4.5 rounded up to 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I was looking for a creepy book to read since Halloween is approaching. I enjoy a good mystery/thriller, but I’m not really into horror. I don’t like gory, gross, “give me nightmares” books but I wanted to read something alittle bit scary. This was a perfect choice!! Just enough creepiness to give me a Halloween vibe but not enough that it freaked me out where I was afraid to keep reading. I am amazed that this is a debut novel because the writing was so good, I feel like I was reading a book by a best selling author. I predict that Jennifer Fawcett will one day be on that list! I can’t wait to read more of her books in the future. I was fortunate to receive an advanced copy and was able to read this around Halloween, which was perfect. It doesn’t come out until February 2022 but I highly recommend picking up a copy once it’s released!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!!

To see other reviews I’ve left, check out my Instagram and Goodreads pages:
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Wow- for a debut thriller, (or any thriller) this was an incredible spooky story. Excellent writing, character development, & a solid story/multiple timelines made this an enjoyable read. This exceeded my expectations. The cover sort of deterred me and it didn’t quite match the description of the staircase to the cellar matched in the book, but that was the only odd thing I could think of that stood out.
The ending was satisfying but still had enough air of mystery and superstition. I will recommend this on my book review page! Review to be posted on @upstatebookreads on Instagram

This was a stunning debut! The writing was captivating and economic; while Jennifer Fawcett never uses two words when one will do, the word she chooses is aways the right one. The friendships she weaves between these four young friends are unbelievable in their clarity and tensions, and transported me back to that age of uncertainty and barely-covered resentments. An excellent first novel that has me eager to read whatever this author writes next.

Given that I'm a Simone St James fan, I really liked this book. The writing was great, esp for a debut novel. Clare and Abby were great characters. The mystery was very good, if a little overwritten. The ending could have been more but it was also just enough.

This thriller blends small-town secrets and supernatural elements for a page-turner.

I found the romance weirdly flat, but I think that might have been a function of all the time jumps.

Beneath the Stairs is a book that kept me turning the pages right from the beginning. The concept of the Octagon House is so relatable and reminded me of all the ghost stories we told as kids. Fawcett’s well-developed characters and plotline created a fast-paced, creepy read. Well-done!

Wow! If I hadn't read that this was a debut novel, I would never have guessed it. Pulls you in from the beginning. Though there were some supernatural elements, which is not my typical genre, I really enjoyed this story.

I am excited to see what this author comes up with next!

Thank you #netgalley and #atriabooks for the eARC.

Beneath the Stairs is an atmospheric suspense thriller with supernatural undertones. Right up my alley. And yet it turned out to be quite a peculiar reading experience, enjoyable throughout but somewhat unsatisfactory in the end. It’s as if the book didn’t quite hold up to the rear view introspection. All the ingredients were there, the writing was perfectly good, but (as this can be easily attributed to debut jitters) it leaned heavily toward excess in execution. Which is to say it was quite heavily overwritten and, if you consider it in its entirety, a lot of the plot aspects went underutilized. Obviously, it’s difficult to go into specifics without giving too much away, but…well, one can try.
So, once upon a time there was a small town and in it, well, on the outskirts of it, there was a strange house, an octagonal shaped house with dark history and murderous past that stood abandoned and, as such places do, absolutely irresistible to local kids. Some went in and saw something in the basement that terrified them and continued to call back to them for years and decades since.
The main narrator, Clare, is one of those kids, now a grown woman, who comes back to her small town after finding out that her childhood friend went back to the basement and tried to commit suicide there. So yes, at its heart of hearts this is yet another one of those stories where the protagonist returns to their small town and its hidden evils after many years away.
And yes, because it’s a thriller, it has the prerequisite time split narrative, where you can follow Clare as a teenager and as an adult. But then, because it’s also kinda sorta a horror story it also takes you back to different timelines with different narrators who have all had the distinct displeasure of staying at the Octagon House. And also, sometimes it takes you to a different narrator during present time. Which is all to say…too many cooks in the kitchen.
The overall effect is busy. Too busy. To her credit, the author manages to juggle all those narrative balls, but it isn’t the easiest of tasks, because those balls are unbalanced. They work as individual self contained units, but when you consider them as a sum total, you realize that the past is simultaneously too drawn out and underplayed and in the end comes to a relatively minor haunting that has been blown out of proportion. The serial killer angle is all but buried in there. In fact, entirely too much of the story’s historical past has been sacrificed in favor of the formulaic present, including a romantic subplot and babies, babies, babies. Also, the ending…it’s just too freaking easy. Just puff and burn your worries away…after all that. Way too easy.
Had this been streamlined, it might have made for either a compelling if clichéd thriller or a compelling if clichéd ghost tale. As is it’s kind of a mess. A very readable and mostly enjoyable mess, but one that doesn’t hold up to the scrutiny of retrospect. Take the Orpheus approach here, go through it, enjoy, but don’t look back. Thanks Netgalley.

Beneath the Stairs is so much more than a haunted house story and I devoured this one from beginning to end! I love how it's not just a story about ghosts- it's a story about trauma and coping. I highly recommend it! You'll be both enthralled and spooked!

I was looking for something different to read, I wanted spooky, but I don't deal well with horror and tend to have nightmares. Jennifer Fawcett's Beneath the Stairs was the perfect book for me. This book jumps between multiple timelines and characters. The main character is Clare and a lot of the story focuses on her & her best friend Abby, their story is told in 2 different times, 1998 when they are teenagers and first visit the local "cursed" house, and then modern day as they deal with fallout from childhood trauma. Part of the story is told in 1936, when the house is being built, and then we get part of the story told in 1965, about the only family to have lived in the house.

If you are looking for a super scary ghost story, or a bloody horror book, this book isn't going to satisfy you. I didn't have nightmares. I ended feeling sad for the ghost. The book was wrapped up in a very satisfying, kind of feel good, way. I really enjoyed this book, and will be watching for more from this author. Thank you NetGalley for the eARC!

I received an advance copy of, Beneath the Stairs by, Jennifer Fawcett. I did not like the language in this book. Its a very dark story of a creepy haunted house. Abby's friends are not the kind of friends you want to have.

Jennifer Fawcett got this haunted house just right. So right I read the book in one sitting. Creepy, and scary in the best kinda way.

Loved this one. The pacing was perfect. The details were revealed a little bit at a time and that kept me hooked. Anytime the basement of the Octagon House was mentioned it gave me the chills. The fact that the house was the shape of an octagon just added to the creepy factor. I had to Google what an octagon shaped house would even look like. There was one thing that I might have changed at the end of the book but I can see why the author decided to write it the way she did. Great origin story for this dark haunted house story with some violence but no gore.

Atria does it again with an amazing author!

Beneath the Stairs by Jennifer Fawcett is an outstanding new novel that I very much enjoyed.
This was a page tuner for sure with great character development. Even better plot and storytelling.
The writing was flawless and mesmerizing in was hooked immediately upon opening the page.
This is one y'all won't want to miss!

Creepy, scary, eerie house haunted by past inhabitants’ spirits theme is always a big winner for me!

I was making an interview with a director who shot a movie about haunted house and a creepy little doll reminds of us Conjuring’s Annabelle at the same time I received the arc.

After reading few pages, I said I was damned! The same plot line with more well constructed two childhood friends’ traumatic experiences and their never ending nightmares about the house kept calling them were great ideas which hooked me up even though they freaked me up more than I expected !

The story divided between three timelines: first timeline takes place in 30’s: introducing George who builds the house for his girlfriend Alice and his daughter Grace. He plans to marry with Alice but his possessive love and abusing tendencies scare Alice and little Grace also knows George hates her and he would be happy if she’s out of the picture.

Second timeline is about a family of four: who moved in the very same house in mid 60s. Ben, Natalie and elder daughter Joan who finds Grace’s baby in the basement of the house are narrators, trying so hard to adjust their new lives. Then a tragedy strikes out and the brutal murders haunt the place forever!

In present day, we’re introduced to main character of the story: Clare who recently returns back to her hometown from Chicago, after dealing with her traumatic miscarriage and breakup with her longtime boyfriend. Her childhood friend Abby’s mother called her to inform: she’s found at a house’s basement, overdosed and she called Clare’s name before the medics take her to the ICU.

Clare has to come back to confront the ghosts of her past: her guilt feelings, fears, regrets, unresolved issues.

In the summer of 1998, Clare went into that haunted Octagon house ( it’s unusually shaped like octagon) along with Abby, Lori and Monica. The house left abandoned after a man killed his family and sent to prison ( which connects it with second timeline of the story and present narration of Ben who is at the asylum now). It was a few miles outside Summer’s Hills.

If they have just gone one time, everything would be fine. Abby went there again at the same night.

And she was never be the same after she found herself locked in basement.

Clare is adamant to solve the mystery of the house because her childhood friend Lori’s daughter Taylor also went there and she has a big urge to return back just like Clare hardly resists.

She wants to help her friend Abby whose mind trapped in this place for years. But what if she’s not strong enough to face the entire truth the place holds. What if the curse is destructive enough to crash her!

It was well developed psychological, somewhat paranormal thriller. The author chose to emphasize emotional depth of friendship at the conclusion. Thrilling elements were a little overshadowed but it was still fair end for exhausted and broken characters of the story.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books For sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

The ultimate retelling of the neighborhood haunted house from your childhood. I, sure most of us had one. But this house reaches out to you past childhood and doesn’t let go!

Kid’s in Summers Mills have dare each other to enter the Octagon House. Deep in the woods, the house was the scene of a slaughter, where a man killed his entire family. Teenagers Clare and Abby take that dare and sneak into the house one night; and when they come out, both are changed, Abby irrevocably. Twenty years later, she returns to the house and tries to kill herself. When Clare gets word that Abby is in a coma, she rushes back to Summers Mills to try to make sense of what happened at the Octagon House and why it’s affected Abby so strongly. This is a creepy, read under the covers kind of book, great fun

I loved this book. It was so creepy in all the best ways. Highly recommended I literally couldn’t wait to find out the ending it was such a great book.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately I couldn't and it took me awhile to finish.