I loved the cover of this book, the different character points of view in each chapter and the basis of the storyline. Family loss, a creepy family home with tragic history, the bond between twins and their imaginary friend. The author did an amazing job of describing the characters and situations which drew me in. However, I found myself confused throughout the story and still unclear what exactly happened in the end. Was the imaginary friend a supernatural force, a demon summoned by family or just the imagination of grieving children. I did enjoy portions of the book but it felt very choppy and disjointed throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for allowing me to read this ARC in return for my voluntary and honest review.

This is everything I want in a horror novel. It gives me chills, had me looking over my shoulder, keeping lights on, all of that good fun. I wish I had waited to read it until Halloween time but I'll try to do a reread then and every year after. It gave haunting of hill house vibes which I loved

Wow, just wow.

Can you believe this is debut? I couldn't because it is that good. It was gripping, spine chilling, goosebumpingly good. Once started, I tried reading it every second I could find some free time.

The story starts with Alfie grieving the death of his beloved wife, Pippa and getting hang of looking after his twin daughters alone when one night his daughters wake him up to tell him that there's a man inside their room. But upon searching the whole house, he finds no one inside the house and nothing out of place. Dismissing it as a nightmare, it is all forgotten until the man or whatever it is becomes a friend to his twins , "Black Mamba."

It becomes so real that he has to ask for help from Julia who is psychologist and Pippa's twin. What ensues is utterly horrifying chain of events one after the other which will send chills throughout the body.

I would have rated it 5 stars if it had not been for the end which was little disappointing to me and the confusion I felt as I couldn't figure out a lot many things. It is a part thriller, a part family drama and a lot parts horror which is done in the best way possible. I didn't really enjoy some religious or sacramental references but I didn't care for them. I couldn't make start or end of the why and what happened in the past and sometimes even in the present so that was my biggest confusion.

Even with that, I was really invested in the story and the characters as well. I definitely wanted to know if the Black mamba was real or just imagination. I had my own theory which was how the book ended but I'm not sure if my interpretation is in align with the ideas of the author.

I mostly read the book at the night to get the spooky feel. Few instances scared the shit out of me so much that I had to stop reading as I would start imagining someone standing in the dark parts of my room. I had to resume reading in the daylight. These instances had such a perfect timing, when the whole tone of the book relaxed and very casual and it will pounce on you like a wild cat when you least expected them, so in short perfectly and wonderfully done. It had that shocking factor but the descriptions were just too good and spot on.

The gothic feel of Hart house and the presence of Black Mamba throughtout was eeringly haunting and creepy.
Overall a great read.

Thank you netgalley and poisoned pen press for this wonderful ARC in exchange of an honest review.

#netgalley #lethimin #williamfriend

I really wanted love this book based off the premise but it fell flat. I wished for more explanation about certain things like with the grandfather and grandmother. It just didn’t hook me in. I also wasn’t fond of the ending and didn’t get the closure I was hoping for for the ending.

If you're looking for a disturbing thriller that only builds in suspense with "The Haunting of Hill House" vibes, then Let him in is your next read. Could we take a moment to appreciate the sinister yet remarkable front cover that just draws you in.

"Let him in" is a gothic thriller about Alfie, a young father raising his twin daughters following the untimely death of his wife, Pippa. One night, the twins rush into Alfie's room, claiming that there is a man at the foot of their bed, thinking this is just the children's imagination - all is forgotten. That is until the twins become obsessed with their "imaginary" friend Black Mamba, and their behaviour become problematic. Alfie reaches out to his late wife's twin sister Julia, who is a family psychologist, to help with the girls, and strange things begin to happen at the mysterious Hart House. - where there have been two unexplainable deaths.

This disturbing yet perfectly written novel is an absolute must-read. From page one, we are gripped and on the edge of our seats. There are so many raw emotions that we are forced to feel when reading "Let Him In." It begins with the family grief of losing their loved one, and you can't help but feel the sorrow that Alfie feels at this point in the story. For me, this created a really effective base for the story, and I knew things were going to get interesting very soon. Then, there is a lot of anticipation as to what is happening, W. Friend allows the reader to use their imagination, and you are left feeling very unsettled at points. Just when you think there will be a happy ending, all may not be as it seems, and I found the ending to be jaw-dropping. I did not see that coming.

I could really feel the tension building throughout this book, and it left me feeling nervous. The twins really creeped me out, and I was left wondering if they really did see their friend "Black Mamba" or if it was a product of their grief and imagination. The fact that Julia was a family psychologist and could rationally explain their actions had me unsettled. We've all been in a situation where we think we see something in the dark. This book brought me right back to my own personal experiences and had me desperate to read more. In my opinion, the characters are very well developed. You could see the unsettling bond between the sisters and Black Mamba and thid added to the suspense. I thought they all interacted very well together, and their relationships were realistic.

My only complaint is that at times, the story felt a bit repetitive, and I did not like where Alfie and Julia's relationship ended in this book.

Overall, it is a very thrilling read, and I highly recommend "Let Him In

thank you netgalley and publishers for giving me an arc of this book! I was very excited when i saw that i was approved. the beginning of the book was very hard for me to get into, and it was hard for me to continue to read. I am a sucker for books that switch perspective often. It helps me get more into a book. the book gradually got more and interesting. It did get a lull towards the middle/ end of the boom, however the last 10 pages sped back up. the ended sure had a twist that i wasn’t expecting.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I did not love this, but I REALLY liked it!!! The gothic vibes were ON POINT. Creepy atmosphere? CHECK. The characters were complex (though I found them unlikeable); the scary parts really did scare me. I always love a good theme of addressing generational trauma and breaking toxic family cycles also, and this book has that as well. And that cover? Fantastic!!!
HOWEVER. I hated the ending. I absolutely can see what the author was trying to do, but I wish it was different personally. I don't mind a little mystery, but RESOLVE SOMETHING. ANYTHING PLSSSS. Overall it was a good read! I am definitely interested in reading this author's other works!

Sigh......another book using the tired theme of twins secretly communicating and having an imaginary friend. In spite of this, I enjoyed reading this book until I got closer to the end. This had to be the most confusing story, especially the ending. I really had a difficult time figuring out what was really going on with the friend, the twins, the grandmother, the grandfather, the mom, the aunt - it was like everyone was controlling the twins, but no one was in charge. And with all of those perspectives, I still don't understand what happened. The story was good until that point, then I feel like it fell apart.

This ARC was provided by the publisher and NetGalley, the opinions expressed herein are strictly my own.

I thought this story had a lot of potential, but it didn't hit the mark for me. The storyline was all over the place and didn't connect the way I was hoping it would.
Alfie just lost his wife, Pippa, and is left to raise their twin girls, Cassia and Sylvie, alone. Cassia and Sylvie begin crawling in bed with their dad because there's a man in their room. Are the girls just having nightmares or is something more sinister going on?

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I found that it had a lot of the same undertones as the Insidious movies. It was a relatively quick read for me and I liked the different points of view throughout the story, I feel like it added a layer that otherwise would not have been there if we only got Alfie’s. There were definitely some creepy aspects but it was not as scary as I was anticipating. I wish there had been more of a resolution to Black Mamba but I felt like that part of the story fell flat. The relationship between Alfie and Julia also felt unnecessary to me. Other than that this book was well written and a quick read for me. It is definitely a good story for spooky season!

Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the author for the digital ARC copy of this book.

I had heard good things about this book and I really wanted to like it. The premise was good, but this book left me confused. Alfie can’t see Black Mamba but at one point he glares at him? The twins are constantly speaking in unison and there was several points where I didn’t know who was talking.

William Friend's Let Him In surprised me in a number of ways. The story centers around Alfie, his twin daughters, and his sister in law, Julia, as they mourn the passing of Alfie's wife. Like any good horror story, the themes of grief and guilt are superbly woven into the tropes of specters. Friend does an incredible job at creating a stiflingly creepy atmosphere through the seven year old twins and their "imaginary friend," Black Mamba. These are easily the creepiest twins that I've encountered since The Shining.

What works very well for Let Him In is the way that Friend makes the haunts of Hart House ambiguous throughout the narrative? Is Black Mamba real or just a fantasy that the twins have made up to grieve the loss of their mother? The book will likely keep many readers guessing as it unfolds its delightfully unsettling story.

A frightfully good story that looks at grief and psychological trauma while also delivering some pretty good scares. I was happily turning the pages and arguing with myself about whether what was occurring could be paranormal or the products of troubled minds late into the night when reading the book.

Unfortunately, when it came to the ending, I have to admit to feeling a little left out in the cold. Sticking the landing in these kind of thrillers is so tough, and I felt like Let Him In *just* missed the mark. It might just be my own personal taste, but I can't deny wishing the ending played out differently.

Well worth a read, but go into it knowing you might not agree with where you wind up.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing me an eARC of 'Let Him In' in exchange for an honest review. That being said, my honest review is that this book is pretty incredible! It is a brilliantly written exploration of grief, trauma, parent-child relationships, and the specters that hang over the people left behind. It does act as a bit of a slow burn, with tension that builds throughout the smallest bits and pieces of the book and comes together well towards the end. In my eyes, this is not a bad thing, though I know this style is not for everyone! I commend William Friend for putting such clear care into the way the tension is built. That being said, as I read this book, I think I started mostly feeling sad instead of scared or unsettled. Towards the end, there was a bit more of this unsettling feeling, but throughout a lot of it, the family and grief story is written so well that it the horror can struggle to come through at times. I think that this book is absolutely worth a read for anyone interested in the themes of grief, loss, death, and familial relationships and absolutely worth a read for horror fans in general.

This was an overall great book. Kept me on the edge of my seat for about 98% of the time!! It really sucked you in and made you believe in the monster. But, the ending fell flat. I let out a sigh of disappointment when I realized that was the end of the book.

Told in dual first person points of view from Alfie, a widower trying to keep it together after the sudden and unexpected death of his wife and mother of his twin daughters, and Julia, a psychiatrist and the twin of Alfie’s late wife. This eerie tale gets its start when the girls come into Alfie’s bedroom one night to tell him that there’s a man in their room. After searching the house with the girls’ help and finding nothing, the girls later begin discussing him as their friend, Black Mamba, who takes them on adventures at night and the adults in the situation decide that it’s probably a manifestation of their grief over losing their mother. Except Alfie’s seeing things too and Julia is clearly hiding secrets from her childhood growing up in Hart house.

While the story explores concepts of grief within a close-knit family, the creepy atmosphere includes an historical family home that rattles and creaks with an equally creepy basement where Alfie’s late wife died under strange circumstances and everyone is loathe to visit down there, not to mention the strange stories of their late father walking the halls with a rattle. The maternal family was caught up in some mysterious religion with ties to the occult and had obsessions over the power of twins, but I never really understood what they were trying to do. It was a bit ambiguous.

Amdist nightmares and possible critters or strange men and imaginary friends who can manifest as any animal they want but are especially fond of the black mamba, this had a creep factor that had me thinking twice about reading it late at night in bed. More of a suspenseful scare than a gory one, this story would make the perfect addition to your list of spooky books for the upcoming season.

Thank you to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for a copy provided for an honest review.

This story features a grieving family and the development of an imaginary friend. While the girls become more and more entranced by their imaginary friend, they grow further from their father.

This story felt like a long trip to nowhere. It took most of the book to build tension and hook me to want to learn more about Black Mamba. I didn’t feel connected to the characters and struggled to finish the book due to lack of interest.

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Poisoned Pen Press for the advanced copy of the book.

Alfie's wife just died and he isn't handling well. On top if that, his twins now have an imaginary friend called Black Mamba, who controls their behavior and isolates them from him. Alfie wonders if Black Mamba is a normal reaction to his girl's grief or if he is some type of supernatural entity, so he calls in his sister-in-law to help him out.
Let Him In by William Friend is part thriller, part haunted house horror, and part family drama. It explores the relationship between the twins and their father while contrasting it with the twins relationship with their mother. It explores the way people handle grief and loss. At the same time, it keeps you under suspense about what or who is Black Mamba. Is he a figment of their imagination? Is he a ghost or a demon? Is he the manifestation of their grief? Is he the dark side of Alfie? You keeping reading to find out.
I would classify Let Him In as cosmic horror because it makes you question the unknowable. It leaves you questioning what is real and what is imagined.
I thought it was an inventive original story. I read to try to figure out who Black Mamba was and why he had such a grip on the twins. It left me thinking about the story long after it was over.
Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Poisoned Pen Press for the advanced copy of the book. The opinions are my own.

Thank you Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

Let him in by William Friend is a haunting story that slowly builds in suspense. It's an age old tale but still you wait to see what's going to happen in the end.

The book is told through two different perspectives, Julia's and Alfies. Alfie starts to notice that his twin girls suddenly have an imaginary friend after the passing of their mother. Not only haunted by grief but the insane demands of this imaginary friends Alfie calls Julia, their Aunty to come and counsel them.

Everything in here is hinted at. Or at least it was for me. There's a huge family history and you have to wonder, what really set this all in motion?

A haunting read that kept me up at night.

This book will be great when it comes out in October, it will definitely make for a scary night of reading during spooky season. There were some part that it got slow but I promise it will deliver in the end. I can wait to see it in book shop.