Let Him In is the debut novel for William Friend (same book published in the UK in 2022). It tells the story of a newly widowed father, Alfie, whose twin daughters start to see a man in their room every night. Soon, the man becomes a beloved shapeshifting creature. Alfie becomes quickly jealous of this creature and enlists his wife's sister to help him figure out why the girls have created such a realistic imaginary friend.

The author writes in a literary format that felt forced at times. I struggled to get into it through the first half of the book, but midway through, it seemed to hit a stride. There were three mysterious deaths (his wife, his father-in-law, and his mother-in-law's sister's son) that I was eager to know more about...and most of my questions were answered by the end. I didn't expect - or quite understand - the ending.

Overall, I found it to be a creepy, but slow, thriller.

My favorite line:
I hear his voice and it's exactly right -- the rhythm, the oaky timbre, the West Country lilt. My brain has preserved the memory of it, locked it away safely all these years and is now reproducing it perfectly.

Thank you to #NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book!

Very repetitive, felt like it was trying to be like posession and insidious but only used the boring parts of posession and insidious lol. Especially the red door, that seemed very on the nose. I think some of the actual horror parts were good, I just wish there were more of them. I also am a big fan of an ambiguous ending but this one left me wanting more. Maybe if the book was longer and some areas were fleshed out more I would have been more into it. I think the whole family church was interesting and wanted to know more about it, also some of the other characters that died that weren't Pippa. I hated Alfie as a character but I think that was a good decision to make him unlikeable. Also the whole thing with Julie counseling the twins kind of confused me. Basically could use more paranormal scenes.

This had Haunting of Hill House and Amityville Horror vibes, nothing original. Even at only 200 pages I felt it lacking in mystery and dragged out. It had potential but was confusing at times and boring.

I liked the first half of this book a lot - it was intriguing, mysterious, and dropped enough of the mystery to keep me going. The second half failed to tie everything together, though. Overall a decent book, but I do think it could have been even stronger if the plot had been pulled together more in the second half.

Creepy house ✅ creepy twins ✅ hint of old occult haunting ✅ I have to say I really enjoyed this creepy slow burn of a book. Throughout the book I was trying to figure out what was real and what was the twins imagination. The adults grief over the death of Pippa only added to the storyline.

Let Him In
by William Friend
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Publish Date October 3, 2023

This book had me engaged from the beginning, If you are in the mood for a creepy book, I hope you will give this one a chance.

Alfie is a widower trying to raise his twin daughters amid the loss and grief that his wife Pippa has left behind.
They are each struggling to cope with the loss when the girls come to him one night claiming, that there is a man in their room. When Alfie doesn't find anything he they are assumes they are having nightmares. But when the girls begin obsessing about an imaginary friend named Black Mambo he enlists the help of Julia his deceased wife's twin who is also a psychiatrist. Are they acting out for attention? Or is something more sinister going on in Hart House?

I loved the unsettling bond between the sister's and that I wasn't spoon fed the answers. The ending gave me the chills and left me wanting more.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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•Dual POV
•First person
•Atmospheric Setting
•Dark Secrets and Past
•Imaginary Friend

The book has dark secrets, mystery and suspenseful vibe. It’s atmospheric and detail oriented. The writing is compelling and engrossing. I loved getting into each characters life and solving the mystery of Hart House. There are also some mysterious characters.

Hart House is the root of all mystery. Nine months ago, Twins mom died and things begins to take an unexpected turn. So many unexpected things are happening in the Hart House. The twins see a shadow of a man and then there is a mention of their imaginary friend called The Black Mamba. Now truth is hidden in the dark tunnel of secrets and past. Alfie must find out the hidden secrets. He thinks maybe things have taken an unexpected turn due to loss of loved one so he approaches a psychiatrist Julia, Pippa’s sister but he himself gets tangled in haunting vision and things begin to change for him too. He must revisit the past and tunnel of dark secrets to solve the mystery of Imaginary friend, Black Mamba, and The Hart House.

Thank you Publisher, Author and Netgalley.

I haven’t read a story that sent shivers down my spine for a long time.

This was creatively spooky in a wonderful way. I found myself wanting to avoid reading this at night time because of how tense the story was. It was as if you could feel the fear of the characters, themselves.

I’m struggling to believe that this could possibly be a debut with how well it was written and paced.

Let Him In is a horror that you can’t help but enjoy and fear at the same time. I can’t wait to see what comes next from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing me with this ARC. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book wasn't terrible, I just found it confusing at times. Alfie is a recently widowed father with twin girls. The twins state that there is a "man" in their room and then this man becomes their best friend and they call him Black Mamba. Alfie then asks his sister in law to assist with the twins as she is a psychologist. The premise is good and there are a lot of "spooky" elements, but I as I read it was more confusing than scary. The sister in law is hiding secrets, the mother in law is just odd and you struggle to figure out where the story is leading. Finally after reading the entire story, I am not sure there was ever any resolution or if the Black Mamba is still there or just an imagination.

There were still some great aspects of this book, the twins roles were written wonderfully and the story had the creepy vibe I was expecting. But it just felt unfinished.

Thank you Netgalley and the Poisoned Pen Press for an ARC copy in return for an honest review. I would definitely try something else from this author.

Really really really good! I love horror and spooky books and this was awesome. The empty house, the twins, Black Mamba, everything was super eerie. I loved the authors writing style and I cant wait to read more of his work!

Thank you Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I really loved this book for the first half and it kept me incredibly enthralled, however the ending and the second half of the book left me wondering if I was missing part of it. It was hard to tell if the book was religious, demonic, haunted. I think I understood that Alfie was killed and Black Mamba took his place? But then the whole Marian ending with her demon / twins thing. Yeah, totally lost. I didn't get it at all

I dont want to say that I hated this book. There were alot of elements that I really liked. It was very boring and repetitive in some parts. For a shorter book it took awhile to get through just because some of the chapters were so long. I am not a big fan of books that follow religion or things like that so i was kind of lost and wondering which direction this was going alot. I do love a good ghost story so that aspect of it was very fun for me and it did have a creepy undertone but the way it ended just kind of left me with more questions.

Major creepy vibes!! This book had me on the edge of my seat. I love the whole "imaginary friend" trope and this one was written very well! If you enjoyed Hidden Pictures, I think you'd love this one.

The only reason that this didn't get 5 stars was because I found it to be a little slow at times, and left me with a lot of questions! I still 1000% recommend this to anyone looking for a spooky read!

Finished Let Him In a week ago and I'm still thinking about it.
A man has lost his partner, mother to his 8 yr old twin girls and a twin herself, to a freak accident. Months later grief manifests itself into a shadow man the twins claim wants to be their friend. Enter the psychotherapist twin sister of dead partner and the overly protective mother/grandmother both with dark secrets about their past and the ridiculously creepy house at the center of this story to assist and let the fun begin.
So much is packed into those 240 pages it read like a huge Stephen King with all the psychological questions of what twins can really or theoretically do and exploration of the paranormal with a healthy dose of religious cult phenomena. Cassie and Sylvie were perfectly written and utterly convincing even when they were lying - or were they? I thoroughly enjoyed the slow reveal of past trauma and critical feelings/events, I literally could not put it down.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the digital copy, this is my honest review.

Incredible!!! This is so creepy and disturbing, but at the same time it's just plain heartbreaking. Yes, it's horror and the imaginary friend angle is done really well. Honestly, though it's the journey through loss and grief that is so perfectly done and really makes this book what it is.

Very suspenseful, and full of emotion and well-rounded characters. The story captivates from the very first page, and the reader will be hanging on every word to find out what’s going on in Hart House.

Very good book, one of the better of the horror genre I’ve read. Thank you to NetGalley & PoisonedPenPress for allowing me to read a copy of this book. Writing was very well done & captured me from the very beginning.

I really liked this book through 3/4 of it. I thought the ending was kind of rushed and not fleshed out at all. The mom, a main character, dying was so anticlimactic that I had to go back and reread it to make sure I hadn’t missed something. And I really wasn’t happy with the two protagonists deciding to become partners…now the kids have a sibling/cousin?? It felt a little incestuous…

Alfie is mourning the death of his wife while raising his two twin daughters, when the girls introduce an imaginary friend, Black Mamba. But is Black Mamba really imaginary or is he real?

When the girls’ aunt, who is also a twin, agrees to counsel them through their grief, her past childhood memories that resurface may hold the key to Black Mamba.

I found the story to be engrossing and I definitely wanted to read on to find out what happens. There were a lot of moments that read as creepy & scary, especially the ending which left me guessing what was real & what was not.

Thrilling novel.

I truly enjoyed this mysterious, psychological novel about a father and his twin girls dealing with the tremendous loss of their mother. It was suspenseful in a quiet way that made you wonder whether you could trust either of the two perspectives in which it was written. The full story is slowly revealed while the twins behavior escalates around their imaginary friend Black Mamba.

The writing style was perfect for this type of story and the descriptions were powerful without slowing down the plot. Hart House became another character in my mind, encompassing and influencing the tone of every incident. I also loved the contrast of psychology with the occult. Have the twins really made up this fantastical imaginary friend as a way to cope with their mother's death, or are there more sinister forces at play? By the end, the answers aren't black and white so it's up to you to decide what really happened to this little family.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for the opportunity to review this ARC. I am definitely looking forward to reading more from William Friend in the future!