Welcome to another "I didn't know I needed this book until I had it" review ! Yep. This one was amazing, spooky and thrilling all at the same time.

What do we have here ? Oh you know, just the perfect ingredients for a book : spooky house with special powers, broken family, time warp and legends. Sam and her mother live in a house that can replay memories from anytime since it was built ! How cool (slightly terrifying) is that ?? That's a great concept and I want to read more books with this kind of setting now.
So Sam and her mother live in that house until Sam's sister, Elizabeth comes back after a fight with her boyfriend (whom she's pregnant with). From then on, a mysterious new faceless ghost appears in the house, that Sam has never seen, and who might be capable of interacting with her when he shouldn't be able to. The family has to stick together to uncover the secrets of the house and to protect their own.

THERE IS JUST SO MUCH GOING ON IN THIS BOOK. Somehow it still wasn't enough for me, as I would have wanted to read more about the ghosts and their day to day apparition in the house. It should have been a bonus chapter haha ! More seriously, the plot unfurls seamlessly, giving you insights of the family, past and present, sucking you in the story slow and steady, just like a swamp. There are mysteries everywhere and each one gets adressed properly, which I liked a lot. I couldn't read fast enough to get to the grand finale of the book, and when I got there, although it was quite predictable, it was also very thrilling to read. The action completely picks up and leaves you reading like crazy !

One mystery remains for me though : Does Elizabeth not see the ghosts ? Everyone in the family seems to see them and even outsiders can somehow sense them, but 75% of the time, it feels like Elizabeth can't do that at all, and I got a little confused about it. Continuing about Elizabeth, I think she's been a little underused. She's a great character (maybe the only one close to what we can call normalcy), but I would have wanted more about her. What was her life like with her boyfriend ? What happened while she wasn't living at the house, why Julian ? Some more backstory could have been really interesting, although she plays her part perfectly in the story anyway.

Sam really was a good character, and a good way to link the reader, the story and the ghosts from the past. She's some kind of vector between the house and those living in it. However, her ending just didn't sit well with me. She's a professor, a smart woman, who knows the house and the swamp, and yet the story ends that way ??? Meh. I thought she would have been better than that.

I won't dwell too long on the mother, because I thought her both insane and clever, and there's just never an in-between. She's quite extreme and I didn't feel anything particular for her...

No matter what, "It will just be us" grabs you and brings you in a peculiar story, about a peculiar house and its peculiar inhabitants. The writing is enchanting and it surely won't leave you indifferent.

This book was requested from NetGalley in change of an honest review

Well, well, well. Talk about a chilling read. This is the story of a house. And the people who live in it. And how both those things come together to create a volatile mix. It's also a story of best intentions going sadly astray.


We meet Sam Wakefield who is living in a old house with her mother. It seems at first that the mother is not all-there. Then it appears that Sam is a disturbed young lady as well. Only it seems they are not. The house is a magical one, it would seem. It shows the residents memories of the past played out like old-school reels. It's a  fantastic notion.
However, then her sister moves in. Pregnant, loud, and rebellious, she creates a stir in the house. The nature of the memories begin to shift. They become different. More sinister.

The author has managed to create an atmosphere that is chilling and thrilling. It has been some time since I enjoyed a book so much. It is much along the lines of "we have always lived in the castle". The characters are unlikable and compelling too. As the story continues, you feel things unraveling and minds unhinging quite strongly. Read this book for the sheer atmospherics.

Highly recommended.

If you want goosebumps and nightmares then this is the book to pick up. Unable to put it down you’ll go through the past of a family and discover what may lie in their future as one member fights to discover how to change what may come to happen. Creepy and frightening this book covers it all.

"It Will Just Be Us" was the perfect atmospheric story of a haunted house (and what a haunted house it was!). Reminiscent of both Michelle Paver (in general; and "Wakenhyrst" in particular) and Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in the Castle", Jo Kaplan takes us to the ancestral home of the Wakefields, at the edge of the Dismal Swamp.

Built by Mad Catherine many generations ago, the manor has seen more than its fair share of miseries and horrors. And it remembers them all.
Sam Wakefield and her mother, Agnes, the currently only living residents of the manor, share their home with memories of past inhabitants, some pleasant and some less so...
Over time you can grow used to even the once most upsetting visions of past recollections, as Sam and Agnes have.
But when Sam's heavily pregnant sister, Elizabeth, returns to their childhood home, darker and much more frightening things start to walk down the seemingly constantly changing halls of the Wakefield estate.
Memories that Sam has never come across before, memories that seem to... see her... want to hurt her... be able to hurt her.

Jo Kaplan has a captivating way of telling a story, and her voice is absolutely perfect for a ghost story.

I'm giving this one 3 stars. Dont be put off though. I thought the story was actualy really good. What I struggled with was, I personally found it to go.up and down. I almost gave up on it. Then it started getting really good.....then i found it went flat again. I felt like that throughout the whole story. I've seen it has some very good reviews though. So I hope on one is put off by mine.

4-5 chilling, scary stars! This book was very well written and developed in a way that actually brought on some real scares! I literally had chills at parts of the book, and loved that it mixed a few genres and seemed to come up with a tantalizing read! It’s definitely full of chills, scares, thrills, and shocks! Highly recommend to those who love a greatly written scary story, with a edge of mystery in the mix!
Will make sure to buzz it up on all the different platforms!

Sam's childhood home isn't your lovely, sunlight filled house most people grow up in. On the contrary, it's a decaying mansion built on the edge of a swamp. Not only that, but it was also build by one of her mad ancestors, who became obsessed with the grandness of her future home. Sam lives with her hermit mother, who refuses to leave her home. When her pregnant sister gets into a fight with her husband, she also moves back in. The oddest thing about their ancestral home is that memories from past times keep replaying themselves. Up until now, these so called echoes have been harmless and merely stories that played themselves out. Suddenly though, Sam keeps encountering a faceless boy, whom she is convinced means to do harm to both her and her loved ones.

I'm going to start by saying that I love this book. The story is amazing, and is like a fresh breath of air into the modern Gothic fiction genre. I have always been in love with creepy old mansion in stories. As an avid horror lover this book still managed to give me chills. It's truly creepy and eerie. Even though this story plays out in our modern times, it felt more of an "old" book. There was hardly any evidence of modern things, which I truly appreciate.

I do think that the book could've been a bit shorter and was just a tad bit dragged out. The author surely has a way with words, and some things were described in an exaggerated manner. I'm not saying that that is necessarily a bad thing. Just something I observed throughout the novel. Otherwise I really loved it.

4 out of 5 stars!

Thank you for the ARC Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books.

DNF, sorry this was just not my type of read, I prefer more mystery over a haunted house. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

Welcome to a haunted house with lots of rooms and its own swamp to boot. It’s the perfect setting for a gothic house novel. Sam lives with her mother and several ghosts. Like, really. The ghosts are all around and they appear to Sam almost like holograms at the Disney palace, reliving various scenes from their life, even their deaths. Things are fairly okay until Sam’s pregnant sister appears on the doorstep having separated from her husband. With her arrival, another ghost appears that is unlike all of the others, a boy that is more sinister than the rest.

For a gothic house novel, this book works nicely. The scenes with the boy ghost are freaking creepy and while it was difficult at first to adjust to the ghosts just being part of the scenery. I thought it was actually a smart aspect as the house’s past comes to life in front of your reading eyes instead of being revealed through flashbacks or found letters or other kinds of tedious expositional techniques.

Overall, it was an entertaining read with some really creepy scenes. In some scenes it reminded me of that Netflix adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, where ghosts just seem to be everywhere all the time. I found some of the family drama a bit dry and the pacing is a bit off in places, but in total, if you are looking for an interesting twist on gothic novels, this would be for you.

I absolutely loved this book! Spooky, creepy and unique!

A haunted house that sometimes feels like a maze and ghosts all over the house. What else does a scary book need?

Sam and her mother live in a huge house that everyone knows to be haunted. Sam’s sister Elizabeth is pregnant and she moves back into the house since she’s running away from her abusive husband. Since they were kids, Elizabeth never really believed the ghosts that her sister insisted she saw.

Sam is used to the ghosts of old people who used to live in their house. But they’re just memories telling a story; they mean no harm. Except one ghost - a faceless boy who keeps showing up. It seems like he is a very mean child who’s always hurting animals and one day, he calls Sam “Auntie.” She realizes it’s the ghost of her future nephew. Why will he become mean? Is it really foretelling her future? Can Sam do anything to change him?

Meanwhile, Sam finds her way into the only room that’s always been locked in the house. Her mother never let them in there because it’s the room where their dad killed himself. But Sam finds something that can help understand the ghost of the faceless boy: her dad’s journal. Sam will finally get some answers about the past while trying to change the future.

I adored this book and would love to see it turn into a movie. The concept of ghosts, past and future was really unique.

A few awesome quotes from the book:
"A house is haunted by memory."
"Are they the ghosts, truly, or am I?"
"The past is everywhere, here, wrapped up in the present."

I love a good ghost story and this one weaves in a historic Winchester-like house. The gothic horror reads slowly with gorgeous visual description and rich literary writing. I felt like I was touring the house along side the main character, Sam, and I had lots of creepy shudders myself. Sam grew up with the ghostly memories of the house, so none of them phased her until she was met with a new ghost, who scared her and wasn't behaving like the rest. Through this, she learns that she needs to do everything to protect her family. And the end wrecked me! I didn't see it unfolding that way, but the author did an incredible job!

If you're a fan of haunted houses, horror, and the supernatural, you won't be disappointed in this story!

Thank you to NetGalley, Jo Kaplan, and Crooked Lane for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When the very-pregnant Elizabeth returns to her rotting ancestral home on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, she upends the lives of her reclusive, alcoholic mother and unstable sister, who herself moved back home after a vicious mugging that left her struggling with PTSD.
I went into this very blind, I liked the cover on Netgalley so I went ahead and requested it. By the time it arrived, I had completely forgotten any blurb that may have been included. This was absolutely for the best. A compelling gothic horror, Jo Kaplan had me uncomfortable and uneasy with where the story was heading. All the trappings of a gothic classic are here, the (very literally haunted) House as character, a woman on the brink of madness, engrossing prose. Definitely a page-turner, I'd recommend this not just for fans of gothics, but for general horror readers as well.

*I was sent a free ARC of this book by Crooked Lane Books in exchange for an honest review*

The dilapidated mansion that has housed generations of the Wakefield family has a way of remembering and recreating past events. The current residents, Sam and Agnes Wakefield are forced to relive the dark past of the house indefinitely. One night Sam’s sister Elizabeth returns unexpectedly, fleeing a toxic relationship with her husband as the due date of their first child approaches. As time goes on, Sam starts to be haunted by a new and strange entity of an adolescent boy that she fears represents the darkness surrounding the house’s history and her sister’s current predicament.

This novel’s strength really lies in its atmosphere and dreamy prose. Kaplan’s writing is very well crafted and elegant and she really emphasizes describing the physicality of the decaying mansion. Each time I sat down to read I felt absorbed by the unique descriptions and interesting metaphors Kaplan employs to emphasize just how strange the Wakefield residence really is. There’s a sense of uncertainty throughout the story about whether the evils threatening them come from outside or from within the house’s walls that I think is very well done.

Although the atmosphere kept me interested in the story, I do think one of this book’s biggest weaknesses comes from the pacing. The story can’t quite seem to decide whether it wants to be centered on the character of the house and its unfortunate history or whether the essence of the story is about the family dynamic of the Wakefields and of Elizabeth’s upcoming birth. The characters of Sam, Elizabeth, Agnes, and Donovan never felt fully realized because so much of the descriptive power of the story was focused on the tragedies of the house rather than on the people inside currently. While the climax delivered a fun and tense chase, the book generally felt a bit boring and slow in the middle and much of it seemed to go on without a clear direction. Because of this, the resolution of the story doesn’t seem fully resonant or hitting on much of an emotional cue.

This book terrified me.... the author wrote a brilliant novel. While reading it at times I would mentally psych myself out which made for a more intense situation. This book makes you feel like you right there walking through the house. This is a perfect novel for those who loved to be scared!

Very unsettling, creepy gothic horror... Absolutely LOVED it! The characters were brilliant and well-thought out, the storyline kept me intrigued and I was always wanting to turn pages, long past my bedtime. This is definitely an author I'd read again. Very well done!

Jo Caplan tells a ghost story as if you are sitting next to her waiting on her every word.
Being one of '' Those Wakefields '' is not to be taken lightly. Together with her demented mother and her pregnant sister Elizabeth, Sam Wakefield lives in their ancestral home built on a swamp.
Sam is the sensitive sister and has admitted to seeing ghosts or apparitions since childhood but when Elizabeth's marriage breaks down and she returns the Wakefield Manor a new image starts disturbing Sams life
Could this really be a ghost of Elizabeth's unborn child ?

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of It Will Just Be Us.

I love horror movies, scary books, scary anything so I was excited when my request was approved.

This book seemed to have it all: haunted house, ghosts, characters haunted by the past (and ghosts), atmosphere, a sense of dreariness.

Sam Wakefield has returned to her ancestral home, a crumbling mansion filled with the echoes of the dead, her disturbed relatives and the ghost of her father, who committed suicide when she and her sister, Elizabeth were just young girls.

When Elizabeth reappears, nearly nine months pregnant, on the run from her abusive husband, Sam sees a vision of the future: the son Elizabeth carries is a demon seed, the next reincarnation of Damien from The Omen.

What will Sam do to protect her family? And, how far is she willing to go?

The writing was good, though wordy. The author loves metaphors. She really does, and she wields them well. Sadly, she loves them too much. When one metaphor would do, she strings three or four in a single sentence.

Also, the ghosts that move spectrally throughout the house helps the creep factor.

There's plenty of atmosphere and foreboding in the dry and dusty walls of the Wakefield manor; the author sets the dark tone, the gloom and doom, yet she spends far too much time describing the house, the path Sam drives to her job as an adjunct professor at the local college, than she does on character development.

The pacing is slow, most times painfully slow, where nothing happens, just a lot of descriptions of the house and its many hidden doors and what may lurk behind and Sam's ongoing fear for Elizabeth's unborn son and the horrors his birth will unleash on all of them.

Aspects of how Wakefield manor came to be reminded me of the ghost story behind the Winchester house.

Stephen King also wrote an original script based on a haunted house called "Rose Red" in 2002 that was a television mini-series.

Yet, despite the ghosts and the unsettling tension, I wasn't scared. Not even a little.

It didn't help that I didn't identify with Sam, Elizabeth or their mother. Also, I didn't like any of them.

Sam is a bland character/narrator. We know she's an archaeology professor but we never really know her.

She's timid, meek, and what else? Not much.

The ghosts prowl around the mansion like they own the place and Sam and her family just get out of their way. Events happen to them, instead of the other way around.

Sam has a tendency to flip flop between the present and past, recalling her and Elizabeth's childhood as they scampered around the woods and swamp of their childhood home. This constant recollection threw me out of the present narrative and neither served to make me like Sam or her sister any more.

The only slightly intriguing character was the sisters' deceased father, naturally, since he's deceased, we don't know much about him, just what Sam can remember despite losing him when she was young, which isn't much.

This was not a bad book, well-written but the pacing was slow, nothing much was going on, and lack of character development made it difficult to stay interested.

I would recommend this for readers who are interested in books focused on an entity rather than the characters.

It Will Just Be Us reads like a gothic horror movie. Kaplan does a wonderful job of creating the atmosphere. I really enjoyed the imagery. The overall story was interesting; however, I really struggled with the pacing. Several times I found difficulty with the transitions between the present story and the 'memories'. This may be an ebook issue and the print issue might provide a visible spacing or some kind of indication of the transitions. Definitely a creepy and entertaining read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I read this book overnight. This book was really good! With the stress of what the world is facing right now I was able to put that away and fall into a wonderful novel. Thank you for that!

4.5 rounding it to 5.0 stars! Full review on my blog soon.

It took me awhile to finish this. I would be lying if I say it didn’t scare me because it really freaking did! I’ve never read a Gothic/horror/mystery/thriller book in my entire life but this one is really good! I thought I wouldn’t like this but the end really amaze, surprise and enlightens me.

This story is about a mansion, which is near a swamp, with a “weird & scary” family as what everyone calls them. There are ghosts, a swamp witch, and a faceless boy. The story is somehow fresh on me as I have never read a book like this. It’s really good.

The first parts has a mix of third point of view and one point of view which is Samantha’s. In the later parts of the book only Samantha’s point of view is focused. I love the scary thoughts of Samantha. She has a wide unfathomable vision and opinion of things which is fascinating. Her way of thinking is fascinating.

The whole book is a great read. It’s mostly suspenseful to me as it took me some time to finish because I just can’t read it at night. Lol. I love the story. It’s unique, new, rare, scary & adventurous. I love the idea of seeing memories of past and future. The ending is epic! I love it & never did I expect it to happen!