Alfie is raising his twin daughters by himself, after the death of his wife. When they begin telling him a man is in their room at night, he seeks counsel from his wife’s sister, Julia. The twins reveal that the man in their room is named “Black Mamba” and although at first it seems like a coping mechanism for their grief, soon creepy things begin happening. The twins tell their father that Black Mamba has told them they must call him “daddy” now, and that he wants to take them away. Alfie and Julia struggle with a solution, forced to face the history of their family, the home they have been living in and the girls themselves.

If this isn’t the perfect read for spooky season, I don’t know what is! Reading at night, there was literally a section that made me look up and briefly scan the room I was sitting in! The creepy sensation of “Black Mamba” watching truly permeated off the pages. I thought it was unique to see grief as a main theme coupled with the creepiness that haunted their home. I had no idea how this was going to end, and even after I finished reading, I kept thinking about this story and wondering if I truly understand the ending…does that make sense?! This was an impressive debut and I’m looking forward to whet William Friend comes up with next.

Thank you to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC! “Let Him In” releases October 3, 2023!

This record will be shared to my Instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottle) shortly!

Let Him In definitely makes you think differently about children's imaginary friends.
When Alfie's twin daughters start having nightmares about a man in their room, he thinks it's just the grief over recently losing their mother as it stops pretty quickly it's basically forgotten. At least until they start talking about their imaginary friend Black Mamba, this causes Alfie to reach out to his late wife's sister Julia. She is a therapist and he hopes she'll be able to sort out what's happening with his kids.

The kids begin changing, acting out not only towards their father but also each other, always with the excuse that Black Mamba made them do it. And Alfie starts to have the feeling that Black Mamba might not be so imaginary after all.

This book was spooky and atmospheric, you could feel the growing tension in the family and Alfie's fear about what was happening with his family. I do wish it were a bit longer, and the bit at the end that kind of makes you go wtf? is not explained.. but we get to see the fallout from it.
I think this is going to be a great read for the Halloween/spooky season

I enjoyed this one. I love a good imaginary friend trope. I was a bit disappointed with the ending, though. It felt a bit anticlimactic and a there is some ambiguity, which I tend not to like. All in all, it's a good spooky tale that fit for the season.

Daddy there's a man in our room...

If those words don't send shivers down your spine than you are far braver than I am. This book is utterly chilling at times slowly preying on your mind. This isn't a book of jump scares but it doesn't need them. Let's also take a moment to realize this is the first book for this author and damn does he leave the gate running.

Loosing the love of your life is horrific enough and then add mysterious circumstances. That alone is the set up for many sleepless nights. Alfie has just lost the love of his life and is left to father his twin daughters alone in his wife's creepy old family home. The twins begin coming to their dad nightly when all of a sudden they stop. Entering the ring we have Black Mamba the girls new friend (potential foe) and what happens next left my jaw on the floor a few times.

This isn't just a haunted house story. It's a story that reflects complicated family dynamics and how their affects can domino out of control. The writing style of this story is unique with different paces throughout the story to set a tone. I can't wait to see more of this author in the future.

A huge thank you to Net Galley for an advance copy of this gem. Spooky season is approaching and this one will be perfect for those chilly autumn nights when the clock strikes 3.

3 words: CHILLING. CREEPY. SINISTER.

The writing truly heightened the reading experience for me, the iciness of Hart House seeped out of my kindle and onto my skin. I could NOT enter a dark room without thinking of Black Mamba and feeling edgy.🫣

My toddler has a large stuff pet snake that has the same eyes as Black Mamba’s was described and I kid you not, I had to put that snake away for a few days. I couldn’t look at it! 😂

Highly recommend you add this scary story to your tbr this spooky season!

William Friend's debut novel is a truly ambitious horror story with vibes of dread that permeate each page.

A father of 8-year-old twin girls, still mourning the loss of his wife, has to slowly face the fact that his daughters have acquired an imaginary friend, Black Mamba, an entity that begins innocent enough and progressively gets more and more sinister.

I was genuinely scared while reading this book and found myself not wanting to read it before bed. A truly great read for the upcoming spooky season. Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this early read. LET HIM IN will publish October 3, 2023.

I absolutely loved this book! It’s creepy & ominous. It sucks you in from the first page. I couldn’t put it down! Perfect read for spooky season!

I loved this! It was a quick read, and I loved the development of the characters. I thought the relationships between the characters were compelling, particularly the one between the twins and their father. I loved the suspense of whether or not Black Mamba was a real character and the allusion to past events that unfolded slowly throughout the story.

What a great, fun, spooky listen, this book was! I enjoyed this author, and narrator so much! Perfect season to dive into this book! It was creepy, and eerie, but not so much so that I couldn't read it at night! And a huge shoutout to the narrator!

The cover of this book caught my eye while searching through NetGalley and once I read the synopsis I was completely sold. Thank you @netgalley and Poisened Pen Press for sending me an arc.

Haunted house books are my absolutely favourite and I find them particularly terrifying when small children are involved. Let Him In truly delivered on the spooky. I was at the edge of my seat with the mystery behind what was happening with this family as they dealt with the grief of losing their wife and mother. I couldn’t put the book down because I just had to know what was going on. There were moments that I had goosebumps.

It was so easy to get into and it played like a movie in my mind. All this and I absolutely loved how it ended!

This is William Friend’s first book and will definitely be checking out anything else he comes out with.

I’m a lit fic girl whose favorite genre is horror. Why I haven’t read more literary horror is beyond me and something I need to remedy immediately. This was a great book! It was eerie, had me questioning what was real and what was fake, and the gothic setting was masterfully done. The plot wasn’t terribly original and get reminiscent of a few other books I’ve read but this had some twists and a unique ending to set it apart. If haunted pasts, creepy kids, grief horror, and gothic settings are your thing then this is a must read. Looking forward to more books by Friend.

I was really excited to read this book after reading the description. While the story progressed a little slowly, the character development was done incredibly well. You really get a sense of who the characters are and their relationships with each other and you see the steady decline in each of them. I do wish it had had a bit more action. Some moments that really just stood out and drove home the creepiness, but it wasn’t quite there. I did however really enjoy how it ended and felt it wrapped up quite nicely.

I think I found my least favorite book of the year :/
The best thing I can say about this book is that it was a quick read. I was intrigued, so intrigued, and I was wanting to read more and more to find out what happened.
But then the book ended. And I never found out a single thing. Nothing happened this whole book. It creates suspense by giving you all of these things to wonder about, questions to be asked, and then never answers any of those questions.
Things seemed to contradict themselves in ways that were never made clear.
I understand that the confusion may be the point of the novel, but it made me hate it by the end. I'm fine with being confused while reading, but I want that satisfying conclusion at the end, I want that "aha!" moment, where the plot twists are revealed, where you finally understand what all the suspense was leading up to. Unfortunately in this book, the suspense led to nothing.

After the death of their mother Pippa, Alfie's twin daughters have started to act funny. One night he wakes to find them at the foot of his bed and claimed a shadowy man was in their room. He rushes to their room and can find no trace of this man. As this continues, night after night, Alfie stops taking it seriously....until the girls suddenly have a new imaginary friend named Black Mamba.....who takes the form of a snake. And a bear. And a massive bird. And a shadowy man who claims that he will one day take them away.
Fearing the ramifications of these fantasies Alfie calls Julia (Pippa's twin sister) who happens to be a psychotherapist to help get rid of this fictional Black Mamba...but then Alfie starts to see shadowy visions himself. Of a dark shadow in his room or even of Pippa. Haunted by the past the family struggles to move forward in this dread filled gothic horror.

I was honestly very surprised by this. As a debut I wasn't expecting this to be as incredible as it was. I loved this! The amount of spook that I felt during this book was incredible. This is exactly what I want in a gothic horror. I encourage everyone to check out this book.

My favorite spooky book so far this season! This book was so creepy and brought me chills on more than one occasion. The fact we’re dealing with two sets of twins for me adds extra spook, throw in a mysterious death only referred to as “the accident”, a secretive grandma, and an imaginary demon the children call “Black Mamba” and this is the perfect recipe for horror. I was Engaged the whole time but that ending was *chef’s kiss* 🤌🏼.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a quick and fun read, perfect for fall. You get pulled in different directions as you try to figure out if the house is haunted, if the twins are making up their new friend(Black Mamba), or if Alfie is just losing his handle on life. The ending still had me questioning what was happening, but was still satisfying.

2.5 stars

Main Characters:
-- Alfie – “widowed” nine months prior when his partner Pippa died suddenly (they never married), faced with raising their 8-year-old twin daughters in the house that Pippa grew up in
-- Julia – Pippa’s twin sister, a psychiatrist
-- Cassia & Sylvie – Alfie and Pippa’s twins who have started seeing a man in their bedroom since their mother’s death

William Friend’s debut novel had soooo much potential. And then it ended.

The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Alfie and Julia, both dealing with their grief after losing Pippa. At the same time, they struggle with how to help Cassia and Sylvie, who have started seeing a man in their bedroom. Julia assures Alfie that it’s a totally normal manifestation of their grief. Alfie begins to believe that the girls think “Black Mamba,” as they call him, is real.

The story begins with the girls coming to sleep with Alfie in his bed night after night because of a man in their room. He assumes they’re having nightmares after their mother’s death, and eventually they go back to their own room. When they start telling him about Black Mamba appearing to them as a snake or a bird or a fish, he grows increasingly concerned and seeks Julia’s help.

Julia is challenged by her own grief and doesn’t feel like she has the capacity to help the twins deal with theirs. She lost her own twin, after all, when Pippa died. When she hears about Black Mamba, though, she feels an obligation to help and implies that his appearance is somehow her fault.

I was sucked into this story. The author did a great job of dropping hints of what might be the source of Black Mamba and what really happened to Pippa, continually referencing “the accident.” I assumed the book would take a somewhat mystical turn since Black Mamba definitely has some mystical undertones. There are also references throughout to other people who have died in the house, Pippa and Julia’s parents’ “religion,” and their father walking around the house shaking a rattle.

And Alfie seems to become more than a little unhinged. I thought for sure this was a case of the house having a supernatural element—almost like the hotel in The Shining or the game in Jumanji—especially since Pippa and Julia’s dad died in the house when they were children.

But then….

***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

I really thought that Julia and Pippa, and their parents by way of their religion, had conjured Black Mamba when Julia and Pippa were children. Their dad was always walking around the house shaking a wooden rattle, became unhinged himself, and committed suicide. This is never explained.

Julia keeps implying that this is all her fault, so then I thought they had somehow banished Black Mamba when she and Pippa were young, and somehow Pippa’s death brought him back. There’s a sub-plot about photographs never being displayed because they open some sort of spirit world. Also never explained.

Then I was convinced that Alfie was somehow possessed by Black Mamba because the twins said he looked a little like their dad, but that doesn’t appear to be the case either. They kept referencing Pippa’s accident, which I assumed early on had been the cause of her death. The accident was her coming home drunk from a night out and hitting her head on the bathroom mirror. At one point, I actually thought Alfie killed her because he admitted they were arguing at the time. But she just needed stitches. She died after being bitten or stung by something while playing with the twins, and she had an allergic reaction. So the accident is kind of irrelevant.

Julia’s mother suffers headaches, joint pain, and chronic fatigue, but she is able to set up candles all along the stairwells in a three-story house and then climb a ladder into the attic when the power goes out. And then Black Mamba just vanishes that night after she talks with the twins. They never talk about him again until the last few pages when the twins “tease” their Auntie Julia.

Nothing about the ending of this book made any sense. Two-and-a-half stars because it started well, but it’s a hard miss for me.

Let Him In was a spooky read! I often found myself confused with the multiple first person despite each chapter stating whose POV it was. I enjoyed the premise of the story, haunted house and secrets. Black Mamba and his presence all over Hart House. Alfie and his sister in law Julia were good characters, Alfie more described than Julia but mind filled in the rest. 3.5 ⭐️

Loved IT!! The writing style, the character development, the ending!!! Kinda left me wondering, guess we can come up our own conclusions ….but I certainly want more from this author!!! Can’t wait to see what’s next….I’ll be thinking about this one…. Perfect!!!

What an eye-catching cover on this book. William Friend's writing has a storybook quality to it that took some getting used too. The book is a solid read and especially creepy if you have children. It's good, it just didn't grab me right away. I'm so glad I gave it chance bc I enjoyed it. I'll absolutely recommend Let Him In for a good spooky season read.