"The House in the Pines" is such a deep and haunting book! I loved learning about Guatemalan history and the tense relationships in Maya's family.

**3.5-stars rounded up**

A fun debut novel! I liked this one a lot. The House in the Pines contains solid storytelling and an intriguing premise.

This story follows Maya. When Maya was a Senior in high school, her best friend Aubrey, died suddenly, mysteriously and with no identifiable cause, directly in front of Maya's eyes. The only other person around, a young man named Frank, fled the scene. Seven years later, Maya lives with a loving boyfriend, has a job she enjoys, although isn't challenged by and is working through kicking a prescription drug habit.

Maya has struggled with the circumstances of Aubrey's death ever since. Due to this, she has understandably had trouble with sleeping and the pills sort of took the edge off, helped her to suppress the overwhelming anxiety. At this point, the prescriptions have run out. She needs to stop. It's going about as well as would be expected, which is to say, not well at all. Then Maya makes a disturbing discovery.

Maya comes across a YouTube video showing a young woman, sitting in a diner booth, suddenly keel over and die. Sitting directly across from this woman is none other than Frank, the same man who happened to be sitting right next to Aubrey at the time of her death. Maya is rattled. It seems like proof to her. She always knew Frank did something to Aubrey and now this other girl, this sort of proves it, doesn't it?

After a disastrous dinner at her boyfriend's parent's house, Maya knows she can't live with not knowing the truth any longer. She packs her bags and jumps a bus for her hometown of Pittsfield. Her Mom still lives there in the house that Maya grew up in and welcomes her home with open arms. It's hard for Maya to be back there after everything that happened, but she knows she needs this resolution in order to move forward.

Additionally, her mother, who has years of experience as an EMT, may be just the person to help Maya through the painful withdrawal process. Maya finally feels able to face her past. She throws herself into an investigation, not only of what happened to her and Aubrey all those years ago, but also to the young woman at the diner.

I was really intrigued by this story. It pulled me in from the start. I enjoyed how Reyes structured the telling of the story. There are both past-and-present timelines, as you slowly piece together what happened between Maya, Frank and Aubrey that summer and how that has impacted Maya's life ever since.

When she meets Frank at the local library, inexperienced Maya is taken in by the older boy right away. It's not necessarily his looks, but more a certain magnetism he has that is hard to resist. Frank knows just what to say and it seems they have similar interests. Before too long though, Maya begins to notice certain things about their time together that make her greatly uncomfortable. In fact, she becomes so ill at ease around him, she actually begins to fear him.

Additionally, Frank's presence is putting a strain on her other relationships. Always thick as thieves, Maya and Aubrey are spending less time together than ever. Once Maya finally admits to Aubrey the truth behind her relationship with Frank, Aubrey surprises her. She's afraid of him too. Just as the two girls begin to make connections, on that very day, Aubrey ends up dead.

I could really sympathize with Maya. The events of that summer were truly traumatic and it definitely had lasting repercussions on her life. Finding and watching that video brought it all back for her. It's like she was forced to relive it. I appreciated that her character was willing to return home and face all her fears and it did get creepy.

I really enjoyed the pace of this as well. I couldn't put it down once I started. While I found some reveals fairly predictable, I still enjoyed the story a lot. Overall, I am so glad that I picked this one up. It was quick and fun, yet thoughtful and slightly spooky. I am really impressed with this as a debut.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Dutton, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I can't wait to pick up more from Ana Reyes in the future!

This book was just ok for me. I like a reliable narrator but some of the transitions and things happened so quickly and without context I found myself going back and re reading sections just to figure out where I was. The twist was fun and make it a little more interesting.

I loved the premise of this book but I really struggled to get through it. I think we’ve had enough of the unreliable narrator trope and the book is very slow moving.

I found The House In The Pines by Ana Reyes a very difficult book to describe when talking to fellow readers about it. It is part Thriller, part mystery, part drama, and part maybe-supernatural sci-fi. I am at a loss to understand why the low cumulative ratings I see for The House In The Pines. While the book stretches my ability to suspend disbelief at times, I thought it was believable enough to not be distracting. Maya was an interesting character, and the mysterious sudden death of her high school friend, Aubrey was the mystery that crawled throughout the story. I can see why the resolution to that mystery could be polarizing, I didn't hate it.

I left The House In The Pines waffling between three and four stars, but ultimately leaned toward four since it is unique and kept my interest start to finish.

I saw that other book bloggers DNF'ed this book and I really wanted to stick it out because I wanted to know how it would end. While the ending was surprising, it was not what I wanted it to be. The beginning and middle of the book were very slow and I found it hard to sit down and continue reading but once I got to the end, it brought the rating of this book up. Maya was a stressful MC that I was concerned for the whole time I was reading and Frank seemed way more menacing towards the end than the rest of the book. I would recommend this to other fans of thrillers but not to everyone I know.

The House in the Pines is a psychological mystery/suspense novel that follows Maya, a woman with a tragic past who decides to find answers years after her best friend Aubrey's death.

Maya's ex-boyfriend Frank was there when Aubrey died, and even though Maya can't explain how, she knows Frank is dangerous and had a hand in Aubrey's death. Years later, another woman mysteriously dies in the presence of Frank, and it is caught on camera. Maya decides to go back to her hometown and figure out how Frank is getting away with murder.

I have to admit that mystery is not a genre I seek out. Reveals tend to make me roll my eyes or leave me saying "ok?" so I'm picky about the mystery books I do pick up. The House in the Pines is now my favorite mystery and I can finally say that it is a genre I can enjoy.

This story has themes of youth, family, and addiction. I enjoyed the story as Maya slowly solved the mystery of what happened to Aubrey, but I also liked the explorations of Maya's origins, her past, and current relationships. The story comes together in a way that I found extremely interesting, unexpected, and satisfying. The writing is excellent and the author is able to write about and use time in really compelling ways.

I highly recommend The House in the Pines to anyone who likes mystery or is looking to get into the genre. I can't wait to see what this author writes next!

I found House in the Pines to be an okay read. Personally, unreliable narrators are hit or miss for me and about 3/4 of the way through I set the book down and it took a long time for me to come back to it - I just wasn't getting into it anymore. I did pick it back up, though, and while this book was not a FAVORITE, I will absolutely read more from Ana Reyes

I started listening to this as an audiobook while I was working but it was not holding my attention, so I transitioned to reading the physical book. This was a very very slow burn for me and there were a few times when I struggled with what was the transition to a memory from the narrator's real life as the lines were blurred. Sitting back though, I wonder if that was by design. If so, it definitely did what it needed to do! I definitely felt what Maya might have been feeling as well. It was a great way to make this an immersive experience if that was the goal. This was an overall good read.

THE HOUSE IN THE PINES relies heavily on the fact that the protagonist is suffering from Klonopin withdrawals, making her somewhat of an unreliable narrator. this has been done so many times in mysteries/thrillers so if you're going to do it, the story better knocks my socks off, but unfortunately, it didn't.

I found it to be extremely predictable. I knew what would happen so quickly that I'm almost wondering if that was the point. there wasn't anything that occurred in the book that shocked me or left me in awe.

on a positive note, I did eventually find myself somewhat invested in the story, but mostly because I hoped to be proved wrong with my suspicions. it was atmospheric and I enjoyed the scenes at the cabin (wish we would have gotten more of that). I also appreciate that the author went a little out of the box with the plot

overall I'm super bummed out ... if you enjoy a slow burn, atmospheric read without any big twists, give it a shot!

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC! I had really high expectations for this novel since it was a Reese Book Club pick and a thriller, my fav genre. Unfortunately, this one missed the mark for me . I found myself not able to follow along since so much info was presented quickly, and getting confused. I did finish it and thought the ending was a little far fetched and not that satisfying. With that being said, I would give this author another try!

This wouldn’t normally be a book I’d pick up, but it was slotted for book club this month, and the premise seemed intriguing so I thought I would give it a shot!

3 stars is a little generous, but I honestly did enjoy reading this book, but the story itself left a bit to be desired. It is categorized as a “can’t put down thriller with a twist ending”, but really it was just a murder mystery that had a semi obscure conclusion. Pretty sure when the “twist” was revealed, my thoughts were, “huh, that’s neat”.

But, I still enjoyed my time reading this book! It was fast paced, and I liked the story telling back and forth between Maya’s teenage self and the present time. I’d recommend it for those who have a penchant for weird mysteries with happy endings.

Thank you to NetGalley for a digital copy of this book and the chance to give it my honest review.

Just before Maya left for college, her best friend, Aubrey, suddenly died while speaking with Frank, a man the two had spent time with over the summer. Horrified by what unfolded, Maya fled to Boston and her university life. Now, seven years later, she lives with her boyfriend, Dan, but she is still troubled by the long-ago summer and copes by drinking too much and taking unprescribed Klonopin, mechanisms she keeps secret from Dan.

Her terror comes to the fore when she watches a YouTube video in which a young woman with no apparent trauma or distress drops dead in a diner. Maya is certain that the man sitting in the booth with her is Frank. Not only does this result in the surfacing of unpleasant memories, it causes Maya to fear for her safety.

Maya returns to her hometown in Western Massachusetts. She’s convinced that if she finds out what really happened to Audrey and the woman who just died, she’ll be able to bring them justice. She recently stopped taking Klonopin, and she is not sure if her gaps in memory are related to withdrawal or if she really lost time that terrible summer. But in her mother’s house, she finds a manuscript written by her Guatemalan father, a father she never met, with a message that help keeps her centered while she also begins to rebuild her relationship with her mother.

THE HOUSE IN THE PINES is one of those books I devoured because I had to know how the story would resolve itself. The quick pace makes it an entertaining read. The fact that Maya couldn’t trust herself and that her mind felt unprotected was particularly scary to me. However, I don’t really enjoy the alcoholic/drunk thriller protagonist. Also, the payoff was a little anticlimactic to me because I figured out what was happening early on. Something I really loved, though, were the Guatemalan history and legends included in the book.

The House in the Pines | Ana Reyes
A mystical thriller where the truth is known by a most unreliable source.

Maya is a mess, and she has been for a very long time. Full of broken coping mechanisms and a textbook addiction to medication she shouldn’t have access to, she finds rock bottom quickly with a disturbing video linked to her past and a few too many daiquiris. Desperate for the relief of the truth, Maya heads back to her mother’s house – arguably the source location for her trauma. Even if she was right about the connection between her best friend’s death and the video of the diner, would she find enough clarity to uncover the truth?

It took me a minute to find my rhythm with this book. It had all the brilliant elements that I look for in a thriller, but it was hard to root for Maya when everything seemed severely stacked against her. All my sluggishness melted away with the second half of the novel. As the pressure mounted and the stakes skyrocketed, The House in the Pines became unputdownable!

Watching Maya piece her broken and blacked-out memories together on the page gave me a backward sense of delight and bolstered the sense of hope I was looking for in the first half. This story is carefully crafted and brilliantly executed. I was worried that the ending would land with the hollowness Maya displays at first but Ms. Reyes gives us anything but; there are soaring notes of strength and perseverance [though not the tidy happy ending I’m accustomed to with my recent slew of rom-coms].

4/5 stars
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC for review. Additional thanks to Reese’s Book Club for giving the nudge to read and review before January was up!

This book was eerie and unique. I didn’t know what to expect but it was an interesting read. I couldn’t believe what was going on.

Although there are some unique and new ideas in this novel I found a lot of the character's behaviors to be annoying and implausible. The writing didn't draw me in and the plot itself was hard for me to get behind. Those who appreciate this type of narrative (unreliable narrator who is recovering from addiction and unexplained deaths) may love it but it was just okay to me.

I was excited for this book, since Reese picked it for her January book club :) It was a fun ride, and a quick read.

But I didn't really connect with the characters, and I got to a point where I just read because I was 45 % into it. There was a little something in the plot that I didn't see coming, so that was good. But overall, it was an okay thriller.

One of my goals for 2023 was to read the Reese's Book Club picks each month, of all the celebrity book clubs, the titles picked always resonate with me most so I decided why not make it a point to read them all? Kicking off the year on a good start, THE HOUSE IN THE PINES was everywhere leading up to pub day & I was lucky enough to receive an eARC from Dutton Books + the audio thanks to Penguin Random House audio, making it my first audio read of the year and an enjoyable one at that!

I may not be able to devour audiobooks, but I always love a good thriller to listen to and this one had such great narration. This story was unique in how it was written, Maya's flashbacks, and how they made up so much of her as a character. I wouldn't necessarily consider this book a mystery/thriller in the traditional sense, but Reyes managed to capture my attention and keep me wanting to know where the story was going from the beginning. In my opinion, it was more of a realistic how and why things were happening in her life that was strange and unpredictable that made it suspenseful, the who that caused the similarities in her past and current life made it something to dive into after the trauma, guilt, and self-doubt one can have has taken it's toll.

This is one fantastic mystery with a drawn-out lead-up to a very unique twist. Once this was exposed, so much clicked into place. I was simultaneously excited and afraid for how it would all play out. I experienced much anxiety while contemplating what I thought I knew, rethinking the implications, and as I fretted about the outcome. A 5 star #mustread recommendation.

I'm excited for more from this debut author.

While the idea of this book was so interesting and promising, the actual storyline fell super flat for me. The majority of this sort was useless fluff to make it into a novel. There wasn’t a whole lot of character development or any kind of development. The revelation at the end was so out of here that even I didn’t believe it. And I’m one who reads about women falling in love with dragons and a lot of other never gonna happen type of deals.