The book follows narrator Sarah Parsons, who discovers she has the psychic ability of psychometry, enabling her to see into her own history as she stays at her family's ancestral estate outside of Annapolis, Maryland.

Sarah and her autistic brother, five-year-old Sammy, have never seen their mother's supposedly-haunted ancestral home; Anne was estranged from Ida, and she plans to sell Amber House and everything in it.

Richard knows more about Amber House than Sarah does, and tells her about Deirdre Foster, the mad wife of the sea captain who lost the diamonds in the 1700s.

A decade later, Tucker Reed located the box that held Moore's earliest notes on and drafts of the Amber House story.

[7] The authors cite as inspiration the films Back to the Future, Jumanji, Labyrinth and The Shining, as well as an episode of the original Lost in Space television series, and Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel The Secret Garden.

Kirkus Reviews praised the protagonist, saying "Move over Bella Swan, Sarah is a strong, admirable character who’d rather speak her mind than sulk and sigh over some hot guy.

"[4] In a second featured review issued by Kirkus, critic Leila Roy stated: "Amber House has a wonderful hook of an opening line ... [a]nd it's got a fantastic premise.