The pandemic was a crazy time. After losing her job and having difficulties with her fiancé, Kelly was happy to be invited to spend some time with a high school friend who happens to be a best selling author. Sabrina and her husband Nathan Lamont live in a mansion in an exclusive gated community in Virginia. Nathan has a top secret job for the Department of Defense and the couple explain to Kelly that they are very private people. Kelly is delighted at living in the expansive home with the swimming pool and hot tub and enjoys spending evenings drinking wine and hanging out with the glamorous couple. It isn't long before the three of them begin a sexual affair and Kelly falls in love with both Sabrina and Nathan. The only thing that bothers her is when she finds some photographs of another young blond woman and she too appeared to be a partner of the couple.

Sabrina tells Kelly the woman who was named Beth, disappeared from the house and from the life of the couple and hasn't been seen since. Yet Kelly is enjoying the sex and seduction too much to ask too many questions even when she meets some residents of the town and they tell her to steer clear of Sabrina and Nathan. The novel is mostly a romantic tale with some twinges of warning until the last third of the novel when a murder happens and Kelly becomes confused and scared. I found Kelly to be kind of unlikable in that she left behind her fiancé and seemed to think she could just live free of charge with this couple and even insist on a permanent place in their lives. There was a big twist I didn't see coming and I don't think it was needed but I did like the wrap up of the story. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for a review.

Andrea Bart’s has put out yet another unputdownable thriller. Kelly finds herself living with a happy couple and getting a little too close. What the reader doesn’t know is if she should trust them. With turns around Avery corner and chapters that keep you reading, readers will love this one. Loved the ending.

this was the most bizarre mish mosh of genres I’ve read in a long time - and I was digging it! (for the most part)

after my letdown of WE WERE NEVER HERE, andrea returns with another cast of completely unlikable idiotic characters that you can’t help but love to hate! for me, however, it was definitely a higher emphasis on hate rather than love 😅😅

kelly has recently separated from her husband and moves in with a husband wife duo in their mansion …. what could go wrong right? 😶 a mystery ensues but not before kelly joins the couple in their romantic relationship, which leads to a dance of sexy scenes?? I kinda liked it

[and for everyone comparing this book to fifty shades or other spicy books, you’ve clearly never read them .. this was not even close to open door]

kelly’s character definitely needed a reality check. the way that she constantly battled herself in her own mind if she was being paranoid or not gave me a headache. like girl, if something feels off, IT PROBABLY IS RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!

I do think this one falls victim to the mis-marketed genre - it’s definitely more of a mystery than a thriller 🥴 and I’m sad to say that I stayed up wayyyy too late reading this one!

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

rating: 3 stars
wine pairing: argentina malbec

This book was amazing! I couldn’t put it down. Absolutely terrifying and thrilling at the same time. One of my favorite books!!

This book just wasn’t for me, I found the narrator, Kelly, to have no depth. She was clingy & desperate & far too eager to please. The entire throuple/pandemic/quarantine angle was not fun reading. Honestly, I felt icky most of the time. And reading about the pandemic & “strict quarantine protocols” three years later is quite frankly exhausting. The final scene between Mike and Kelly was anti-climatic and weak, which led to my final eye roll - Sabrina & Kelly breaking up after Kelly realized Mike was actually the murderer, sparking her to “go find herself,” while Sabrina moved on as a swinger. No thank you.

The Spare Room follows Kelly who is jobless, friendless, and is going through a rough time with her fiancé. The only bright spot is her rekindled friendship with Sabrina. Sabrina offers Kelly to come stay with her and husband for a while. Kelly really loves living with them and ends up falling for both of them. At first everything in the new found relationship is going well. But Kelly starts noticing that things seem a little off. The last women that Sabrina and her husband were with went missing. Now Kelly fears that the same thing might happen to her. 

So I am a little confused why this book is marketed as a thriller. For the most part this book did not seem like a thriller. It took over 80% of the book for the thriller vibes to happen. This was more of an interesting romance book. I did like this book over all. I just felt like it could have been better. However, I am a little unsure if I would suggest this one. If you are looking for a thriller I would skip this one. But if you are looking for a romance book with a dash of thriller vibes I would suggest this one. I have never read anything by this author before and I do like her writing, and I will be reading more by her in the future. 

Thank you Andrea Bartz, Ballantine Books, and NetGalley for this ARC.

Super steamy thriller that I didn’t know I needed! But seriously, I was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns this one took, all the way until the very end! I do wish it was a little more suspenseful, that is the reason I gave it 4 stars. I kept waiting for the mystery aspect to kick up a notch, but it never did.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

ARC review for spare room by Andrea Bartz
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
I read We We’re Never Here by Andrea and loved it and I love this one also! Her writing style is one of my favorites in thrillers! We follow Kelly in this book and she is on the outs with her current relationship and moves in with her friend Sabrina and her husband Nathan, they spark your a relationship. Everything is fine until she finds out that their last girlfriend went missing and she has to decide is it a coincidence and stay or intentional and leave. This was a slow burn romantic thriller that featured a trouple and it had some spice to it! I loved this book and will be buying a physical copy when they come out!
💓 💓

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The twists and turns in this one! Kept me on turning the pages and on the edge of my seat. Highly recommend. Andrea Bartz does it again!

I cannot hold my e-reader! It's too hot! This book is incredibly steamy!

Poor Kelly, at 35, gets dumped by her long-time fiancé. Luckily, she reconnects with her old friend Sabrina from school, who writes scorching hot erotica and is married to a high-powered and sexy man. Sabrina invites Kelly to stay in the spare room of their beautiful Virginia mansion to nurse her unexpected breakup, leading to a steamy threesome with the gorgeous couple in the middle of a pandemic. Kelly finds her new normal in these life-altering circumstances.

But later, she discovers that she's not the only one sharing intimate moments with the couple. There's another woman, her predecessor, who is missing, and she was last seen at the same mansion where Kelly is now staying. Are you intrigued?

You'll find yourself drawn into this extremely stimulating, naughty, and hyperventilating story. You won't be able to put it down. Your smile will only widen as you keep flipping the pages.

It starts off slow-burning, but don't worry, the early chapters will lure you in, and your anticipation will only increase with each chapter. It gets hotter, and the tension builds. You may think you're reading an erotic thriller, but when you reach the second half, the slow-burn tension reaches a boiling point. The trapped-in-a-mansion theme, intense claustrophobia, and whodunit mystery will keep you on your toes. You'll want to know what's going to happen and who the culprit is.

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 is the boldest, sexiest, and most riveting work by the author. I took off half a star after having second thoughts about some characters' situations, but I'm still rounding up to 4.5 stars and giving it a full 5-star rating. Wow, what I just read! Great work, Andrea Bartz!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine Books for providing this amazing digital review copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Where to begin with this one? For starters, a few chapters into the book, I was convinced I was reading the wrong genre. I'm not a romance reader, so some unexpected R-rated scenes took me by surprise in this one. Apparently, I don't read book descriptions very thoroughly either haha---as a mystery/thriller lover, I like to be surprised. If nothing else, this book definitely delivered on the shock value. I had to give this one two stars; not because it wasn't a quick, compulsive read; but because the genre crossover was much too stark. A little bit of romance in a thriller is okay, but this felt way out of my comfort zone. I also felt like the goal of this book was to be somewhat of a social commentary, which I don't generally appreciate in fiction.

I'm scared to give a description of this novel for fear of immediately spoiling the entire plot. Here's the TLDR of the story in case you're curious. Kelly thinks she has a perfect life planned out with fiancé, Mike. Surprise, surprise---there's a chink in their relationship armor and he suggests they slow things down. Kelly reconnects with an old friend from high school who invites her to stay with her and her husband at their mansion in the suburbs of Virginia. What could go wrong? Read (if you dare) to find out. Also worth noting, this book takes place during the pandemic--- it's an underlying theme, but not an overt part of the plot.

Overall, this wasn't what I was expecting from Bartz. I really liked We Were Never Here, but this one was way too risqué and out there for me. I would not recommend it to anyone I know. Friends, please "spare" yourselves from The Spare Room.

Thank you so much to Ballantine Books, Andrea Bartz, and NetGalley for the ARC of The Spare Room.

This book had a great twist at the end that i did not see coming. That was the best part of the book. The main character was not very likeable. She was too gullible and i only kept reading just to find out the ending.

I Liked It. There were a lot of interesting things in this story to keep you going. Different and unexpected. Not a huge fan of the ending which seemed to come out of no where by providing new information. A decent read.

One of the parts of this storyline I liked best is how it incorporated the pandemic as part of the plot. Kept me turning pages until the very end.

Kelly needs a place to stay while taking a break from her fiancée during the pandemic. An ideal situation arises when a former classmate and her husband have a room available for her to have in their house. How close is too close? How well does she really know her friend? Who can truly be trusted? This is the premise of this thriller. It did not disappoint.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

The character’s plot like was quite the journey - finding herself in love with a married couple after leaving her fiancé during the pandemic, then to have their ex return. It was a lot, but at the same time I couldn’t walk away! I felt suspicious of the main characters most of the time, what their intent was, where their relationship would head and how it would implode. This book definitely kept me on edge but I got to the end faster than I wanted to! Andrea Bartz spins quite the story and you won’t want to put it down!

Suuuuper chilling take on a domestic thriller. Might be one of the best I’ve read so far in 2023! The twist was A+ writing.

Fabulously sexy, delightfully creepy, while also being a story about growth brought on by the collective trauma we all experienced during the pandemic, THE SPARE ROOM is a great read, with elegant prose and an electrifying plot. I tore through it in a day. Well done, Andi Bartz. This is my favorite of her novels. Thanks to net galley, the publisher and the author for the eARC!

Book Title: The Spare Room
Author: Andrea Bartz
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine Books
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Pub Date: June 20, 2023
My Rating: 2 Stars ~ I really wanted to round up because of the great cover

Kelly Doyle and her boyfriend Mike decide they need a break. (Loved that Mike really hoped Kelly would leave their cat Virgo with him.)
Kelly’s childhood friend Sabrina invites her to spend her ”break” with her and her husband Nathan Lamont. They live in a mansion on Tanglewood Estates and have plenty of room.
Kelly moves in but soon finds secrets. There was another girl who was involved with them and she has disappeared. Plus finding a camera in the spare room’s closet is creepy.
In fact, I thought oops I didn’t do my homework on this story.
Have to admit the cover is great however it did lead down the wrong path as it gave me the wrong idea.
I love a story with twists and turns but it really didn’t work for me. However, doesn’t mean it is a bad book. I know it will find the right audience who will enjoy it.


Want to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine Books for granting me this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for June 20, 2023

This book was alright. I think Andrea Bartz’s writing just isn’t for me. I felt like there were some holes in the book and they never were resolved. I felt like there was a lot of potential though.