I was pleasantly surprised by this thriller. It follows one of the unlikeliest of characters in books of this sort–Iris, a 70-year-old woman seemingly suffering from dementia. Normally domestic thrillers that have rich people drama are centered around young, vapid and envious people, so this was quite the surprise.

The story cuts back and forth between the present day, and the recent past. The former timeline follows Maureen, a detective trying to locate a missing Iris, as the book opens up with Iris calling a 911 dispatcher in a fearful and frantic state before subsequently vanishing. The latter timeline follows Lydia and Seth, a couple Iris hires as house-sitters to live with her in her palatial house and assist her in her old age. In the middle of all this is Iris, a wealthy elderly woman with a gentle disposition and an air of mystery.

We see how all these stories intermingle and come into play, and the results are surprising at times, but also tedious and familiar. The writing is good, and the book reads more like a cozy mystery if anything else. I found myself drawn to Lydia, Maureen, and Iris–three women who’ve lived hard lives, and whose struggles inform the decisions they make in the story. That, and the reveal at the end made the time reading worth it. But for all the craft on display, this thriller is very much content with existing within the safe, formulaic and inoffensive mold most other books in its genre seem to stay in.

And despite finding nuggets of fascination in its characters, I wasn’t able to find one I truly connected with on an emotional level. Not all the parts in this machine were well-oiled enough, and some red herrings felt obvious when they were presented and didn’t do much to sway us away from the main story and have us second-guess ourselves. It’s still not a bad book by any means, but not one I’d *highly* recommend.

I loved the cover of this one, and the writing was good....but I just found all of the characters to be unlikeable, With no many books about house sitters / live in caretakers / guests / tenants out there right now, this one just wasn't my favorite.

Iris is widowed and living alone in her giant fancy house and find herself in need of some help when she has an accident and breaks her arm and can’t manage the house on her own. She meets Lydia who is working at the local diner and when she finds out she’s down on her luck decides to help her by having her come and work for her to help out with what Iris can’t do on her own with her broken arm. Lydia and her boyfriend, Seth, quickly move in and become Iris’s and her home’s caretakers. With their help, Iris is hoping her home and her forgetful mind will be better looked after.
One night iris is convinced someone is in the house so she calls 911. While on the phone, the dispatcher hears gunshots and when the emergency services arrive they find a trail of blood and no sign of Iris. But was she really murdered? And if so, who is the killer-Seth, Lydia or the burglar that Iris called about?
This was really thought provoking and well layer out. The characters are not who and what you expect and the pace remains consistent throughout the story. Narrator was spot on as well. A brilliant psychological thriller.

Not the most thrilling book I have read/listened to. Hard to follow and keep my attention. I listened to this book and the quality of the audio echos and sounds like she is speaking from a hole in the ground. Maybe that is why the book couldn't keep my attention.

A chilling, dark book with hints of “all is not right” from the opening pages. The narrator is perfect for the book and I couldn’t stop listening every chance I got. This is simply fabulous!

Lots of lovely twists. However, none of the characters are particularly likeable. Regardless, I enjoyed this book, waiting for the next surprise. Thank you for providing this book for hours of entertainment.

I loved the first half of this book, and couldn’t stop listening to it. However about halfway through it just stopped working for me. I think this book had so much potential but just got jumbled up.

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this audiobook, I found the timelines really difficult to follow, that may be easier with a physical book but it was hard to follow on audio. That being said I found the plot predictable and all the twists were easy to work out.

I didn’t enjoy the narration, it just didn’t work for me unfortunately especially the “old lady” voice for Iris.

I just couldn't finish this. The narrator's voice, in particular her voice for Iris, made me cringe. She also made the males sound fake and robotic.
Other than the narrator, this isn't a story that I would be interested to finish. It seemed fairly obvious what would happen, and the way the dialogue was written didn't keep me hooked or invested in the story.

I feel sad when I have to give a bad review. This is a completely forgettable book.

The dialogue in this is so cringe-worthy. It's awful. It took away from the story so much. I also wasn't feeling this narrator at all. Her voice for Iris was so bad, it sounded over exaggerated like a child would try to imitate an older person and give them a shaky voice. Between her strange narration combined with the bad writing of the dialogue, I almost gave up on this one.

The flipping time lines are hard to follow. I'm not sure if this was due to listening to the audio. It might be easier to follow with a print version. I felt the plot was disjointed and a lot of the time I was confused about what was going on.

Again, what is with the weird echo on these audiobooks from Netgalley??

Thanks to Bookouture and #Netgalley for the ARC. I'm sorry it didn't work for me.

This story was pretty interesting. While it wasn’t too difficult to figure out what was actually happening, it was still fun to hear how it played out.

This is the first book by this author. We open to a 911 call from an elderly lady. She's asking for help but all the dispatchers can do is stay on the line with her and listen on in horror, unable to help while she is viciously attacked. We then go back to meet Iris, presumably the elderly lady on the emergency call. Iris is young at heart and lonely after the loss of her husband Dean. Iris makes her way into a café and meets a clumsy waitress named Lydia. Lydia keeps talking about her partner Seth, who sounds like a real loser. She also makes some victim noises about her boss for asking her to do her job. Lydia is chatty and and over-sharer. That's like catnip for lonely old ladies. Iris leaves her a big tip and her phone number and the next thing you know, Lydia and Seth are at her house to do some work. Iris has suffered an injury lately and needs a lot of extra help, but mostly companionship. I followed along pretty well up to this point. Then we start dealing with cops and investigators at a crime scene and it's hard to follow because they're just not being clear about what happened or who is who and they're fighting amongst themselves. I understand it's intentionally vague but maybe it needed some extra editing to make it work. When I read the synopsis I was hooked, but unfortunately it didn’t live up to the exceptions! I listened to this as an audiobook and found parts to be rather confusing and uninteresting. I felt that I would have liked reading the book more so than listening to it. The dual timeline makes it difficult to keep track of what was happenings. The ending was twisty so I kept the rating to 3 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the chance to listen and review.

First I've read from the author but I did enjoy it. Great writing and the before and after timelines kept me entertained. I had it halfway figured out but the ending did surprise me still. Absolutely loved Maureen the rookie cop. She needs her own follow up book! Definitely recommend. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this book early! However, this was not the book for me. I'm writing this review minutes after I finish it because I'm guessing I won't remember in a couple days-- thats how dull it was. This book is about an "old lady" (she's 70 and sounds like she's knocking on death's door on the audiobook) named Iris who meets a young girl named Lydia at a diner. Lydia overshares her rough life with her husband Seth and Iris leaves her a big tip and a note that offers them to come help around her house. The book opens with a 911 call from Iris asking for help and then gut shots and silence and the rest of the book is told in before and after so we can learn what happened. Theres so much I didn't like about this book. The characters are caricatures and chauvinist pigs. The cop is stupid and completely unrealistic. The writing style is boring AF. I wasn't engaged in this book at all, despite having a somewhat interesting premise. And what is the title about? Theres 2 of them and they're not even house sitters. The book had a good premise and the last 15% of 29837429538 twists and reveals was okay (albeit really out of place with the rest of the book and disjointed) and gave this the 2nd star. Would not recommend this book though.

Great narrated thriller that kept me on my toes and guessing until the very end. Iris was an absolutely charmer, living alone in her posh Pacific Heights home. I enjoyed the back and forth storyline, it kept me interested until the end, because of the cliffhanger that was narrated in the very beginning.

In an effort of honesty, I found this book a little hard to get through. Mostly because I just wasn’t interested in the content. It was very slow and never gave me a thrilling moment that made me want to keep going. I finished it in the hopes that the ending would make it worth it, however even at the end, I just wanted to be done. I listened to this as an audiobook and not only was the narrator incredibly slow, but I also found her to be monotonous. This just didn’t hit the mark for me. I’m rating this as 2.5 out of 5 stars, rounding up to 3.

Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Ellery Kane for providing me with this gifted audio copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you Netgalley, Ellery Kane, and Bookouture Audio for my gifted audiobook!

Synopsis:
When Lydia is fired from her job at a restaurant, she's glad she and her brother Seth can stay with their elderly friend Iris to look after the wealthy old lady and her huge property. But when Iris disappears, Lydia and Seth soon catch the police' attention.

My thoughts:
I really liked how this story unfolded, and the ending was quite wholesome. I did see the huge twist coming right from the start, though. Also, I was wondering SO many times how the characters could make one unlucky decision after the next. BUT there was one really amazing character - he's such a pure soul!

This was my first book by this author.

The House Sitter
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What an interesting read. Technically, this was an audio book that I was given the opportunity to read by Netgalley! While I usually find it easy to keep up with audiobooks, I struggled with this one. I found it confusing at times with the back and forth between perspectives. Perhaps the physical copy of the book would be easier to follow?
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Iris Duncan is an elderly lady who needs a little bit of extra help around the house. Then one day a married couple moves in with her to help take care of all of the maintenance. One night Iris goes missing, and there is blood indicating a possible murder. Her body is never found, but the investigation continues on trying to identify who the killer was. The primary suspects are the couple that were living with her, Seth and Lydia.
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This book had quite a few twist and turns and not everything was predictable for me which I always enjoy. That being said, the only part of this book I truly liked was the ending. Honestly the only character I truly liked was Iris. There are more parts of the storyline that I disliked than liked. I I'm not a fan of the pregnancy storyline in this book, and a few others that I don't want to mention because it will add spoilers!
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Thank you Netgalley for sending me an ARC copy for an honest review !

Though the ending had a good twist and I kept asking myself the entire time who is her friend, I have to admit that the scenes and turn of events were predictable. It isn't a bad thing but when you're always reading this kind of genre, you know what I mean. :)

The dual timeline sometimes makes it hard for me to keep up with whats happening. The audiobook's table of contents doesnt have the chapters listed so it's hard to come back on those chapters I want to check back.

I would still give this a 3 stars as it kept me engaged until the ending. I understand why people hate the narration but with many characters for just one person to do a voice over is difficult for sure so have a heart and just kudos to the narrator. :)

Thanks Netgalley for giving me the chance to read this nice book

Oof… this was kind of painful. I won’t rewrite the synopsis or summarize the story any, but I will say that I found the plot to be extremely predictable (I figured out literally every “twist”) and I’m still racking my brain trying to figure out how we landed on that title 🤔 it just doesn’t make sense. I didn’t like any of the characters… like at all. I felt like they were all stereotypical and poorly written. I was constantly annoyed with Maureen Shaw continuously overstepping her boundaries - it just wasn’t realistic. The dialogue was absolutely cringy through the entirety of the story but I am one who does get bothered by dialogue so take that with a grain of salt.

I listened to this one on audio via NetGalley and the narration reminded me of a dry true crime show narration but also had a weird echo the whole way through which drove me freaking nuts. I hate to write bad reviews, absolutely hate it but this one just wasn’t for me. If you like detective stories, you may be able to see past some of the above and enjoy it. From how it ended, maybe it could turn into a series, I’m not sure but I probably won’t read another. Thank you so much to Bookouture and NetGalley for my advanced review copy.