SYNOPSIS:

Kelly, a thirty-four year old, is devastated when her fiancé, Mike, can’t decide if he wants to marry her. It’s the middle of the pandemic, and Kelly lives with Mike & her cat, Virgo, in Philadelphia. She uprooted her life from Chicago fairly recently, when Mike got a new job in Philly. While her relationship has been on the rocks, she reconnects with her old high-school friend, Sabrina. Sabrina, a beautiful NYT best-selling author, is married to Nathan, a handsome man who works for the Department of Defense.

When Mike leaves Kelly in limbo, Sabrina and Nathan invite Kelly to come stay in their spare room in their private mansion in Tanglewood Estates, a wealthy DC suburb. Quickly, they become a thrupple, while Kelly learns Sabrina & Nathan have done this before. Their last partner is now missing..

MY THOUGHTS
- This book was an interesting read, and it kept me turning the pages. Although, some parts felt repetitive & slow.
- Kelly is such an unlikeable character. It’s painful. She is in her mid thirties, but she comes off so naive & delusional.
- The ending was anti-climactic.
- At many points, the characters & events feel unrealistic.
- The story did keep me engaged, and I didn’t have trouble finishing the book.
- I did think the writing was good & easy to read.
- For fans of this genre, I think this one is worth a read.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️Three stars. Good story & kept me engaged. Extremely frustrating main character. Anti-climactic ending. Many characters & events feel unrealistic.


Thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. It's due to be published on June 20, 2023.

If you liked Bartz's other book, We Were Never Here, you will love The Spare Room. The Spare Room is a slow burn thriller, and like her last book, most of the action happens in the last third of the book. I thought I knew what was coming, but definitely did not! I could not put it down, and read it within a day. Would highly recommend!

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group, NetGalley, and the author for providing a copy to review!

DNF. Sadly, this is not the type of book for me. I do not like reading about poly relationships. If that's something you enjoy reading about, this may be the book for you.

Loved this one so much!! Fast paced thriller that is highly enjoyable, entertaining, and impossible to put down.

While I loved The Herd from this author this one was a DNF about a quarter of the way in for me due to the terrible main character and instant love effect. Had this had more of a build up I think I would have stuck around longer.

This was a slow burn book. I wouldn’t really call this a thriller. It kept my interest for the most part but was really slow for me. It didn’t keep me wanting more. It was almost more of a Ya book. I have never read a book from this author yet so would definitely read more.

Would you have moved into a spare room with a former high school acquaintance and her husband amid the pandemic? Someone you haven’t spoken to in years? What if it was a beautiful DC mansion?
No. I wouldn’t. But Kelly did. She’s taking a break with her fiancée and connects with an old classmate through social media who’s a very high profile author now.
She takes her up on an offer to move in temporarily but then things get weird of course…
They become a throuple. Yea. This book is NOT like the former “we were not here”, it’s full of relationship awkwardness.
I will admit it came off a bit cheesy with the sexual parts. It felt very YA to me.
Also, this is not a thriller. Maybe the last 15% is a bit but not the main part. More domestic suspense/romance
It was also too long, a definite slow burn, a few twists but pretty easy to figure out.
A possible good beach read for someone who wants romance with a little mystery.
Overall I found The Spare Room to be entertaining enough. I still look forward to reading anything Andrea writes in the future
The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz will be available on June 20. Many thanks to Ballantine Books and Netgalley for the gifted copy!

1.5 ⭐️💫 stars. I didn’t DNF so I rounded up to 2.

Oh gosh. I mean… sigh. I was intrigued by the plot but let down, for sure. Let’s break this book down into quarters, roughly.

1st Q: Kelly moves in with virtual strangers when she and her fiancé, Mike, are in need of a break. She spends most of her time wallowing in self pity and wishing she was home with Mike.

2nd Q: Kelly forgets all about Mike, ignores obvious warning signs, and begins sleeping with both Sabrina and Nathan.

3rd Q: Kelly is suspicious of them, but continues to sleep with Sabrina and Nathan, and continues to ignore the warning signs. She’s in love.

4th Q: Kelly gets it all wrong, and so does the author, IMO. The ending twists are dumb, I’m sorry.

Overall I’d say this is a skip.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

This book book had me constantly guessing from the beginning with an ending I did not see coming! There were so many twists and turns that made you second guess yourself on everything you originally thought was going on! The only thing I didn’t like about the book was that it incorporated Covid protocols with mask wearing and quarantining, and if you’re like me that’s just not something I enjoy reading about because we have lived in it for so long. But overall the boom was extremely good and I definitely recommend for when it comes out!

Bartz, consistently an engagingly thrilling writer, takes a step towards something all the much deeper here, and it's unforgettable. This book almost literally throbs with danger, darkness, and the sense that no one can ever really trust anyone, no matter how naked or vulnerable they seem. It's such a good, heavy, unstoppable thrill ride, and I can't stop thinking about it.

Sadly, this was a no for me. It had such great plot potential but it didn’t turn around so it was a miss for me.

I expected a thriller/mystery, but it was more of just a psychological domestic drama, talking about break-ups and living in a threesome..
I will admit vs not DNF i skimmed through many parts that lost my interest.
It just didn’t seem realistic and I continued on hoping for a good ending.

Thank you to NetGalley for an arc of Spare Room in exchange for an honest review.

I HATE giving bad reviews – it just makes me feel so bad, because so much of a review is based on personal opinion.

2.5 Stars

While this is typically my genre, the poly relationship and the way Nathan and Sabrina treated each other did not sit well for me. It didn't really seem like they were ever in a successful poly relationship, and instead were just trying to do it for one another. I questioned some of the MC's early decisions and definitely couldn't stand her in the beginning.

What worked for me in this book was the amount of self growth the MC achieved over the span of this book and the realizations made regarding a number of her relationships. I also definitely felt this was fast paced (which I need). I loved Andrea Bartz's last book, "We Were Never Here" so was eager to pick this one up, however, this one just didn't work for me. I will however continue reading her next pieces of work as I think it was simply the theme that didn't interest me.

There were plenty of twists and turns, and ultimately, the ending did not feel rushed, which I think a lot of mystery/thriller authors have trouble with.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!!

The Spare Room is a pandemic based thriller laced with deception, romance and a “who done it” mystery. This book hooked me from the very beginning, the characters are entrancing, so full of life and mysterious air, you want to know more about them and what makes them tick. There are so many twists and turns, you won’t know who to trust, what is happening and will be questioning yourself throughout the entire story. This is a fast paced thriller you won’t want to miss!

This was a fast paced read. I read it in one day. It started off pretty slow though. I didn’t love the plot line, I gave it overall three stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book.

Unfortunately, I do not believe I am the right reader for this book. The sexual content is so pervasive and the scenes are interwoven so much into the story they take over, making it unreadable for me and I couldn’t finish.

However, if you are unbothered by explicit content and are looking for something with strong Verity vibes, this writing could easily keep you pulled in and this could be a very bingeable book for you.

Where do I start?!
The Spare Room was excellent, keeping me hooked right from the beginning. This is a hard one to review. I’m still speechless.
While poly does not interest me whatsoever in real life, I still found this very well written.
The beginning/middle of the book I thought I had predicted everything. I was definitely wrong and thrilled at the same time. The twists and turns were amazing.
One issue I did have, but knew prior to reading was the pandemic. I feel this could have been just as amazing with that being a major role. I think all of us have had quite enough of hearing about it. This did not have a major impact on my feelings of the book, just a personal opinion.

I would absolutely recommend this book. Thank you to NetGalley, Andrea Bartz and Ballentine Books for the opportunity to read this ARC. I want to also thank Hilary Teeman for the wonderful editors letter in the beginning. I thought that was such an amazing touch. I was thrilled knowing how much they do appreciate our honest reviews. I wish more ARC’s included this personal touch.

*All opinions are my own.

Whoa! I'm not sure what I just read! It was amazing! I thought I for sure knew how the ending would turn out but I was sooooo wrong. I enjoyed the spice too! 😋

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!!

Andrea Bartz is an auto buy writer for me! “The Herd” was one of my favorite thrillers of recent reads, and I enjoyed this advanced copy courtesy of NetGalley!

I thought the premise of being in lockdown and the ability for those circumstances to both lead to/ conceal crimes, as well as to escalate the high emotions involved was well done and the nov moved at a fast clip. I predicted quite a few of the early twists but not the ending!

I liked the amount of suspicion in multiple characters and thought the sexual dynamics were a unique and interesting addition to the plot and the motives for

The Spare Room takes place in early 2020 during the onset of the covid pandemic and centers around 35-year-old Kelly Doyle. Kelly recently just moved to Philadelphia with her long-term boyfriend and since the lockdown, Kelly has been stuck in their new apartment in a new city jobless, friendless, and now her relationship with her boyfriend is becoming strained.

Kelly's childhood friend Sabrina Lamont, along with her husband Nathan invites Kelly to temporarily stay in the spare room in their glamourous mansion in Virginia. Kelly jumps at the opportunity in hopes the time away from her boyfriend will help to mend their relationship. Soon after Kelly arrives, she starts to develop romantic feelings for both the Lamonts, and much to her surprise Sabrina and Nathan’s feelings are mutual. As their three-person relationship begins to deepen, Kelly learns that the Lamomts have done this before with another woman. And much to her surprise, the woman is missing.

I always looking for a unique story, especially when it comes to thrillers. So the unique plot synopsis immediately drew my interest to The Spare Room. The book took me on a couple of unexpected turns. At several points, I expected the story was going to go a certain way but then a twist was dropped and I was completely wrong.

Even though this story contains a plot twist, I'm not sure that The Spare Room should be categorized as a thriller but instead it's more of a romantic mystery. I was really surprised with the spice factor in this one. A large portion of the story centers around Kelly’s sexual relationship with the Lamont’s.

Overall I found The Spare Room to be an entertaining read. Even though I didn't like The Spare Room as much as I loved We Were Never Here, I still look forward to reading anything Andrea writes in the future. I think a lot of readers will enjoy this one, especially readers of romantic suspense.

The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz will be available on June 20. Many thanks to Ballantine Books and Netgalley for the gifted copy!

After loving Bartz's last book, I had a feeling that this would be a winner for me and I was correct! Definitely recommend to those that love popcorn thrillers, can't wait to see what Bartz does next!