The foreword and publisher note immediately captured my attention. It got me excited about the story ahead and hooked me with its simple form. It’s told through a series of diary entries, voice and therapy transcripts, and letters. It was an interesting way to tell a story and worked well.

The legend around the Gytrash was so intriguing and had me hooked. I liked the supernatural aspect and the mystery of what happened to Noah. The plot grabbed my attention and I couldn’t put it down. It was interesting to follow the story, as each member of the family seemed to descend into the same spiral of madness. To be honest, by the end I was rolling my eyes. It just got more and more farfetched.

Another thing I struggled with was the writing. It was clunky and simplistic, and it left the writing monotonous.

Overall, despite my issues, this wasn’t an awful book, and it’s worth the read. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher, for a chance to read and review this book.

This book had everything that I loved - a village in the English countryside, a centuries old legend, a spooky dense forest, and a local crazy woman. I read the story in one sitting and will make sure to check out the author's other books.

Many thanx to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.

I found this book difficult to "get into", and thought the title would be a little different to what the book actually was about. Not too keen on this style of writing and found it difficult to keep my interest. The subject matter is good but the way in which the book was written was not enjoyable to me. Sure others will thoroughly enjoy this book though.

I’m sad to say that this wasn’t for me. I wasn’t into this story at all. I requested it on a whim. I’m not into creepy children, folklore, and/or possession. I think I’ve just read so many other books like this.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Stranger in Our House by Sarah Denzil.

The title of this book totally threw me, I've been reading way too many thrillers. This is actually a story about how a family of four moves to a house in a small village and soon finds their oldest son Noah acting completely out of character. He's acting up in school, being disrespectful at home, and not seeming himself at all. Is this young boy actually their son, or has he been taken over by something, or someone much scarier.

This was a quick read, and I feel pretty good giving it a solid three. It held my energy, but probably could have used an extra shot of espresso for a bit more energy.

The Stranger in our House
Horror, Mystery/Thriller
Sarah A. Denzil
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

This book was quite slow to start, but the pacing did pick up a bit after the first few chapters.

I wasn't keen on the style of writing. While I don't mind it when a book includes diary entries, this whole book was told through letters, diary entries, articles and interviews etc.

The premise was actually quite interesting. I did like the use of the folklore and the supernatural element as it broke things up and helped to make the plot even creepier.

The ending was a little off for me. There was a big climax, full of suspense but then there was a time jump that sort of undid all of the build up and the tension.

*Thank you to @Netgalley and the publishers for providing this ARC. This is my own opinion and an honest review, which I am leaving voluntarily*

This one was so interesting. The diary excerpts were so different. It kept my attention from start to finish. Will read more from this author.

This was a creepy read, centered on a teenager named Noah hi foes missing in the woods in a small town and comes back “different”. I thought the book was going to be about Noah’s mental health but it actually bordered more on the supernatural and was legitimately scary at times.

Aaron and Meera are Noah’s parents and both have different ideas around what happened to him and what they should do about it. I felt that both perspectives seemed reasonable under the circumstances. I liked reading about the history of the town and the potential curse that came along with it. The ending of the book was satisfying to me and provided a couple of surprises.

All in all, decent book with some creepy parts- I’d say it’s a mix of horror and psychological thriller. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting read from Sarah A Denzil. Aaron and Meera move out of London for a fresh start with their two children. Little Crake, the village they move to, is a unique place, famous for cutting itself off isolation during the plague. Folklore and rumours are rife about what lurks in the wood and the family feel it must be nonsense. Until Noah, Aaron and Meera’s son goes missing…

This was a quick read for me. It started out a little slow but I feel like most thrillers do. But once I got going OMG. This book gives you a creepy and gloomy atmosphere vibe. I really liked how this was written and I can't wait to read more Sarah Denzil books.


Thank you NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-Op for allowing me to read this ARC for my honest opinion.

It was a fast read. I enjoyed the story since in my mind I have made some connections and I do think it resembles in some way with The Outsider of Stephen King. Maybe it could have given us more details of what happened in the woods when Noah goes missing. Except for that I liked the story and how the characters were constructed.

My thanks to Victory Editing, Sarah A. Denzil and Netgalley.
I'm not usually a fan of this type of writing. Text, diary and whatnot, but I really liked how the author managed this story.
This tale was kind of creepy. Not the skin crawling type of creepy, but still the sort where you just want to shudder and shake the ick off!
I started off not liking this story much.
My only thought is that it quickly gets better.
Yes, this is a lousy review! I've had a complete life overhaul, and not really been thinking about "review, talk, blah, blah!"

This was a very disturbing but good read.

Thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish and could not get enough of.

This is a must read for anyone who enjoys a good thriller!!

Sorry but this book was just not for me. I love an element of suspense but not so keen of the supernatural - I wasn't over keen on the diary way of writing.

Just my personal opinion but thank you for the advance copy.

I first discovered Sarah Denzil a couple of years ago and she very quickly became one of my fave auto-buy authors. So when I saw this on NetGalley I knew I had to read it asap! The premise was intriguing; thrillery but with potentially a bit of a supernatural - or at least - superstitious twist.

I am also a massive fan of mixed media novels, using different formats to tell the story I think often gives the story an edge. Unfortunately I don’t quite think it worked here, I actually think this would have been better suited to the traditional format. Most of the story is told via diary entries from the different characters, but they just weren’t all believable as words that would have been written down (for me anyway). When you stop writing an entry to answer the phone you don’t write “I’m just going to answer the phone”, and there were unfortunately a fair few similar writings in here.

BUT I really did enjoy the story, the suspense was palpable, the characters were well structured and of course there were some great unexpected twists in there.

Thank you NetGalley for my copy, an overall thumbs up from me!

This was a fun book! It had more of a supernatural tone than I was expecting, but I really enjoyed the format and reading it. It was a quick read - 3hrs ishq

He looks like my son...he sounds like my son...but he's not my son...

What would you do if your son became a stranger overnight? One day he was your son and the next...a stranger took his place. He looks like your son, he even sounds like you son...but he isn't your son. He is a stranger. An evil malevolence that seeks to envelop and destroy your family. How will you get out of it alive? Thus, what ensues is an atmospheric psychological thriller steeped in Yorkshire folklore and the legend of the Gytrash. Not my usual trope but I do so enjoy a Sarah Denzil thriller. Needless to say, having not really read the premise beforehand, I had no idea what I was in for!

THE STRANGER IN OUR HOUSE is unique in its storytelling in that Denzil has created a narrative using solely diary entries, voice notes and articles which thus gives it an air of something derived from actual events. Even the Foreword is written in such a way that I had to wonder if this was in fact a true story. But Denzil was clever in her portrayal of this story that it seemed as such despite being entirely a work of fiction. Of course, at the time of starting the book I still had no idea just how "Amityville horror" it would be, without the levitating furniture and all that. This was something far deeper, something rooted within the psychological masquerading as folklore.

The Aiken family had had enough of London and wanted their children to grow up in the clean fresh of the rural countryside. So after a visit to a North Yorkshire village, Little Crake, and falling in love with the cottage Woodsman's Hut, Aaron and Meera sell their pokey little flat in Dagenham for the greener pastures of Little Crake. In less than a month, their entire lives would be irrevocably changed.

A couple of weeks after the move on his way home from school, their eldest child Noah goes missing in the woodlands bordering their cottage. A search party is summoned and after three days the family assumes the worst. Until curiously he is found sandwiched inside the hollow of an oak tree trunk. He is covered in mud and has criss cross cuts on his abdomen. His voice pleads in the still silence..."Help me!"

Noah remembers nothing of his ordeal and yet upon his return he is a completely different child to their usual quiet yet happy son. He is even more silent than ever and speaks only to utter words of anger or to taunt his younger sister, 13 year old Uma. But his taunts are not that of the usual sibling rivalry kind...they are cruel and harsh, bordering on violent. Uma comes to fear the brother she once adored, locking her bedroom door to stop him from coming in an standing threateningly over her as she slept. He would constantly stomp in the night in his attic bedroom, mutter to himself "I am not Noah, I am not Noah" and draw the most hideously frightening images of the woods which held him captive for three days.

Within the first day back at school, Noah is suspended for violently lashing out at a student. Aaron is forced to contend with Noah at home, but his son only locks himself in his attic bedroom, chanting to himself, staring at nothing or drawing those horrible images of evil faces and gnarled trees.

It isn't long before Meera begins to believe their son is possessed by this evil Gytrash a local woman told them about. But Aaron isn't so sure. Something happened to their son in those woods...besides consuming copious amounts of hallucinogenic mushrooms which no doubt contributes to his memory loss. He is withdrawn, lashing out in anger, sleepwalking and obsessed with drawing hideous images of the woods - the Dark Valley Forest. To help process what happened to him, Noah undertakes therapy but is it enough? Or is it too late to save him? To save themselves...

THE STRANGER IN OUR HOUSE turned out to be something completely different to what I expected (having not read the premise before I began). I'm not usually a fan of stories with a supernatural element unless they are done in just the right way. This one was and you are let feeling flummoxed as to the complete hash everything was made by Noah just wandering into the woods one day. We do learn why in the end though not before all hell has been wreaked upon this family and they have been ripped apart from the inside out. All the while reading about the Gytrash, folklore and the supernatural hold upon Noah I still kept waiting for the logical side to kick in. A psychotic break of some kind maybe? But which of it is it to be? You will have to read it to find out!

The story is wrapped up with a few drawings made by Noah and a conclusion that deftly ties the different threads together nicely. You aren't left with a feeling of unfinished business or loose ends and you aren't left wanting more. It ended just right.

The story definitely has a creepiness about it and the atmosphere tense throughout. If you like a mix of psychology, suspense and the supernatural then you will love THE STRANGER IN OUR HOUSE.

I would like to thank #SarahADenzil and #Netgalley for an ARC of #TheStrangerInOurHouse in exchange for an honest review.

This review appears on my blog at https://stinathebookaholic.blogspot.com/.

This book gives supernatural vibes which I am not a fan of…it is told in bits and pieces chronologically through diary entries of multiple people, articles, voice messages, reports, video recordings to make it feel like a true crime narrative. Felt sympathy with the characters, the ending brought everything together.

It was a good suspenseful horror book.
Finely written family especially the father and mother.
This is the first time reading anything from Sarah Denzil. I would read another book of the author's work.

This is a story that can be read as a metaphor for those times in which a belief is allowed to grow into an unassailable truth. (And in particular, the danger when that happens.) It's quite successful as such. More importantly to me, a double platinum-certified Hot Dummy, it's also just a really good creepy story.