Author Grady Hendrix has some ideas

After Louise’s parents unexpectedly die in a car accident, she returns home to Charleston, where her plans to get her childhood home ready for sale are soon complicated. There’s her parents’ endless stuff, including the hundreds of dolls her mother owned. There’s her estranged brother, Matt, trying to cheat her out of her inheritance. And then there’s the house itself, which doesn’t seem to want to let her go.

Grady Hendrix, the author of “How to Sell a Haunted House,” said his idea for the novel began during the pandemic, when many of us were becoming more aware of our parents’ mortality. “One of the things I realized is, when our parents die, we have to deal…