I was super shocked yet so excited when I seen this title sitting in my self.

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes is an enthralling story that kept me guessing till the amazing ending.

The House in the Pines draws you into its world within the first chapter, and it doesn't let you go until you've turned the final page. Ana Reyes talented storytelling and brilliant writing make the aspects of the novel appear in surprising ways.
The detail and lay out of the novel continuously keeps that suspense going.
Maya instantly drew me in with he characterization. Which had me hooked and not wanting to put this book down.
I was pleasantly surprised and I look forward to reading more of this author's work in the future!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Penguin Group & Dutton,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this eARC!

I love that I love that this wasn’t a whodunnit but a howdunnit. The way it unfolded made it impossible to set it down and I was guessing the whole way through but still didn’t see the twists until they were on us. I read this book while I was camping alone in the forest so I’ll say it definitely had me spooked

What happens when your mind is fractured, and you stop believing in what fractured you in the first place? The slow unraveling of everything that feels real and true in your life.

For Ana Reyes's debut novel 'The House in The Pines' - we're gifted a psychological thriller that's equal parts chilling and introspective. Playing on our programmed desires for discipline and self-control, but also our desperate needs for answers as humans, we watch Mya's story unfold.

A Short Preview:
When Mya witnesses the mysterious death of her friend Aubrey as she collapsed out of the blue years before - she must soldier on and somewhat piece herself together. While battling an addiction to prescribed medications and alcoholism that have allowed her to limp along - she meets Dan who immediately makes her feel safe and allows her to start thinking past addiction and trying to forge.

When Mya is surprised by a video of Frank, her sort of young love, and another woman who's mysteriously died - Mya's carefully constructed network of rationalizations and mental health started to fall apart. Journeying home to her mother's house, she finds hidden clues in a manuscript left behind by her Guatemalan father, and she starts to realize there is so much more to the situation than her potentially crumbling mental health.

My thoughts:
- When reading a psychological thriller, it always strikes me that none of us knows how far we'd go to decipher what's real and what's imaginary while our worlds are falling apart. Mya isn't the first person to battle the judgment of potentially being mentally ill (like other family members), and she won't be the last!
- We also get a sense of how we'd react if we were forced to face the systemic dismantling of a decent life and move into healthier zones or delve back into our obsessions. If you have any secret obsessions or convictions - how do you temper them?
- One thing I really loved about this story is that it was much less about the actual 'action' of who caused who's death - and more about what it took to get the main character to understand that there actually WAS a fault for the deaths and not just a 'Sudden Unexplained Death'.

Favorite Quote:
'...the intimacy of being with someone who loves the same stories.' - Something about this line was just so beautiful. Almost like a shared dreamscape that you can both escape to - lovely thought, really.

Notes:
- Psychological Manipulation
- Young women / older men
- Single POV
- Alternating timelines
- TWs: Mental illness, drug addiction

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes (Book Review)

As you progress through The House in the Pines, you will notice that it burns slowly. The reader is left in the dark for most of the book until the big reveal. I would like to commend Ala Reyes for addressing the sensitive issue of addiction in such an honest manner. This book gives an insight into the life of an addict on a day-to-day basis.

Synopsis:
The death of Maya's best friend leaves a bittersweet mark on her memory. Now an adult who has spent her life trying to forget, she sets out to find answers. It's almost impossible to believe what she discovers deep in the woods in her desperate search for the truth.

The House in the Pines is atmospheric and creepy. Maya tries to put the pieces of her disorganized life in order. Will she finally find the truth?

The House in the Pines is available on January 3rd.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton (Dutton) for sharing this intriguing book with me. Your kindness is appreciated.

Maya sees a viral video of a woman in a diner suddenly dropping dead while seated across from her boyfriend. Maya knows this man, Frank, who used to be her boyfriend, and years ago her best friend similarly dropped dead in front of him. She thought Frank was responsible fro her friend's death, but everyone concluded she had mental issues. Now that the same thing has happened again, can she convince anyone of Frank's guilt? But it's even less likely this time, since she's addicted to sleeping pills, drinks too much, and has a dead-end job.

Reyes keeps the reader guessing as to what is going on, and the questions raised - Who is Frank? Why does he have this creepy relationship with Maya? - create a wonderfully sinister undertone. Reyes enriches the book by incorporating Guatemala's tragic history and a fascinating ancient poem. An easy book to finish in one sitting.

I thoroughly enjoyed this debut! I wouldn’t call it a thriller but it had just enough suspense to keep me intrigued, I needed to see where it went.

My favorite part(s) was easily the scenes in Guatemala. As a Latina myself, I loved reading about a Latin family that reminded me of parts of my childhood & family homes.

I can’t wait to read Ana’s next one!
Thank you to Netgalley & publisher for a n ARC in exchange for my honest review.

First off, thanks to NetGalley and Dutton publishing for this ARC in exchange for my review. This book was definitely psychological! This is a debut and was so unlike any other book I’ve read! Maya is definitely unreliable, which makes the reader question everything they are reading! This book infuses a bit of magical realism as well, I can’t really say much more without giving it away but it all worked. Also, there is a bit of Guatemalan culture thrown in that while it ties in, it still was a side plot. What I do wish was for the ending to be a bit less vague, after piecing this crazy mystery together, I wished there was a bit more payout. Overall, this was a great debut with an interesting concept. I can see this as a BOTM selection as well due to the nature and way it’s written. Excited to see what Ana Reyes will bring in the future.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!

This is a really mind twisting and fairly disturbing thriller about how an imaginative and open mind can be manipulated by the wrong person to cause harm.

This was a really intriguing read. I saw in the acknowledgements that this author was inspired to write this from their thesis for their MFA. I absolutely love that little piece of information because it adds a bit of background to where this story came from within the author.

The main character, Maya, is going through so much right now. Klonopin withdrawal mixed with some irresponsible drinking. She sees a video online of a woman dying seemingly from nothing except the fact that this woman was with a man that was familiar to Maya and a history she's been trying to forget.

Out January 3, 2023!

I DNF'ed at 5%. I was so incredibly bored with the story and I didn't care if Maya got her pills or not. I need a mystery thriller that hooks me from the first page and this was not it for me. Thank you for the review copy.

I enjoyed this book and thought it was a unique premise. The story centers on Maya, whose best friend Aubrey died suddenly when she was with Maya’s boyfriend, Frank. Maya is convinced he had something to do with Audrey’s death. 7 years later she sees a video posted online where another woman suddenly dies while also in Frank's presence and Maya makes it her mission to figure out his connection in this dual timeline book.
The only part of the story I really didn't get was the connection to the book that Maya's father had been writing. This seems to be really symbolic, both in the synopsis and throughout the story itself, but I couldn't make the connection between that story and what was happening to Maya.
Overall, I really liked this book and found it to be a unique and engaging read. I'd recommend it to those who enjoy psychological mysteries.

Great synopsis, but it was very slow-going at the beginning, so I couldn't get into the story. This was a DNF for me.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you to Dutton and NetGalley for my gifted advance review copy!

Maya seeks to forget her difficult past by drowning her memories in alcohol and pills. Unable to sleep one night, she discovers a video online of a woman dying in a diner in an eerily similar manner to Maya’s childhood friend, Aubrey. Presented with the choice to either face her past or continue to ignore what ails her, Maya chooses to investigate what happened in her hometown a decade ago.

This book crams a lot of familiar themes and tropes into one novel. We have the MC struggling with addiction who may or may not be a reliable narrator, a parallel in the plot where a traumatic event in the past mirrors one in the present, the MC returning to her hometown (from which she’s previously been long absent), and a creepy cabin in the woods. To be honest, there was almost too much going on, and I didn’t really find much of it to be interesting.

The reader is told rather than shown a lot of things, especially early on in the novel, and this caused me to feel a lot of distance from the plot and its characters. I didn’t really feel any empathy or concern for Maya- there was definitely something missing here for me.

I’m also tired of reading books where addiction is a convenient plot device. Maya has a pill problem til she doesn’t and drinks too much til she doesn’t. It felt that this aspect of her was turned on and off like a faucet or switch depending on what was going on in the rest of the story. It’s also frustrating that her character remains in denial of her addiction/complicated relationship with drugs and alcohol til the (painfully) perfect end of the book.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 for Goodreads

A really fun read that struck a chord with me. The protagonist, Maya, is horribly unreliable but not in a way that makes the narrative a slog. The antagonist, Frank, is very un-antagonist and his motives are foggy at best. I loved the way the story unraveled piece by piece. RIP Maya's Dad. He was my favorite character and he wasn't even alive when this book started.

Maya escaped her past by moving to a new city and finding a new love. When she is brought back into her hometown from a video that shows her ex-boyfriend and a dead woman, she can’t help but wonder how this has happened… again. Maya goes through a rollercoaster of emotions trying to figure out the “key” to this mystery, that has her ex-boyfriend at the heart of girls who have died in his presence.

This book was not what I expected but it was the best surprise. The beginning was slow as readers will not know where this story is going but to press on, is to jump full force into a spiraling abyss. This book confused me in the best way possible. It was difficult to see where this story would be going but mid-way through I wondered about how it would end and made a prediction. My prediction turned out to be right, but even before I knew that, I could not piece together how the end would unfold. It was amazing to see the inside of Ana Reyes’ mind as she used psychology, thriller, and mystery to create this plot. I can honestly say that this book was a very interesting and fun read that I would recommend for anyone else looking for a new upcoming book to be engulfed in.

The House in the Pines is an atmospheric thriller about Maya, a young woman whose best friend Aubrey from high school died suddenly in front of her while in the presence of Frank, a strange young man Maya had recently begun dating. Years later, in the city she fled to for college, Maya sees a video online of another young woman dying suddenly and mysteriously in her hometown, while seated next to Frank. Struggling with her own patchy memories of her relationship with Frank and coping with withdrawal from the substances she used to cope with the loss of Aubrey, Maya returns to her hometown to finally get to the bottom of what happened to her friend.

An interesting story -- the challenge of an unreliable narrator and a nearly inconceivable plot twist made this one a bit challenging to get through, but ultimately a satisfying read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book!

While this book was intriguing and mysterious, it really fell flat and didn’t conclude in a logical or gratifying way. I was a bit disappointed at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley, Dutton, and Ana Reyes for the advanced copy of The House in the Pines in exchange for my honest review.

I unfortunately decided to DNF this one about 20% in. I wasn't connecting to the story or the characters and I was kind of frustrated with our female main character in particular.

As always, I will not be reviewing or rating this book on any retail sites aside from NetGalley!

had so many promising aspect but i had to dnf it at 40% through the book.... i was sooo sad that I had to dnf this because this was one of a good creepy reads

This excellent thriller makes me wish that there were more books to read by this author. I was thoroughly invested in the story which was delightfully creepy. I also enjoyed the interesting parts about Guatemala, and I learned so much. Each character was interesting and well-developed.
The only thing I didn’t like was the end. It ran on too long after the climax of the story. I was hoping for a final punch, but it never came. The ending was more of a whimper than a bang.
I will definitely read more by this author.