RATING: 3 STARS
2021; (Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire) Macmillan Audio

It took me 18 days but I have finally decided on a rating for this book. It might be a bit of a concession, but I think it's the fairest. Ward is a descriptive writer that reminds me very much of Stephen King's writing. She is creative and engaging so I would read any novel by Ward. However, there were aspects of the story that just made me a bit uneasy, and I could see the end coming. Once you kind of figure it out, you lose a bit of the suspense in the story. If you are looking for something creepy, this is a great book for you.

***I received a complimentary copy of this ebook & audiobook from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.***

Wow what a book! This one was definitely different and not what I was expecting! I was mind blown with this one and not really sure on how to even rate or review this one. People will either love it or not like it. I am in between. All I can really say is that it was good but oddly strange, weird, creepy but yet good in its own ways.

At the end of a dead-end street is a family of three. The teenage girl isn't allowed outside, the man drinks alone and has gaps in his memory, and the house cat loves napping and reading the Bible. A secret binds them together, and a neighbor moving in next door threatens to expose it.

Ted is an oddity from the beginning, still referring to his long-gone parents as Mommy and Daddy and dissociating at times. His thoughts are simple, short, and almost childlike. His daughter Lauren seems to appear and disappear for weekends, and she alternatively hates him and adores him. Olivia is a religious cat that has an emotional tie to Ted, and wants to keep him safe even as being a house cat keeps her safe. She has her own POV chapters in this book, an interesting concept. Her thoughts are interesting, ranging from the time she was born to the thread that binds her to Ted, the Bible verses she picks by shoving the book off the table, and the tabby cat that passes back and forth in front of the holes in the planks boarding up the windows.

A girl had gone missing in the area years ago, and Ted had been accused of it, even though he had nothing to do with it. The girl's sister Dee had her entire life upended when Lulu disappeared, and followed an old article from the period stating that Ted had been a suspect. She moves into the old house to spy on him and isn't sure what she'll find. Everything certainly looks bad, and Dee is more than a little obsessed and sure that she's right.

The actual secret in the house on Needless Street becomes clear toward the end of the book. At that point, it is clear that the "bad guy" isn't who we thought it was at all. Characters are far more nuanced than that, and in retrospect, the clues were all there. An attic and basement that Ted sees but Dee doesn't, a weekend place that Ted isn't seen going to, and a creeping sense of unease that things Aren't Right. Trying to figure out the truth draws us in, and the close of the novel fulfills that need flawlessly.

You ever finish a book and just need to sit with it for a bit?

That's me with The Last House on Needless Street. I finished this a few days ago and I'm pretty sure some of the imagery from this book will stick with me forever.

What starts off slow and light takes a dark dark turn that will leave you gobsmacked and guessing throughout who the real villain is.

It's hard to talk about this book without giving anything away, but it's really really good and I say that as someone who usually hates when a certain trope is employed, but it works here!

I really enjoyed the multiple point-of-view and especially liked the cat POV because it really brought a much needed lightness to the story. This book is very dark and heavy once you figure out what is really going on, I gasped aloud and was shook up and that happens rarely for me. I had to go back to the beginning and reread it all the second I finished to put all the pieces together and I feel like the author deserves a round of applause for this puzzle!

Huge trigger warnings for child abuse as well as a bunch of other things too.

This a book that will stay with you and make you need something happy after. It's about the scariest monster of all; humans.

I absolutely loved this book. I read it as part of a book club read, and we had such a great time discussing it together. The payoff at the end of this book is just SO worth it, and the author’s note gave me chills.

Several of us will be rereading this book soon to pick up on details we missed the first time through.

Can’t wait to read more from Ward!!

A creepy horror-ish story with plenty of atmosphere. The twists kept me riveted right up until the end.

A thank you to Netgalley for sharing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. Having just finished this one last night as I drifted off to sleep, I'm only now beginning to truly process this one. I wasn't initially enamoured with it and my first thought was 'weird.' However, as the story progressed and I became more knowledgeable of not of Ted and his thought process (and Olivia,and god bless Olivia, the delightful spiritual and most humanlike feline friend) I better understood just how brilliant and original the book truly is. Still not sure I have a full grasp, but color me impressed. Recommended for something mysterious - a slow-burn mystery that has no big reveal, but that is gradually unveiled like the peeling of an onion.

The Last House on Needless Street is an mystery, wrapped in an enigma, placed in a puzzle then jammed into a Matryoshka doll. Just when you 'think' you've got a handle on what's going on, you turn a corner and everything you 'thought' you knew gets tumbled on it's head.

The basics. Ted Bannerman lives in a huge old victorian house on Needless Street in the Pacific Northwest along with his black cat, Olivia and his daughter Lauren. These are facts...

...or are they?

Highest recommendations for this book. It twists more than a rattlesnake ran over in the road, and yet, at the end of the book all the puzzle pieces that have been shuffling around fall into a perfect picture of pain, regret and loss. And yet, there is also a wistful feeling that maybe, just maybe, everything has worked out for the best and things are going to be okay, better, maybe even great...

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for a review copy for this book. All opinions are my own.

This was a slow starter but I wound up really enjoying it. Unlike other reviewers, I found it to be very predictable and guessed pretty much every twist very early on. I won’t say specifically what clued because I don’t want to spoil it but when the blurb described the book as “not what you think,” it kind of ruined it for me. Nonetheless, the journey was still enjoyable and it was really clever. This is going to sound weird for a horror/thriller book, but you’ll understand what I mean when you finish reading it - there was something poignant and tragically beautiful about the authors take on things and that plus the clever storytelling was what really did it for me, even if I guessed where the story was going.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire for allowing me to review an e-book copy of THE LAST HOUSE ON NEEDLESS STREET.

I wasn't sure how this book would read for me because I knew there were mixed reviews - readers either loved it or hated it. I think I was in between.

It's hard to review the book without giving away too much information. Here's the synopsis:

"This is the story of a serial killer. A stolen child. Revenge. Death. And an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.

All these things are true. And yet they are all lies...

You think you know what's inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you've read this story before. That's where you're wrong.

In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it's not what you think..."

So, the book focuses a lot on mental illness, which is important. But, the problem I had was keeping up with the characters and how they related to the missing girl. It was also a very slow-paced plot.

I enjoyed the overall creepiness of the book, which was perfect for the week before Halloween. I would enjoy reading the next book the author, Catriona Ward, writes.

I rate THE LAST HOUSE ON NEEDLESS STREET three out of five stars.

I'm absolutely reeling from how brilliantly crafted this book was. It's rare that I see a book get this much hype and think it deserves every bit of it, but The Last House on Needless Street does, from start to finish. I feel that this is one of those books where there is almost nothing I can say to explain why it's so incredible — all I can say is that I am devastated, raw, shocked, and amazed. Catriona Ward has immediately become an auto-buy reader for me, no questions asked.

The prose is lovely and effective, the characters are complex, and despite the fact that I am literally almost never taken off-guard by a reveal, I was on the edge of my seat to the very end and was genuinely stunned by some of the moving pieces here. As a bonus, the audiobook narrator did one of the best narrative jobs I've ever heard, and if you're an audiobook lover, I can't recommend that format highly enough for this story.

A wonderfully creeper thriller for dark evenings and nights. Fantastically descriptive and fully immetsive writing. Three characters are all bound by their own prisons until a new neighbor moves in and the eerie events begin. A must read!

Wow! I wasn't sure what to expect when I opened this book. The synopsis really grabbed me and pushed me to click the button to request this one. As soon as I started, I was hooked to the cat's chapters. She is such a lovely unique perspective. I was a little shocked to see that her owner put her in a broken freezer as her "crate" but had to keep remembering that it is a horror/ thriller even though it broke my heart.

Thanks to Macmilland-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This was my first book by Catriona Ward and it won't be my last. It was incredibly atmospheric and well done. It was hard to put down and perfect for this time of year, when I love to read creepy, haunting stories.

This books was not for me, and that's okay. I was initially drawn in by the synopsis and the rave endorsement by Stephen King. It was more (or less?) than I had bargained for. I'm not a fan of the writing style and the characters in the alternating points of view don't thrill me. Not for me, but certainly others.

This book was unsettling and twisty; perfect for October! Super creepy and spooky and atmospheric. Someone who likes mild horror or thrillers would love this book.

The Last House on Needless Street was a strong psychological ride and Catriona Ward took great vehicles to tell the story and deliver the pieces of the puzzle little by little. The only caution I would give is this book is advertised and even categorized as horror, and with Stephen King citing how much he loved the book; it might mislead readers’s expectations. It’s not horror, but a deeply woven psychological thriller with a man named Ted at the center.
If you’ve seen movies like Psycho, American Psycho or Gone Girl (which Stephen King quotes in his blurb) and loved these, you’re in splendid company as Needless Street fits into the same bucket. The novel begins where our protagonist wakes up to a backyard full of dead birds, not understanding who’s behind this and then the narrative throws you in several directions with a few characters knitting a web of mystery until the dots connect and you realize the genius behind the weird moments of the story.
Catriona Ward’s prose is a breeze to read and accessible to readers of all levels except the subject—I would advise against kids reading this—and allows us to enjoy the mystery at the heart of the book. But what was excellent and sometimes peculiar is how she took each character and gave them their own voices. Have you ever read a novel where a cat has its own personality and is a participant in the narrative? My point exactly.
I have little more to say unless I reveal some elements of the story and fringe on spoiler territory, so I’ll conclude by saying that I really relished this book for what it was, and if you’re seeking a thriller wrapped in a mystery with a slight dash of supernatural, you’ll find a home in The Last House on Needless Street.

This was absolutely devastating. Heartbreaking and terrifying with an unusually satisfying finish. I was equally invested in all the characters and once I started the climax I stayed up all night to finish, knowing I wouldn't sleep until I knew how it ended.

It’s rare that I read a book and when I finish I just blink and think what did I just read, but this was that book. This is a hard book to talk about without giving too much away. It was full of twists and turns, but it wasn’t the traditional horror story. It was a perfect October pick and I definitely recommend it. This is the story of a man named Ted, his cat Olivia, and his daughter Lauren. They live in a creepy house with boarded up windows on a dead end street aptly named Needless. It’s told from all their perspectives and the perspective of Dee, sister of a girl who went missing about 10 years before. Dee is determined to figure out what happened to her sister all those years before and she hopes to find answers on Needless street. This book definitely kept me glued to the pages. I think I end up giving it 4.5 stars rounded up to 5. I really like that it kept me on my toes.

Ted Bannerman lives in a creepy boarded up house at the end of Needless Street. Deemed odd by his neighbors and by those who encounter him, he is needless to say, a loner. He had been questioned years ago in connection with the disappearance of a young girl at the lake near his house whose body has never been found. Cleared of any wrongdoing he is still obsessed with the vanishing. He spends his days drinking, taking care of his daughter who he will not allow to leave the house, fussing over his cat who does not get along with his child. His cat adores him, or so he thinks…

Ted’s childhood was not a very happy one. He had an overprotective mother who was a nurse and worked a great deal. She explained to Ted that the gene pool on her side of the family was not very good and she did not want him to turn out like anyone from her side of the family. Then one day, as Ted explains, she upped and left and never returned leaving Ted alone.

Dee is the sister of the missing girl who disappeared all those years ago from the lake. She has made it her life’s mission to solve the mystery of what happened to her sister. She has always suspected that Ted, who was a person of interest back then, had something to do with her missing sister Lulu. Dee decides to buy the dilapidated house across from Ted when it comes up for sale. She decides she will do her own investigation of him to see if he can somehow lead her to her sister, or if she can prove his involvement in her disappearance.

As Dee watches Ted and interacts with him, she becomes even more convinced he is hiding something. Her obsession with him grows increasingly all-consuming. But Ted and Dee have more in common than they know. The both hold past secrets deep within their souls. Some harmful and others which protect them.

Without giving too much away, I will say as the story progresses the shocking lives of Ted and Dee will be made clear. Sometimes it is hard to discern between good and evil, love and hate, fear and heroics and the weak and the strong. Try to never judge a book by its cover because the story inside can be incredibly more shocking.

The Last House on Needless Street is a perfectly crafted tale of horror, pain and courage.

Thank you #NetGalley #Nightfire/Macmillan #CatrionaWard #TheLastHouseonNeedlessStreet for the advanced copy.