haunted Thanksgiving Table
Series: Strange Haunted Places #4
Author: Sam Whittaker
Published: October 14, 2025
Kindle: 184 pages
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: November 1-29, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 1 star
Book Description:
He’ll Be Thankful to Live Through the Holidays. Scott’s bubbly influencer wife aims for the perfect Thanksgiving content. And the centerpiece is their new antique table, which he isn’t crazy about. And who can blame him? It’s big, it’s heavy… and it holds dark secrets.
Soon, strange events surround his wife at all hours of the day and night. And who does she whisper to in the dark? If he can’t help his wife, they will have to worry about more than a dry bird or burnt pies. For a murderous ghost has awakened in their midst, bent on filling his plate with agony and bloodshed.
Can Scott find a way to stop the bloodthirsty specter before it claims his wife and their holiday dinner guests as the final course?
I Bought a Haunted Thanksgiving Table is an “advent-calendar” style read-along with 27 chapters for 27 days of the holiday season.
Dig into this feast of horror now before your plate gets cold.
Jessica’s Review:
I hate to do this, I really do…. I enjoyed previous Advent books I had read (I gave 25 Days by Per Jacobsen 5 stars and The 31st Trick or Treater by Ben Farthing 3.5 stars) and was looking forward to another enjoyable experience, but did not get that. Whittaker even references both of those books as his inspiration for Haunted Thanksgiving Table.
As Thanksgiving is not a set date, if you choose to read I Bought a Haunted Thanksgiving Table Advent style, you will have to count back the days to see when you should start it. This shorter book at 184 pages takes place over 27 days.
The chapters were short and the beginning had promise, but the novel fell flat after the first couple of chapters. For me, for an Advent book to deliver, once the chapter for the day has been read, you should be highly anticipating the next chapter to read the next day. This did not happen. I was not intrigued enough to pull this novel out each day, despite the short chapters. Even on days when I ran behind and tried to catch up by reading multiple chapters I was still not satisfied. I did not finish this book on Thanksgiving, but two days afterwards. And when I finished it, I was glad I did not finish it on Thanksgiving.
The book did pick up at around 76% in as I wrote a note to myself that it was starting to get good. But it was just missing something for me. And then the last couple of chapters came out of left field: All of a sudden everything was happening… and it got very gory.
Haunted Thanksgiving Table is part of a series, but there is no need to read the whole series. The idea of the fifth book in the series sounds intriguing: I Bought a Haunted Christmas Tree Farm, but after reading Haunted Thanksgiving Table, I very highly doubt I will read this one. And this one is also written Advent style.
I Bought a Haunted Thanksgiving Table was not for me; it was sadly a big disappointment.