I had high hopes going into this book — a woman looking to escape her life and live with a couple whose past resident mysteriously disappeared. However, this was such a slow burn — to the point where the flame definitely went out and I didn't even care because where was the psychological thriller? Where was the suspense? In true Andrea Bartz fashion, the "big reveal" comes so close to the end of the book you just know there can't be a good resolution. This reveal was so unbelievable (not in a good way) that I almost wanted to put the book down and say that's it I'm done. This one was a pretty big waste of time for sure.

Honestly, “pandemic thrillers” are starting to make me retroactively uneasy. How did we last isolated for almost a year mostly inside worrying about pasta, peanut butter, and toilet paper shortages without something creepy and life-altering incident happening before vaccines? I loved, loved, loved Andrea Bartz’s creepy previous thriller, “We Were Never Here” (also with morally ambiguous characters), but I think the pandemic angle is what kept me starting and stopping “The Spare Room” (which I should have devoured 5 months ago upon receipt). But now I’m buoyed by all the positive reviews and I can add my own praise to this unique growing sub-genre (like “56 Days” by Catherine Ryan Howard, “The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich, and “The Fell” by Sarah Moss).

As a plot device, the COVID-19 lockdown almost automatically creates a locked room or cabin-in-the-woods setup: there’s something evil outside, but there might be something deadly inside, too. Here we have Kelly (she of apparently questionable decision-making), who has fled her own questioning fiancé, Mike, to go on a whim to the “safety pod” of a primarily social media friend, Sabrina, a spicy romance novelist, and her uber-handsome husband, Nathan, who does something mysterious for the Department of Defense. The touchy-feely couple live in a huge house that is semi-isolated within a gated community (and conveniently shares a fence with a cemetery). Kelly really wants Mike back, but she keeps doing things that are not supporting that future. Like getting into a ménage à troi with her hosts. OK, the girl deserves some fun, but she also discovers that possibly a previous woman who was in the same threesome has disappeared.

The narrative is twisty and this turns out to be quite the page turner, but I did have some reservations about Kelly (lots of: “what were you thinking, Kelly?” moments). I never saw a key development coming and — hoo-boy — that changed things. 5 stars!

Thank you to Random House/Ballantine and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES Sabrina has leprechaun green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Just a cemetery designed like a park.

“Staying with a friend and her husband is sexier—and deadlier—than anyone could have imagined…”

Personal review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book contains tension, twists and absolutely toxic relationships, also trigger warning, it’s a pandemic set book. This novel didn’t grab me automatically, but eventually I was hooked and needed to know what was going on! The main character Kelly is hitting breaks on her wedding and relationship and moving in with a long lost high school friend and her husband for lockdown. When I first read pandemic pod, I wanted to burn the book down, but I eventually got over it and was addicted to the twists and turns in the pandemic pod relationships. When she discovers the last woman they invited into their marriage went mysteriously missing - I was as HOOKED! I spent the majority of this book on the edge of my seat wondering what the heck was going on! This domestic thriller comes out on June 20, thank you Ballantine Books for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

Synopsis: Kelly’s new life in Philadelphia has turned into a nightmare: She’s friendless and jobless, and the lockdown has her trapped in a tiny apartment with the man she gave up everything for, who’s just called off their wedding. The only bright spot is her newly rekindled friendship with her childhood friend Sabrina—now a glamorous bestselling author with a handsome, high-powered husband. When Sabrina and Nathan offer Kelly an escape hatch, volunteering the spare room of their remote Virginia mansion, she jumps at the chance to run away from her old life. There, Kelly secretly finds herself falling for both her enchanting hosts—until one night, a wild and unexpected threesome leads the couple to open their marriage for her.

I really enjoyed this book! I couldn’t stop reading it and even stayed up late to finish it. It was unique, sexy, and suspenseful. I like how everything came together and was explained at the end. Also, beautiful cover! My one complaint about the book is that there were a few too many similes. But overall, this was a great suspenseful thriller with a unique concept!

I've read 2 of Bartz's previous books, so I was excited for a new one. But this has to be the absolute stupidest plot of a book. Kelly is straight, a mid-western good girl, but willing to get into a throuple because she found a stack of compromising polaroids "accidentally" left under a bureau. Yes, because people often misplace those kinds of images, especially when they work for the government and don't want people to know they have a third in their marriage. And those photos turned her on. Well, that and the pot because apparently, that's a thing pot now does. *rolls eyes*

Kelly is the absolute worse. She's 35 and doesn't know couples argue. Further, she said, "I've never liked reckless people." Hello! You are reckless people! She's a woman who's suddenly a co-dependent person who can't survive without these people who can't stop lying. Then she forgives them for the 50th time. And the writing? It's so cheesy. "Picturing my life without him in it felt dangerous, like chanting "Bloody Mary" into a mirror." Yeah, girl, the height of danger right there. Or "I can still feel his handprint on my shoulder, menthol-tingly." Mmm hmm.

I can't with this. It's beyond ridiculous. I usually don't write such mean reviews, but this was absolutely awful, and while Bartz tends to write unlikable characters, this storyline just can't carry it.

Ugh, I feel bad for such a low rating, but this was DEFINITELY not the book for me.

I shopped based on cover and the author's previous book, but had I known what the book was going to be like, I would have made a hard pass.

There were so many things I did not like about this book:

1. It was mislabeled. This was NOT a thriller. If it was a true thriller, I would have been the intended audience. I was put off and offended to be quite honest. Now, whether the false marketing was intentional or not, I'll never know, but that is was confused me initially.

2. The main character was insufferable. For real. There was not one redeemable characteristic about her and I had no idea why anyone would care about her, which, looking back is probably why the people that did were morally depraved as well.

3. The characters were flatter than a pancake. I also saw no character arcs in any of them. Did the MC change? Yes, but for the worse (which I did not know was even possible). I felt like she became even more selfish by the end.

4. I was rooting for her-- to get caught. I wanted her to be held accountable for her actions. Did that happen? I can tell you it wasn't even worth it to find out.

5. It never seemed to end! I kept thinking it was over and then there would be another chapter. It just kept dragging along.

6. I had to skim through the majority of it because it was against everything I believe in and there wasn't any substance to it.

7. None of it was believable--even when trying to suspend belief.

8. I have avoided reading anything pandemic-related, so I really despised the reminder of what we all had to live through all over again through an irritating character that I wanted no part of.

Now for the positive:

The author did have good descriptive writing when it came to setting.

Although this was a negative review that I did not want to give, I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for allowing me to read this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was compulsively readable because the characters were so messy and I was ready for the drama. It would be a great book for the summer, reading by the pool or at the beach.

Unfortunately, I was hoping for more thrills, and this came across more like a romantic suspense. The pacing dragged out a bit too much for me, and it felt quite repetitive at times.

Good for people who like authors like Jeneva Rose or Tarryn Fisher!

This novel is full of broken people having lots of sex. The main character, Kelly, wants a break from her fiancée and accepts an invitation to stay with her rich friend that she hasn't seen since high school. Creepy things keep happening and you don't know who to trust as it seems like they all have secrets.

Let me start off by saying that I LOVED "The Herd" and "We Were Never Here". The characters were intriguing, and the story lines had a nice pace to them that didn't allow my interest to drift.

Unfortunately, "The Spare Room" didn't follow that pattern for me. None of the characters were likeable for me, and I quickly lost interest with the story (maybe because COVID is too fresh on my mind).

Others may enjoy this one, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

⭐⭐

I felt like this book was all over the place. The time jumps became confusing. I also could not connect to the characters. They were all cold and I just didn’t care why. This had potential but just didn’t connect with me.

****Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review****

Thank you, Ballantine Books and NetGalley, for the advanced copy of The Spare Room.

Hold on to your seat as you navigate this twisty, suspenseful thriller. I have to say that when I first started this one I wasn't thrilled that it took place during the pandemic, but it was the perfect timing for a story like this. If you tend to shy away from books that take place in that timeframe, don't shy away from this one. I think we can all relate to some degree to how lonely of a time it seemed to be, and this one delved into that vulnerability and extorted it to hell.

Kelly is in the trenches with her relationship. Her live-in boyfriend has called off the wedding after she moved to a new city for him. She now finds herself without a job, without friends, and potentially without her boyfriend. After finding Sabrina, an old high school classmate, on Instagram, she packs up and heads to hang out with her new buddy and her buddy's husband. The picture-perfect life that Sabrina portrays on the 'gram might not be so perfect after all, and Kelly is about to learn that the hard way.

The Spare Room is a quick read that is filled with twists I didn’t expect. I wasn’t able to put it down!

''Kelly’s new life in Philadelphia has turned into a nightmare: She’s friendless and jobless, and the lockdown has her trapped in a tiny apartment with the man she gave up everything for, who’s just called off their wedding. The only bright spot is her newly rekindled friendship with her childhood friend Sabrina—now a glamorous bestselling author with a handsome, high-powered husband.

When Sabrina and Nathan offer Kelly an escape hatch, volunteering the spare room of their remote Virginia mansion, she jumps at the chance to run away from her old life. There, Kelly secretly finds herself falling for both her enchanting hosts—until one night, a wild and unexpected threesome leads the couple to open their marriage for her.

At first, Kelly loves being part of this risqué new world. But when she discovers that the last woman they invited into their marriage is missing, she starts to wonder if they could be dangerous . . . and if she might be next.''

I don't want to give too much away, but be warned, this is not your average popcorn thriller. The topics are scandalous, the events are derailed, and there are so many triggering subjects, jaw-dropping incidents, shocking, juicy, and mind-blowing twists. I had mixed feelings about some parts of the conclusion, but I still fully enjoyed the brilliant epilogue.

This book was a great read full of twists and turns and left me gobsmacked by the ending.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for this ARC

This book really didn’t know what genre it wanted to be. It started out super slow with setting up the character for about the first 1/3 of the book. Kelly was overly whiny and needy. I really didn’t like her character. None of the characters were likable. Then the next 1/3 was slow spice and not that good. The last 1/3 was the thriller, but by that point I was way past bored and nothing shocked me or was interesting. The description made the book seem to have potential, but the execution wasn’t there.

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my own.

When I saw The Spare Room as an option for request on NetGalley I was very excited because I really liked Bartz’s first book when I read it a couple years ago. Unfortunately, I struggled to find anything I really liked about this book. The relationship was really a lot more than I was expecting and I didn’t like any of the characters. The beginning just felt really awkward to me and Kelly just seemed to make stupid decision after stupid decision; it was like she entirely lacked common sense. It got to the point that I was hoping she would be the one murdered so I didn’t have to read about her anymore. The ending also really did nothing for me. It was just like “ok…?”

Also, the passage of time was confusing to me. I think a few weeks was mentioned here and there but I couldn’t tell over how long the book was supposed to be taking place.

Would not recommend.

From the New York Times bestselling author of “We Were Never Here” comes the domestic suspense novel “The Spare Room.”

In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kelly’s fiancé, Mike, has just told her that he wants to pump the brakes on rescheduling their wedding. During the pandemic, Kelly reconnected with her childhood friend Sabrina, a bestselling romance novelist. To give Mike some space (and hopefully beg her to come back), Kelly takes the train from Philadelphia to D.C. after Sabrina and her handsome husband, Nathan, invite Kelly to stay in the spare room of their remote Virginia mansion. There, Kelly finds herself falling for both of her hosts, and an unexpected threesome leads to the couple opening up their marriage for her. Kelly is excited about her new life, but then she discovers that the last woman they invited into their marriage is missing. She starts to worry that Sabrina and Nathan might be dangerous, and that she could be next.

I went into this book blind, and everything about it was so unexpected. It was an entertaining read, but I was expecting more of a thriller than a romance novel, and at times it felt like I was reading “Fifty Shades of Grey.” The book started off really strong, but it fell off in the second half when the plot seemed to change. Despite this, it was a wild ride from start to finish. It was very suspenseful, and I did not see any of the twists coming. If you like a spicy book, then this is the one for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book started off really strong! I would definitely rate the beginning 4 stars. It stalled in the middle, and when I was 3/4 the way through the plot totally changed. So I would give it 3 stars overall. Definitely entertaining (and spicier than the average thriller) but outlandish in the end.

This started as a fun, twisty escape for someone who is looking for a spicier read. It had the psychological draw of a woman entering a new community, during the height of the pandemic, being reunited with an old acquaintance and her husband. However, it went off the deep end about a third end. It took me months—plural months—to finish. It soon became incredibly far-fetched, and I had absolutely no sympathy or really feelings whatsoever for the protagonist.

1.5⭐️ I wish I was the type to DNF. I requested this ARC because i’ve read books by this author before, and I went into this one blind. I highly recommend you read the summary prior to diving in. if I had, I never would have read this. definitely not my cup of tea.

kelly and her fiancée decide to pump the breaks on their wedding plans during the pandemic. kelly has been instagram stalking her old high school classmate sabrina, and, after a few messages, sabrina invites kelly to come quarantine at her mansion with her and her husband nathan. after she arrives, things escalate quickly and they become a throuple.

kelly’s character is insufferable. I couldn’t stand her. her constant whining and worrying that she isn’t an equal part in this relationship… when the other 2 partners have been together for 5+ years and she’s been there like 2 weeks? it was just juvenile and annoying. I was constantly rolling my eyes.

the first 80% of the book was just sex. if I wanted to read a book like that, I would have read fifty shades. like I said, definitely not my type of book. nothing about this appealed to me.

thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Kelly finds herself jobless, in a new city, with a fiancée who just said he’d like to stop planning their wedding, in the midst of a pandemic, she doesn’t know what to do. Fortunately, a new friend invites her to stay with her and her husband during the pandemic. Her new neighbors are rude, but she begins to fall in love with the couple she is staying with. They begin a relationship, but Kelly is suspicious when she finds out she’s not the first one, and the last girl is missing!

Having enjoyed previous work by this author, I was very surprised to be so disappointed by this book. This book didn’t seem to have a clear identity. I wasn’t sure if it was a love story or a mystery/thriller. As a result, it wasn’t good at being either. There was very little character development and the first 2/3 of the book seemed to be spent developing the least steamy threesome ever. All of the characters felt very flat. Near the end things picked up and I was shocked by the explanation for bizarre things that were happening. But at that point, I just wanted to be done. One loose end was cleared up by an epilogue, but I wish that had revealed another twist or offered more to the story.