Words! I have none! THE LAST HOUSE ON NEEDLESS STREET by Catriona Ward is a masterpiece. It is addictive, engaging, and will totally blow your mind. Many books use alternating POVs to progress the story, but this book does it in such a way that is so inventive, fresh, and will continually add to the intrigue and suspense. The characters are quirky and mysterious and I never wanted to stop reading about them. The way they speak, interact, and view the world is just so intoxicating. This is a true mind-bender of a book and I strongly recommend it. This will make my top 5 of 2021 list for sure.

3.5 stars rounded up.

It's safe to say I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into when I read this one. SO bizarre, but in the best way? I'm not even sure how to articulate it.

The Last House on Needless Street is primarily told from three different viewpoints: a teenage girl named Lauren who is house-ridden, a middle aged man named Ted, and Ted's cat Olivia. Yes, you read that correctly, a cat narrator! I'd be lying if I said Olivia didn't make me laugh out loud on a few occasions.

I loved Catriona Ward's writing style, and the plot, while slightly predictable, was very well-written and had me turning pages to figure out what happens next. This is just another book that, for me, was good but not great. I was really hoping to be more "horrified" than I was (damn you, Stephen King blurb!)

I will definitely be reading whatever Ward writes in the future. Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Nightfire, and Catriona Ward for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Last House on Needless Street is out in the UK now and will be released in the US on September 28!

Awesome read! I was intrigued, horrified and wowed...all at the same time. I couldn't wait to tell my friends, co-workers, basically anyone who would listen about this book. I feel like anything that I write will spoil the story, I wanted to know more about each character. Some of the abuse is hard to read, but it was buffered with a few narratives from Olivia the cat. On a side note, I'm a Librarian and there are already multiple holds on this book! I predict this book will fly off the shelves.

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this horror eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

The big pros for this book were the cover, Olivia the cat, and that the story did keep me second guessing for most of the book.  The con was the ending.  In fact there were several false endings I would have liked better.  I think this book is going to be a hit for most readers.  I can't write much about the plot because of spoilers.  I did appreciate the author's note at the end that discussed her reasons and research for the book.  I wish I would have loved this more but the ending was not for me.  Arrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Tor Nightfire!

This was a very odd reading experience overall. The start was rather bizarre, and I really had no clue what was going on. I wasn't really enjoying it initially, but I'm glad I stuck with it because it turned into something I find really fascinating. It does have a slower start, but then things really picked up with the pacing and tension level. It's definitely a twisted, interesting journey overall. It wasn't really what I expected, though to be fair, the synopsis is rather vague so I had formed some strange guesses regarding what it might be about. It is very dark and sad (there are content warnings here but these could be spoilers).

I didn't always love the point of view sections we get until some things are revealed and I put clues together. What we think we know isn't necessarily right, and it definitely surprised me a bit. Ted initially doesn't seem quite right. He's an unreliable narrator where he loses time and sometimes gets stuck in memories of the past as a young boy. There's Olivia, his cat, who thinks she has some purpose in life with Ted. We also have Dee, who's the sister of a girl who went missing years ago nearby and is still trying to figure out what happened. I initially liked Dee's sections and narration style the most. I was mixed on Olivia's sections because I didn't love the religious aspect, and I disliked and feared Ted. Over the course of the book, I did change my mind on some of them!

This is a somewhat vague review, but it's better to not know much going into the book. I did have a mixed reading experience overall, but I'm glad that I stuck with it because the later parts of the book get to be very exciting. I'd recommend this to those who are interested in uncovering this story and willing to stick with it if, like me, the beginning seems a bit rough.

My video review can be seen on my booktube channel (around minutes 4:14-7:56 of this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jvcmgJVMtI

I enjoyed the slow unraveling of this story. I was captivated from the first page and that captivation morphed into dread, curiosity, loathing, shock and finally understanding throughout the coarse of this novel. The reader will almost certainly form opinions and theories concerning the events and characters in the story and in the end they will all be wrong. Once the author decides we've had enough and takes us by the hand and leads us to the truth, those revelations are just as disturbing as the story that precedes it.

I will keep Catriona Ward on my radar from now on. Look forward to seeing more from her.

I've finally managed to read a book by Catriona Ward, thanks to an ARC provided by Tor Nightfire! She's been on my TBR shelf for a while now, but early recommendations by bookish friends in the UK finally compelled me to request this one, and I will be reading more.

However, I've been considering, for a day or more, about what to rate this one, as I've been torn between 3 and 4 stars.

First, the concerns. There's a lot of elements and twists going on here. Most often, they worked for me, but when they didn't, they were frustratingly distracting. One element, I kept thinking was, instead of a red herring, more like a red shark in that it felt like a cheat to me. When the reveal happened, instead of shrugging it off as a clever misdirection as the author clearly expected the reader to do, it felt like a unforgiveable breaking of contract with the reader. Another major element, that I cannot reveal without it being a major spoiler, was really questionable content for me. And the reveal/"twist" for that one was supposed to have turned upside what we were lead to believe... but then I realized, after it was all over, that it really, maybe, wasn't that way, after all, and I couldn't tell whether this was entirely, cleverly, intentional, or whether it was an editorial oversight. And I did feel that it mattered (I'd rather know whether this is something I need to be concerned about when deciding whether to read more by the author). My star rating for these particular elements alone hovers around 3 and possibly even 2 stars.

Worst first, over with. Best for last: I thought this might be one of those books that I really like, where you're left entirely unsure whether the events could have had supernatural elements. This was not the case (though, no spoiler, I'm not telling you whether it actually had the elements or not, just that you're not left wondering, in my experience). But I liked that about it, because the atmosphere/elements still lent themselves to either possible path. Pitch perfect for autumn/spooky season reading.

This is all a bit rambling, I know, but if you take a look at other early reviews that are also responsibly attempting to avoid spoilers, you'll see that this is necessary for this book. So much rides on the twists/secrets/knowing as little as possible going in. So there's not much to say, really, beyond vaguely gesturing to the overall experience. While I found the constant twists and entwining of the different elements rather exhausting, I still liked that about them. And while there were a couple of elements that did bother me, I still settled on four stars, and I will be reading more of Ward in the future.

Recommended with caveats though, of course, I can't actually tell you directly what those are!

The Last House on Needless Street is a story that I could not put down. The characters are compelling, confusing and secretive. The more I read, the more I needed to understand what was going on since this story has quite the puzzle!

Wow!! This books was really something. While I can’t really say this book was for me I can objectively say this was intense and riveting.

There is not much you can say about this book without totally giving it away, so I will just say that once you think you have a handle on what the heck is happening, you stop short and come to discover you were wrong.

This was dark and scary on a severe level. This book will leave you guessing all the while.

This is one of those books that to describe it is really to give away the magic contained within, so I won’t say too much. I primarily want to say that this is a dang masterpiece of character development, created with a whole-body kind of tension that makes it hard to put down & yet difficult to read at times. Ward gives us a murder mystery and a phychological thriller and more while keeping a delicate human touch. This book will make you feel things that surprise you. A lot of things will surprise you.

Here’s the summary:
“In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three.
A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time.
A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory.
And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible.
An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.”

This is a definite 5 star read for me, and I think it’s going to make big waves when it comes out at the end of the summer- Sept. 28th. Many thanks to tornightfire & netgalley for the advanced e-book.

Well. I’m in this position here with this book where I really can’t say much at all without spoiling and it would be a huge disservice to all future readers of this book to do that so I’m going to be very careful.

I loved so much of this and what it was about…

The cover looks like a horror book and in many ways it is, but also it isn’t. The story begins with an event that shapes everything to come for each character you’ll come across. I love that the story is told in the way it is. I especially loved Olivia the cat. Yep- a cat partially narrates and she’s wonderful.

Omg, Lauren shhh! See, I want to say more, but I’ll leave it at this: Everything is confusing and doesn’t make sense and it then it seems like everything is too easy and obvious and then finally you’ll find that you were so wrong about everything you thought. This book contains abuse, body horror, grief, trauma, survivalism, and so much more. The best thing you can do is go in blind and ride it out till the end. Just do it.

Seriously sayin'...........

I feel like I'm sitting in a cardboard box imprinted with "This Side Up".......but it's not.......and my senses and my equilibrium have been tossed about in a horror storm. I've been pressed upon the sky. I can no longer feel solid ground.

Catriona Ward is gonna mess with you from the first page onward. Get off the tour bus now if you can't take this itinerary. Ward will take you down dark hallways that keep getting narrower and narrower. Not much space to even squirm around once you're in.

Theodore "Ted" Bannerman lives in that last house. The one in the title. The boarded up windows and the overgrown grass in the front yard should be warning enough. Don't even place your hand on that rusted out doorknob. Even Ted's neighbors don't venture down to this part of the street with a thick forest bordering in the background.

But things were not always that way. Ted's mother had neighbors in for coffee and she wandered over to their kitchens as well. As a registered nurse, Ted always respected her decisions. But, strangely, his mother had a habit of being "let go" from the hospitals in which she worked. She finally took off on her own and the neighbors quit inquiring about her. Ted is more than willing to pass on good wishes.

And then Catriona Ward introduces us to "Popsicle Girl", a six year old who went missing one day at the beach. The police even searched Ted's house. Nothing popped up. But, years later, little Lulu's sister, Dee, is hellbent on finding out what happened to her sister. She's still convinced that Ted knows more about her disappearance than what he is saying. Dee eventually rents the house next door to Ted. Oh, Lordy! And now it begins.......

My lips are sealed. There's no two ways about it. The Last House On Needle Street must be experienced. No words are adequate to describe the goings-on. It's start to finish. Like swimming for your life with arms and legs paddlin' like mad. And it's the madness that soon floats to the surface.........

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and to Catriona Ward for the opportunity.

My main complaints with this book are that I found it to be tedious and predictable. I think the story idea was interesting. I think it could have been a creepy, suspenseful read. However, there were too many characters and simply nothing that grabbed my attention and held on to it.  The only character that I found truly interesting was Olivia; a Bible reading cat. As for the other main characters, well, they were forgettable.

There is Ted, an awkward man who seems to be mentally ill. There’s Lauren, Ted’s daughter, who is never seen outside and rarely heard inside the house. Lastly, there’s Dee. Dee’s sister disappeared when they were children and after years of amateur detective work, she believes Ted had something to do with it.

Dee’s story line was my least favorite because again, it was just boring. It’s mainly her staring at Ted’s house all day and night waiting on him to do something incriminating. She then ends up dying in the woods and her body is never found… and that’s that.

As for the twists, all but one were very predictable. The only one that actually surprised me was when it was revealed that Lauren and Olivia never existed. By that point in the story, though, I was extremely tired of the whole thing so I didn’t really care. 

This is not the worst book I’ve ever read but it’s not great. I think the blurb from Stephen King on the cover is what’s really adding to the hype and not necessarily the story itself. I’m definitely in the minority on this, though, because so many people love this book

This book sunk it's claws in deep and wouldn't let me go! It was creepy and atmospheric and dark and psychological and I had no idea where it was going or even quite what was going on - the sense of reality versus fantasy was almost hypnotic! The pacing, the writing, the characters were all perfect. The ending was mostly unexpected, transforming this book from a lesson in horror into something else.

The Last House on Needless Street (Catriona Ward) is confusing at times. Several different points of view, and some back and forth in time are used to tell the story of the house and it's residents. Ted is the "main" character that lives in the house. It is very easy to dislike Ted. I won't put any spoilers in here, but as the pages go by some of our feelings for Ted change. I want to thank NetGalley and Nightfire for an early copy to review.

I received an ARC of the audiobook (coming September) through NetGalley. I give the book AND narration 5 stars. Highly recommend experiencing this story via audio.

✨ The Title/Cover Draw:
I saw @_myfictionalworld talking about wanting to read this book and it sounded really interesting.

💜 What I liked:
The atmosphere in this book is effective. It is creepy, off putting, and you can’t stop thinking about it. We mainly follow Ted, his cat Olivia, and a neighbor named Dee. This book keeps you guessing but it is definitely horrific. I guessed the twists but the execution of it is definitely a ride.

😱 What I didn’t like:
When one of the major twists is dropped about ¾ of the way through the book, I wondered why I had so much more to read. It seemed to never end, and could have been tightened a bit. That being said, there were so many reveals.


🚦 My face at the end: 🤪

💭 5 Reasons to Read:
1. Clever cat
2. Storyline keeps you on your toes
3. Multiple Mysteries
4. Shocking twists
5. Eye opening subject matter

The Last House on Needless Street surprised me. I just wasn't sure what to expect. But when Stephen King says, "I've read it and I was blown away," you don't question it. You just read it! So what do I have to say about a book where the cat reads, the narrator keeps shifting and there's really more mystery and intrigue than my puny brain can process all at once? Yes, blown away is a good descriptor.

Dee's sister Lulu was kidnapped from a local beach 11 years ago. And she's never forgiven herself for not doing more to have protected her sister. When her sister disappeared, her family fell apart and since then she's been a bit of drifter, unable to put down strong roots and just going through the motions of life, hoping that she can find her sister.

Ted has issues. He lives alone with his cat and his daughter visits on the weekends. Only thing is, who would ever marry him? He seems like a mama's boy who was never going to get over the psychological damage he personally suffered as a child.

But Dee decides there is something more sinister at play and moves down the street from Ted to keep an eye on what is going on. She thinks he has something to do with what happened to her sister. And she's going to figure out exactly what that is.

Thank you @tornightfire for the gifted copy!

The Last House on Needless Street | Catriona Ward 🐈‍⬛🔪

When I finished this book last night I just thought "wow". This story was such a wild ride! There were so many plottwists... I don't think I've ever read a book with so many. Once you think you've got the plot figured out, you're wrong 😅 This book was such a page turner, I read it so fast and I loved it from start to finish!

The Afterword from Catriona Ward was so interesting. The amount of research she did for this book with her careful distribution of telling the story was very impressive!

This was such an amazing read! Pre-order your copy now! The Last House on Needless Street is available on September 28th!

Easily 5/5 ⭐

As a huge horror fan I’ve read a lot of horror and have seen a lot of horror movies so I honestly don’t pick up horror too often anymore with running across a lot of this is familiar feelings. However, when I saw that Stephen King was used to endorse this one I couldn’t help but be curious as he was always a favorite so I went ahead and picked this one up. At the point of actually picking this one up I’ve also noticed lots of my reader friends are enjoying this one too so I was excited to dive in and see what was the draw to this one.

One of the houses on Needless Street is occupied by Ted Bannerman. Ted lives in the old home with his daughter, Lauren, and his pet cat, Olivia. Ted keeps to himself and his daughter never leaves the house after that one time out. Now Ted is getting a new neighbor. Dee is moving into the house next to Ted still searching all these years later for answers to what happened to her little sister. Years ago Dee was distracted when she should have been watching her sister and the girl has not been seen since. Now Dee has her eye on Ted.

The Last House on Needless Street is the type of story that changes the point of view between several of the characters to tell the story. There are flashes back to the past from these characters helping build the story on how they are all linked together. The book got off to a slow start for me but it did pick up as the story went on. This one is a creepy but yet engaging read and once going it really did keep the pages turning waiting to see how it would all turn out and the best of all it really did surprise me in the direction this one took.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.