This book was so wild. I absolutely was sucked in and loved it. Unhinged, unraveling female main characters? Is it so 2010's? Yes. Is it still absolutely one of my favorite types of characters? Also yes. I read this book basically in one sitting. I say basically because I read this while sick in bed, only stopping when I would randomly fall asleep. I don't know what it is about reading a creepy book while sick and feverish, but it heightens the whole experience and I ate this one up.

I actually guessed one of the conclusions super early into the book, but then I second guessed everything with every flip of the page. It certainly didn't take away from the experience. The final conclusion was a little confusing, but I refuse to think too deeply about it because my reading experience was quite the perfect ride.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam and NetGalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Wow, talk about dysfunctional relationships! I feel pretty normal after reading this story of a couple who are not who or what they appear to be. Many hints are dropped that these are not their real names and that there is a past no one is willing to talk about.

There is a house in a most desired town that they (actually Sarah) decides to buy, in spite of the fact that it is called the murder house. A prior family lived there until the father killed the mother and attempted to kill the daughter before killing himself. Since then, no one has wanted to buy the house until now. Sarah sees the chance to renovate and flip the house for a lot of money, but hubby Joe admits that the house scares him.

Joe is in and out of the house and the marriage and not at all a happy hubby. Sarah is also a therapist under false pretenses who is counseling people in their marriages while she has no control over her marriage, the renovations or the house itself, which doesn't want to be renovated. Who is behind all this? Who leaves her notes knowing things about her that no one else knows? Who is/was Amanda?

Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy. Opinions expressly freely here are my own honest impressions.

This book intrigued me from the very beginning. Would you buy a house where a murder was committed? Well in this thrilling book a social media influencer does just that to renovate and flip it but she doesn't plan on horror that ensues. great debut from this Author, can't wait to read more from her.
Thank you to Netgalley, Random House Ballantine Bantam and the Author, Lisa Matlin for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Haunted house book that is much more of a psychological thriller, this book had some creepy elements but the storyline was all over the place. Sarah Slade is a therapist that recently bought the Black Wood House, a house which was sitting empty for many years due to a murder happening in the home. A man killed his wife and then chased his daughter down the street as she yelled "please don't kill me" forty years earlier and the house has sat empty since. Sarah moved into the house with her husband Joe, a bartender, and she wants to share her renovation on her social media account. From the beginning, Sarah hints to secrets from her past and the that she and Joe had to leave town under mysterious circumstances.

Joe and Sarah have a strange relationship; they are rarely together and don't communicate at all. In fact, Joe is missing for the majority of the book leaving Sarah to spend evenings alone in the dark, creaky house. She quickly realizes that something strange is going on with the house and her beloved cat Reaper howls and cries at night standing under the attic stairs. I liked the creepy house aspect but Sarah was a very unlikable character. She drinks wine constantly, doesn't eat and pays no attention to her patients at the clinic where she works. Her boss and co-workers are worried about her as she appears ill and often misses work. As the story continues, Sarah reveals more about her past and becomes more and more convinced either the house or someone else is trying to kill her. Sarah also discovers another woman had disappeared a short time before, after buying the house and that the whole community wants the house torn down and hates her for buying it.

The story ends with a surprising twists (more than one actually) but I didn't find them all that interesting and found it hard to root for Sarah. The author explains some of her motivations in writing the story at the end and I appreciate her viewpoint but wanted more of a straight forward haunted house story rather that a story about what was actually happening here. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for a review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. I really enjoyed this story. It was very atmospheric and just the right amount of creepy. It wasn't like any other books I've read so it definitely stuck with me. Definitely recommend for a good fall read.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House for the eArc in return for an honest review.



Margaret and Hal thought they found their forever dream home. They were so enamored by it that they brushed off the fact that the realtor told them that terrible things had happened there. Things seemed normal until September rolls around. This is a month of absolute terror for the couple. Each September, they learn more and more about what to do and not to do during this horrific month. Then, one September, their daughter Katherine comes for a visit.

The author marries psychological suspense, comedy, thriller, and horror and has created a solid book. I will read their next one.

The Stranger Upstairs is a thriller about an Australian couple who purchase a house that was the scene of a brutal murder/suicide.

Sarah and her husband Joe bought the Black Wood House hoping to make money when they feature the renovations on Sarah’s blog and then sell the house at a profit. But the house has (supposedly) been empty since a murder took place there 40 years ago and the wealthy neighbors would prefer it stay that way. While her marriage starts to crumble and the home renovations keep hitting snags Sarah’s physical and mental health start to unravel leaving the reader to wonder if the danger is coming from an angry neighbor, a paranormal entity or Sarah’s own sanity.

This was a fast paced and entertaining read that kept my interest throughout. What I struggled with was the popular thriller trope of “the unhappy unreliable narrator that drinks too much” that Sarah quickly became. I never empathized or connected with her as a character and I found all of her decisions frustrating. Her backstory of being a therapist that wrote a successful self-help novel and was now using her platform to create a blog about home renovations didn’t really pan out on the page. I feel like it would have been a better read if her success as an author and influencer would have been better established.

Overall, this was just an okay read for me. I like to have a character I can root for, will make me laugh or I can at least empathize with a little. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that with Sarah and it made the book less enjoyable overall.

Let's start with saying I absolutely love the cover! But, as they say, don't judge a book by its cover.

Sarah, an influencer, bought a bargain house that she plans to renovate and sell for a profit. But this is not going to be as easy as she thinks, This house has a history and not a good one. Nobody from the neighborhood will set foot near it.

Right from the beginning I was not a big fan of Sarah and her husband but I was more curious why this house was so creepy and "alive" so I continued to read it. As you follow along you get to learn more about Sarah and her past. She really is an interesting and twisted individual.

This is a dark, creepy and full of twists story that I really enjoyed. Perfect Halloween read.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Publishing and the author for a copy of ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was very interesting and thrilling. The end was filled with lots of twists (some I liked more than others), but it was definitely very engaging and entertaining. Definitely had some questions at the end, but was very invested in the outcome.

The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin

Thank you to @netgalley, @randomhouse, and the author, @lisa_m_matlin for the opportunity to read this #advancedreadercopy in exchange for my #honestbookreview! This is available now for purchase wherever books are sold.

Sarah Slade is in need if a fresh start when she and her husband, Joe, embark on an ambitious project renovating the Black Wood House. Forty years ago a man snapped and hammered his wife to death before turning to his daughter, who escaped, and finally taking his own life. The house has a bad reputation and an even worse energy. But Sarah has no room for failure. Her career, marriage, and social life are all in varying states of failure. So she’s putting her all into this flip and hoping for a big return. Will Sarah be able to fix the house before it finishes her off?

This was a wild ride! This has a similar energy to How to Sell a Haunted House with the haunted house and gothic nature. A super freaky spooky season read that I recommend for lovers of psychological thrillers. Packed with twists and turns, this one will have you on the edge of your seat until the end.

TW: g@slighting, su!cide, ment@l illness, alcohol @buse, st@lking, infidelity, and more.

4/5

This book reminded me of gone girl meets the shining. It was good and definitely kept me in thralled, wanting to know what was really going on. I enjoyed it. It was right in my wheelhouse. The characters were a little morally grey, what it was fun. The plot twists were creepy and dark thoroughly. Enjoyed it.

This was a wild read! I was genuinely scared during parts of this book. I really enjoyed this psychological thriller and our unreliable narrator.
I am a big fan of an unreliable narrator and I think this book knocked that out of the park. I truly didn’t see the ending coming and I was in the same boat as our narrator, I didn’t know what to believe! This was a fun ride and I look forward to reading more by this author!

This book just didn't come together for me. A promising premise about an influencer buying and renovating a murder house. But there were too many holes in it that were never filled. The best character was the grumpy cat, Reaper. At least his backstory was explained and made sense. I kept reading hoping the story would start becoming clearer, but it did not.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

Counting this as my first spooky read of the season!

Lisa M. Matlin’s debut book The Stranger Upstairs was an explosive thriller that had me questioning everyone including myself as to what the heck was going on.

This book had Amityville Horror/Haunting on Hill House kinda vibes and I completely devoured it!

Not only was this book hair raisingly good but that ending? You will SO not see it coming. At all. 🤯🫣😂

About the Cat, click here if you want to know his fate: (view spoiler)

Also, this book is tagged as supernatural and it is not really. Things are explained in a real life way and not attributed to supernatural events.

Not sure what to think of this book.

Influencer, author, and therapist Sara Slade and her husband purchase the notorious Black Wood House for a low price. Why? Because a grisly murder-suicide took place there. Sara plans to capitalize on the history to promote herself. Soon though, Sara starts to hear things in the attic, and she starts to get more and more paranoid about what is actually happening in the house. And Sara and her husband are hiding some dark secrets themselves that they are trying to keep hidden.

I'm still totally on the fence about this book. It should have worked for me, and in some ways it did, but in many ways it didn't. I read the heartfelt and touching author's note at the end, and I really empathize with the writer and her struggles.

I never warmed to Sara, she was acting bizarrely from the beginning and it never got better. The paranoia just grated on me and there are some things that I don't feel were thoroughly explained to make me have buy in that this could even have happened. She spends so much time drinking and doing weird things that really didn't have anything to do with the main plot. So. Much. Foreshadowing. And not nearly enough regular revelations. When we finally figure out why the need for the hiding of their identities I was so confused as to why we had to hear about Joe's bad black dye job SO many times.

There are newspaper articles referring to things in the book that haven't happened yet and those made me super annoyed. They took away the majority of the suspense in the book as we knew what was coming (like with the town meeting, was that necessary to reveal ahead of time? By the time I got to it I didn't even care to read it because I already knew what happened).

Overall I think this author has potential. There are some creepy atmospheric parts of this story, but for me got overshadowed by the holes in logic. I would give her books another try in the future.

I really liked that the house had lore behind it and this air of mystery. I found the characters really cold and unlikeable which made me not want to read the book. I wish I fell in love with the FMC before finding out how fake she is. Like show me her fake side and make me like her social media persona and then upset me by showing me her true depressed, broken marriage self. The book was short enough in length to achieve this.

Like so many of us the character Sarah Slade has secrets.

Wait till you discover for yourself what they are upon reading this twisty winding tale because some of them may surprise you like they surprised me.

I could not stop reading for very long and the more I read the more unraveling took place.

None of the characters really struck a chord with me but unlike other stories with this one that did not matter as much as getting to the truth about what was really happening in Black Wood House.

The more I uncovered the more I wanted to know, until what was actually happening finally played out to a very strange conclusion that was both disturbing as well as worth my time to get there.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group-Ballentine for granting my wish! I really enjoyed The Stranger Upstairs. This debut has a ton of buzz surrounding it, and fairly so! The social media influencer schtick is super now and relevant but the creep factor for this one is off the charts. I cannot wait to read more from this author. 4 stars.

Rating: 4/5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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“You repeat what you dont repair..”
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The Stranger Upstairs was a highly anticipated read for me as it has been raved about on booksta! I finally got around to reading it and guys I binged this one in a day. It’s a shorter read (less than 300 pages) and it will grab you right from the start and maintains a fast and stead pace throughout the book.
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I love a good murder house story and this one checked most of the boxes for me. One thing that was super fun was the news reports that were thrown in there that gave some forewarning as to what’s happened at Black Wood House. I spent a lot of my time questioning who I thought was responsible for all of the mysteriousness at the house.
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This one is a perfect psychological thriller, with some haunted house vibes. The ending had me fanning myself to relax because I was so anxious, and I absolutely love where Matlin went with this ending. It was new, it was very unique and not something that I would have expected but I think it all makes perfect sense. Also that epilogue which will bring you full circle to those haunted house vibes. That gave me goosebumps galore.
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The authors note is super important to read and I appreciate you Lisa Matlin for sharing your journey with us readers! Your debut has been a huge success and it is one that I know I will be remembering for a while. Cannot wait to see more of what you write!
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Definitely recommending to all my thriller friends who are looking for a murder house / psychological thriller spooky read this year!! The Stranger Upstairs was just released on 9/12 - go grab your copy now! Huge thank you to NetGalley, Lisa Matlin and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!!

Okay, this was full of twists and turns that I didn't see coming. Don't start this late at night, either--it's a haunted house story. I liked the premise, liked the creepy town setting, but I didn't love the main character. She's not very likable, and I like my characters to be more likable. Still, I think many readers will enjoy this. I flew through it!