I really enjoyed this one. It was perfectly creepy and I have to say --- that ending!!!!!! Oh man, it was so twisted and good.

Sam Wakefield has moved back into her childhood home along with her pregnant sister Elizabeth who wants to escape her husband. This house has been with the family ever since it was built and the spirits are still living within the walls and swamp. Sam and her mother Agnes are able to see the spirits along with recreation of the memories. Of course the memories are not happy ones. Things start to go awry once Sam starts seeing the future and sees that her nephew may become a crazed psychotic individual. Sam will need to figure out how to prevent this from happening and to keep everyone safe.

Oooh this book is pretty crazy. This haunted house concept is awesome. The rooms and corridors change shape and size with no rhyme or reason. The ghosts are not friendly and nor are the memories that are replayed. Pretty much every relative has had some gruesome death and it looks like that luck is going to keep continuing down the line.

I wish this book had a little more fast pace and I had a little difficulty following what was happening. Otherwise this book was very spooky and wasn't like any other horror book I have read.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

It Will Just Be Us
Sam Wakefield's lives in her ancestral home- a sweeping, ramshackle mansion on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia. Like the boy in the Sixth Sense, Sam sees dead people, but unlike him, Sam sees "echoes in time," small snippets of the past as if she's watching them unfold in front of her. They've always been ancestors she's always known about, but she begins seeing a mysterious new ghost coinciding with the return of her pregnant sister Elizabeth. Sam knows the new ghost is connected to her sister and the mysterious locked room they've never been allowed to enter.
I have always enjoyed the Southern Gothic genre, and "It Will Just Be Us" hit all the marks of a classic Southern Gothic. You've got your family of weirdos, you've got a decaying house full of ghosts and secrets, you've got your sinister events... there's even a swamp witch.
It's almost easy to forget that "It Will Just Be Us" takes place in the present. There's no internet and cell phones are rarely mentioned. I was swept up in it and didn't think of it while I was reading, but the absence of such modern amenities really helped set the mood. I mean, sure, you could just use the laptop to go on ancestry websites to find out what happened to Great Great Great Aunt Hester, but without WiFi, you have to just go into the living room and wait for her to walk by.
I couldn't help but see similarities between "It Will Just Be Us" and some other horror novels I've also enjoyed. I saw aspects of Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," especially in the way the Wakefields were treated any time they were in town. I also saw several similarities in "House of Leaves" with the labyrinthine houses containing impossible rooms that change based on the day.
I'm sure the "echoes in time" are not new in themselves, but I really liked the way they were presented here, as a regular occurrence for everyone in the house rather than some special gift.
The ever changing room, topped off with a creepy ghost kid, and some not so supernatural horror mixed in makes this one perfect for a summer night. I will admit that the first 20% was slow for me and with all the other books I'm currently reading, it took 2-3 days to get that far. Once I hit around 21%, I finished the rest of it in a matter of hours.
4.5/5
*I received a copy from Netgalley in exchange for my review.

I'm always on the look out for a good, atmospheric gothic horror novel and It Will Just Be Us by Jo Kaplan checked almost all the right boxes for me. I mean, it's got decaying mansions, ghosts of crazy ancestors and everything. To keep it simple, this novel is quite a ride that puts you through the nerve-grating wringer right with the cast. The unsettling twists and turns will keep you on the edge of your seat to the very end. If you're a fan of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House and The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, I have a feeling you'll want to give this new release a try.

Loved this book! I found it to be genuinely scary and creepy at times. Loved the concept of time and memories being the haunting entity in the haunted house. Definitely a haunted house story with a difference. The author done well to develop the characters and delve into the complex relationships between them and their pasts. Nice little twist at the end left me amazed by the writing! Loved it! Would recommend to anyone who is a fan of 'the silent companions'.

This book is really hard to rate. On the one hand it’s a chillingly atmospheric tale about a house built on legend-laden swampland. On the other… it’s positively drowning in purple prose.

I was initially convinced this book was going to be a one-star read for me. I found the prose to be hyperbolic and melodramatic, which pulled me out of its (honestly pretty dark and awesome) worldbuilding.

Descriptions are overwrought, points belaboured. Mixed metaphors abound. It made for an absolutely maddening reading experience—until the purple prose began to give way around the halfway mark, and I found myself totally spooked. (I am happy to report that the faceless boy scared the bejesus out of me.)

As Sam grows more and more desperate to stop him, this unborn menace, she also becomes less and less sure that she can. What caused him to be this way? Is it even possible to undo the future? These questions also play out for the others who make up Wakefield Manor's tragic history—a family of freed slaves. A cruel landowner. A Cherokee man. Sam's dead father. And the Swamp Witch. All of them tied up in different times, but the same haunted space.

I just finished It Will Just Be Us by Jo Kaplan. It is everything a scary ghost story should be and more! A spooky, haunted house, ghosts from the past reliving moments, glimpses into the future, a frightening swamp witch and a murderous teenager! Plus other spooky characters that make this story fantastic. If you like ghost stories then you're going to love this book!

One of the creepiest books I’ve read in a long time. Wakefield is a decrepit mansion haunted by ghosts and memories. Sam and Elizabeth thought that they had left it behind, but they both ended up returning to live with their mother. Wakefield shows them echoes of the past, not only their own but also going back generations. Those ghosts are pictures of misery and pain, but they can’t hurt the living. Or can they? The faceless apparition of a boy doing deeply disturbing things will make your skin crawl (as an animal lover, I had to “look away” during some paragraphs). The fact that Elizabeth is very pregnant doesn’t help. The whole novel reminded me a little of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but way more disturbing. Wakefield is so well fleshed out that I could picture every corridor, every room and every door in my head. And the ending… well, I fear it will chase me in my nightmares.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Crooked Lane Books!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. It is currently set to be published in August 2020.

"It Will Just Be Us" is a slow-burn horror novel full of deliciously gothic atmospheres and a profoundly disturbing imagery.
It tackles the "haunted house" subgenre from a brand new perspective: the otherwordly "presences" haunting the house are not actual spectres, but memories made visible (and audible) by the house itself. In this way, people both dead and still alive can be seen roaming the hallways and the courtyard of Wakefield Manor, in a ghostly overlapping of generations spanning centuries of family history.
It reminded me a bit of "The Witching Hour" by Anne Rice, even though the Wakefield family saga in "It Will Just Be Us" is condensed in little over 200 pages, whereas the Mayfair family saga in "The Witching Hour" is almost 1000 pages.
Reading "It Will Just Be Us", I was captivated by the highly original concept, by the opulent writing style and by the excellent symbolism. I was also impressed by how the author manages to deal with difficult subjects such as gender-based violence and racism without ever becoming pedantic.
For a horror fan, this novel is a very satisfying story, starting with the unforgettable character-establishing scene in which the villain makes his first appearance (not for the faint-hearted to read), the chilling vibe that permeates all the narration and the author's magnificent use of language.
I must say, the ending had become predictable from a certain point onwards, but this didn't detract from my reading experience, rather it gave me the horrific, ineluctable feeling of a lucid nightmare, in which you know where this is all going, but you are unable to do anything about it.
As a downside, I found pretty much all the characters dislikable (with the exception of Constance and Meriday, who have been dead for centuries by the time the story begins and are fairly secondary characters). I think making all the characters this unlikable was a deliberate choice the author made, and this choice can make sense, because their common nastiness fits the narration just fine. Still, I would have enjoyed the reading better if at least one character had felt more relatable.
Overall, a really interesting debut horror novel by a promising new author. I would like very much to read more books by Jo Kaplan.

I received an e-book ARC of It Will Just Be Us from NetGalley and the publisher Crooked Lane in return for my honest review, which follows below. I thank both for this opportunity.

I rated this 5 stars.
I chose this rating for a few reasons. One: after finishing this novel, I knew I would have to own a copy when it’s released. So I added to a book wish list that will give a wonderful reminder when I can buy it. Two: I am recommending this book for anyone that likes Gothic, swampy, haunted house horror, family horror, and that feeling after reading a book so good you’re not sure what to do with yourself except sit there and whisper expletives under your breath for an unknown amount of time. Three: I kept stopping to tell my husband, who does not like horror, how I would love to tell him the whole plot in extreme detail so he could appreciate how much this book rocked. But I didn’t because I respect our separate interests.

The description of the family home brought to mind the Winchester house, a wild growth of wood and glass spiraling up and out from the original plans of the house. In my minds eye I kept thinking of the fading opulence of the house in Crimson Peak, a loved home that needed some care more than an erratically constructed, guilt fueled attempt at redemption. As the story progressed I felt that the home was sprawling, and maybe the rooms were confusing in their layout, but that was the choice of the house, not the builders.

There are within these cavernous walls, ghosts. But not the kind to interact with, more like seeing memories playing out again. If it happened on the property you may see it, from your own childhood or from relatives many generations past. I have lived in houses where the doors would close or open on their own, dishes would fall from the closed cabinets, and once a dead radio turned on full volume at the dead of night. But seeing people long dead, or visions of you as a child running through the halls; I’m not sure how I would handle that. But Samantha (Sam) and Elizabeth grew in this environment, while their mother was struggling with alcoholism after the death of their father.

When they are adults and moved out, separate circumstances bring them back to their family home, living with their mother. Elizabeth is pregnant with her first child. A child that Sam becomes convinced she sees visions of in the house. Which should be impossible if he has not been born yet, right?

The amount of detail that the author put into this book is astounding. If you were given a tidbit of information, she has a purpose for it. I loved the pacing, the building tension; the last fourth of the book I realized I was grinding my teeth. Everything was coming together, not that I had any clue until it was written out for me; but there it was, zipping up so neat and clean and I’m clenching my jaw. I had to keep opening my mouth like a fish so I wouldn’t hurt myself, but I kept getting engrossed in the book and forgetting again.

This book has so many stories besides the one happening in the current time with Sam as the narrator, but the author does not drop or waste a single one. I can not praise this book enough, I loved every part of it.

For fans of gothic horror/suspense, be sure to check this one out when it's released in mid-August!  There are ghosts of the past, present, and future (including a very creepy boy with no face) residing in a labyrinthine mansion, family drama, a haunted history, and some psychological mind warps, perfect fodder for a good gothic tale.  I was completely drawn into the story (when I finish a chapter by saying "What the ****?!!" out loud and having my husband question my sanity, then you know it's a keeper).

CW: Multiple graphic descriptions of sui/cide and someone hanging themself

have mixed feelings about this, honestly. I loved the horror aspect of it but there were parts of it I felt like just dragged on, or were unnecessary. I relationships between the characters frustrated me more than anything, especially Sam and Elizabeth, and their alcoholic mother. I liked the idea of the house, and of the swamp. It was an alright book, but it just left me feeling frustrated and like nothing was resolved at all

Sammatha Wakefield also known as Sam is home. Her married, pregnant sister Elizabeth has come home to get away from her husband. She is staying as she wants to decide what to do about her husband. Sam continues her teaching at the nearby college but comes home everyday after work. Sam And her sister Elizabeth played together and were best friends. Sam would get Elizabeth to go out to the swamp with her to play but Elizabeth didn’t like it. There was a rumor of a witch that lived in the swamp. Their mother told them not to play in the swamp. Elizabeth’s husband comes to the house insisting on seeing his wife. Elizabeth doesn’t want to se him. Elizabeth and her husband do talk and he ends up staying for the night sleeping in a separate bedroom. Why? Meanwhile Sam has experience several scenes of the past and perhaps future of the house. The house is haunted but not in a normal way. There are ghosts from the past Sam sees and knows who they are but there are some she has no idea who those ghosts are. Will Sam learn who they are? Does Elizabeth have her baby? What will her husband do?

This is a creepy and chilling book to read. The author has Sam be the narrator of the story which engaged me even more. The story is a well-told story. The writing is is a creative blend of suspense and horror that is truly different. It is mesmerizing!
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I love a good haunted house story as much as the next person, and It Will Be Us is a book I've enjoyed reading quite a lot. The world-building is lived-in, vibrant, and the house itself is literally alive with history (obviously, as any story about haunted buildings are wont to be) but I would definitely not want to spend the night in any of these creepy places.

Are you ready to enter Wakefield House? If you are, then turn on the lights NOW!

First off i wanted to thank both NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this ARC to read and review with my honest opinion and thoughts.

So, when I first started this book, I immediately thought of the Winchester Mansion here in Northern California. Wakefield House was built on the edge of a swamp, and it was built by a strange woman who had her crew build non stop 7 days a week, the mansion had 3 stories and the hallways and rooms went all over hell's half acre, with no ends in sight. Sam and Elizabeth are both coming home to Wakefield house to live and visit their mother. Sam after being violently robbed in her home, and Elizabeth who is pregnant, is leaving after a fight with her husband who never wanted kids. What they both do not know......the house is horribly haunted! Haunted by ghosts of the past, of its creator the Wakefield family, and ghosts of their own that they did not even know that they have.

Before Elizabeth even arrives, Sam starts seeing weird things happening in the house, she is hearing voices, breathing, people laughing, and someone coughing. She discovers a room with a locked very securely (her mother tells her it is because they never have had the key) and has no idea why it is locked or what the room has inside it, and her Mother helps none on this subject as she tells her it 'is too hard to talk about'.

Then, she sees her first ghost of a young boy, a ghostly and gray looking waif of a boy but a boy without a face! She starts seeing him now on a daily basis, and then he starts to follow her around carrying a large butchers knife. As she becomes more afraid of him, she asks him why he is there and why he is following her, and that she wants just to be left alone, and suddenly one day he calls her 'Auntie'!!! Sam realizes that now she believes this ghost is the ghost of her soon to be born nephew, being carried by Elizabeth, which is what she plans on naming the baby upon his arrival.

Now Wakefield House is a house that can change upon its own will whenever it feels like Mrs. Wakefield presence is around or just when it wants to make its occupants crazy. When Elizabeth arrives the entire estate turns into a horrifying maze of ghosts and darkness that will either drive that family to suicide or drive them crazy. The swamp was always legendary for it harboring an evil Swamp Witch's spirit, and Sam believes that she is behind all this mess, but when she finds her fathers journal, explaining things to Sam that she always thought were lies while growing up, she realizes something dark and evil is here with them.

Actually I almost did not finish this book, it took getting past the first 3rd of it's pages to even get interesting or made we want to read on to see where it was going.......and man I am glad i did! This gook is Southern Gothic horror at it's finest, and Kaplan's writing is some that i will look forward to reading more of. Once the story gets going, and Sam finds out what is behind the locked door on the 3rd floor, hold on because you are in for a ride, and the end will knock your socks off! I never saw this coming, and this really impressed me because it started out as so formulaic that I thought i knew what was going on. Complete surprise and satisfied with this one.

Can a house keep memories? This is a thought provoking gothic tale. Atmospheric, eerie and full of dread, with great characters, including the house. There is a sense of uncertainty throughout the story with our lead - is she losing her mind? This is not one of those happily ever after stories but you will enjoy experiencing the creepy events that are happening. Creep factor = 5 Stars!

**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**

Received this through Net Gallery and I thank you so very much. "It Will Just Be Us" by "Jo Kaplan",this story had me only reading this in the daytime. As I was reading,I did some at night and when I woke to bad dreams about this book,is it time to either quit reading or do it in the daytime. So glad I didn't quit,as you can see Jo Kaplan's writing is kind of mind blowing and real cause it made me have such dreams.Not only that,it is the way she writes to really have you believe,her characters are real themselves. You have everything you need to have a really great ghost story,you even have the house,the mansion where hauntings and dreams and ghosts live. Her writing makes everything come alive and this is the best story I have come across in a very long time! If you don't believe in all of this,you will when you finish that's how good her description of what is going on is. Fantastic all the way around on the plot,the characters and her never ending believable writings that draws you in! this through Net Gallery and I thank you so very much. "It Will Just Be Us" by "Jo Kaplan",this story had me only reading this in the daytime. As I was reading,I dud some at night and when I woke to bad dreams about this book,it as time to either quit reading of do it in the daytime. So glad I didn't quit,as you can see Jo Kaplan's writing is kind of mind blowing and real cause it made me have such dreams.Not only that,it is the way she writes to really have you believe,her characters are real themselves. You have everything you need to have a really great ghost story,you even have the house,the mansion where hauntings and dreams and ghosts !ive. Her writing makes everything come alive and this is the best story I have come across in a very long time! If you don't believe in all of this,you will when you finish that's how good her description of what is going on is. Fantastic all the way around on the plot,the characters and her never ending believable writings that draws you in!

"It Will Just Be Us” is a perfect ghost story. The story follows three women, the mother and the two sisters, who live in Wakefield Manor, a slightly dilapidated mansion that sits on the edge of a swamp. Wakefield Manor is unique because it shows the inhabitants memories. A scene from another time of people who used to live in the house will randomly play out in the kitchen or in the parlour, for everyone to see. The story truly begins when a pregnant Elizabeth Wakefield, the eldest sister, comes back to the manor to get away from her husband.

Sam, the main character and also the younger sister of the two, seems to be the most susceptible to the memories that the house shows. The house shows Sam a vision of what could be, and it doesn’t show anyone else. This vision comes in the form of a faceless child who begins to terrorize Sam for an unknown reason. This story was incredibly creepy and it is because of this little boy. Every scene in which we see him evokes chills in the reader because there is something so wrong about a little boy doing the awful things that we see him do. I won’t go into too much detail about the boy’s actions because I feel it is something you will have to experience for yourself.

The story also introduces other characters who all have tragic stories to show and tell us. They are shown through memories that Sam, and the reader, experience firsthand. There is a nice element of mystery to this story as we get to figure out who these people are and how their stories ended. There is also a bit of historical fiction thrown in which mainly focuses on slavery and how slaves lived once they were “free.” I thought this was a unique addition to the story. I also really admire how Kaplan incorporates time into the overall story. Each woman emulates their own aspect of time which I thought was very interesting. The mother, Agnes, still lives in and grieves for the past. Elizabeth, the older sister, lives in the present, worrying about her impending birth and her worsening marriage. Sam, the younger sister and main character, represents all aspects of past, present, and future, but mostly the future as she is the only person that can see what the house shows her of what is to come. Each character is unique in their own way and they all serve a purpose towards the overall plot. I loved to hate Elizabeth and Agnes as they were written perfectly as the moody sister and checked-out mother, respectively.

Overall, I loved how suspenseful, atmospheric, and creepy this story was. It definitely has an air of southern gothic to it which I absolutely loved! I couldn’t put it down as I had to know what would happen, especially towards the end of the book. This was definitely a five-star read for me and it satisfied my craving for a good ghost story. If you’re looking for a traditional and very creepy gothic horror novel, then I would highly recommend It Will Just Be Us.

This is a haunting and twisty version of a ghost story. Samantha and her mother live in their ancestral home which has a secret. The past lives over and over as ghost versions of their ancestors and themselves replay memories. Samantha’s pregnant sister Lizzie leaves her husband and comes home. After Lizzie’s arrival Samantha starts to see a faceless boy who is not from the past at all. This story had me glued to my tablet and left me feeling haunted when it finished.

WOW! I knew from the very first paragraph this book was going to be very good and special. Jo's writing is so beautiful, I really, really liked it. The characters are good. The setting is bewitching. An old mansion that may or may not change the layout whenever it pleases, with a big old haunted swamp in the backyard. The interactions between living characters are ghost of the past creates a dream like atmosphere. Sam reminded me a lot of Merricat in We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Both have little rituals they do for good luck, protection and so on. Both may or may not be unreliable and they float around in a dreamy existence. I would say fans of that book would love this one. I am adding this to my "best reads of 2020 shelf. This is the first thing I've read by Jo Kaplan but I can not wait to see what is next for her!

Thank you so much NetGalley for the opportunity to read this amazing book early.