Lisa M. Matlin's "The Stranger Upstairs" is a gripping thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page. The novel follows the life of Sarah, an ordinary woman who finds herself drawn into a web of secrets and lies when she moves to a murder house, Black Wood, in Beacon with her husband, Joe. As time goes on and renovations begin in the house, the tension steadily escalates, and the author skillfully builds a sense of unease and paranoia that keeps the reader guessing throughout the story.

The true strength of "The Stranger Upstairs" lies in its plot twist. Just when you think you have it all figured out, Matlin throws a curveball that will leave your jaw on the floor. The twist is both unexpected and brilliantly executed, turning the entire narrative on its head and reshaping everything you thought you knew about the characters and their motivations. It's a testament to the author's storytelling prowess that she can pull off such a twist without it feeling forced or contrived.

Matlin's writing is solid, with well-crafted characters and a knack for building suspense. However, there are moments when the pacing feels a bit uneven, and some scenes could benefit from more depth and development. Additionally, while the characters are interesting, they occasionally lack the depth and complexity needed to make them truly memorable.

Despite these minor shortcomings, "The Stranger Upstairs" remains an enjoyable and thrilling read. Lisa M. Matlin has delivered a suspenseful novel with a plot twist that will haunt your thoughts long after you finish reading. If you're a fan of psychological thrillers and don't mind a few narrative hiccups, this book is well worth your time.

Beware Black Wood House, it is hiding secrets worth dying for. I found The Stranger Upstairs to be an average read. It is a mixture of a thriller with touch of supernatural thrown in at the end. I did love the ending of the book and wish it had more supernatural elements in the book.

this was a great book! had me hooked and needing to know what was going to happen. it fell short at the end for me and i wished for a different ending but i still really enjoyed this!

This book was just the right mix of thriller and horror. Thoroughly enjoyed the writing and the twists. I hope this author continues to release books that are as exciting as this one.

I fell in love with this cover from the get-go! Plus, I’ve kinda been into haunted house stories lately, so this was a no-brainer for me to pick up.

This book has so much going on! A recently purchased house with a murderous history and desire to keep its new owners out, a couple on the run with a tenuous marriage and a highly questionable past, a tight-knit community bent on running out newcomers, and more. The conflict in this one is LAYERED, and my desire to know the truth about ALL of it kept me hooked, even when the pace faltered a bit in the middle. The snippets future news articles between every few chapters do a great job of keeping the intrigue alive, and by the 66% mark, the book became UNPUTDOWNABLE for me. (I kicked the audiobook up to 1.5% and stayed up way later than I should have to finish it!) It gets pretty damn scary toward the end! The ending itself, for me, was a mix of surprise twists and expected outcomes—and overall satisfying.

I will say that, with the except of *maybe* one, none of the characters are particularly likeable, especially the MC, Sarah Slade. However, it is her character that drives the story. I HAD to know what her Whole Deal was, and by the end, even if I didn’t like her, I cared for her well-being.

I’ll be on the lookout for more from Lisa M. Matlin. I ended up pairing the ebook ARC with the published audiobook since the release date ended up being a few weeks earlier than I’d originally noted. Fiona Hardingham’s narration was a delight to listen to, and ngl, the Australian accent made it even better!

Review posted on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5455595960

The Strangers Upstairs was a little bit of a mixed bag for me. On the positive side, it was a VERY fast read. It was fun, spooky and, had a wild narrator. On the negative side it felt like kind of a mess of a plot in the way a lot of debuts do. It relied on some cliched tropes like an unreliable, drunk narrator and mental illness. The big reveal was a letdown and the ending felt like the author didn’t know the answers to her own questions. I think this author has potential and I would give her next book a chance.

The Stranger Upstairs shows readers what happens when an unstable woman is thrust into a haunted house. Who comes out the winner? The woman or the house? Maybe neither, maybe both.

I was completely absorbed in the story until about midway there was a twist I was not anticipating. Right away we know that Sarah and Joe have something negative in their past, so when they move into the haunted house, their problems seem to become amplified.

The townspeople hate the house and they hate Sarah and Joe for moving into it. The couple wants to renovate it, but they cannot find contractors to agree to do the work. In addition to that, it seems when work is done, somehow the house “undoes” it.

The ending was good, but I was disappointed that one of the most decent characters was sacrificed to the story. All in all, this was a good read to begin the “spooky” fall season.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for allowing me to read an advance copy. I’m pleased to recommend this to readers and give my honest review.

I loved the beautiful cover and was excited to dive into this story. I wanted to love this but unfortunately couldn't. I thought parts of this book were very good, but other parts were not. The writing was not as strong as I was hoping and relied on some simple literary devices that don’t showcase the author’s skill, such as repetition, fade to black and cliffhanging chapters, and ill-intentioned reverse dramatic irony.

With the exception of one side character, all characters in The Stranger Upstairs were terribly unlikable, and no one gets what I would call a happy ending. The FMC was not relatable and did not inspire sympathy while reading. Sometimes this can work well, when a character is an anti-hero, but unless the villain is exceedingly cunning or strategic, usually I find it to be more detrimental for the story. In this case, Sarah’s character was disorganized and frenetic, but not intelligent, and it was frustrating to read the story with her as the main character.

The story as a whole left some major plot holes that I wanted some more explanation from. While I thought the primary conflict resolution was clever, the end of the book indicated that there were both worldly AND supernatural forces at play, and I would have preferred one or the other instead of a half-hearted both. Everything outside of that primary issue is left entirely unresolved.

I still wanted to know the entire story, but I was left unsatisfied with the work overall. I can appreciate that this is a debut novel, and I’m interested to see how Matlin’s writing style will develop over time.

For those readers who like to immerse themselves into the setting of a book, you will thoroughly enjoy The Stranger Upstairs. None of the characters are really likeable, but that makes for a more exciting and thrilling read. You find yourself immersed in a story that includes renovating a large old home, the death of a family many years ago, the disappearance of the former owner, and the complicated back story of the two main characters.

What a fun, unique thriller this was!! I was hooked the second I started reading and was upset every time I had to put this book down to do something else. All I wanted to do was keeping reading!

I am ALWAYS a sucker for a good haunted house story and this one was so different than others I’ve read. It has a Jumanji-type ending that, honestly, still had me guessing?

There were a couple of twists that I didn’t really like ~at the time but the more I read, the more sense they made and the better they got? So by the end, this had me reeled back in!

Honestly, I can’t explain my reading experience without spoilers so suffice it to say, this book is a WILD ride and I had a great time!!! But if I had to explain it with spoilers, they are here: [I thought the reveal that Sarah stole her sister's boyfriend and that's why they ~fled their hometown was such a letdown. Because I definitely thought they'd killed someone. But the more that was revealed about that, the more it aligned with what I'd already guessed. Though after the fact, I did appreciate that that was a slow reveal. And I LOVED the ending. At first I was annoyed that it was *just* carbon monoxide poisoning and the house wasn't really haunted. But the fact that the house couldn't be torn down and there was no evidence of a leak and is probably just a really angry, actually alive house was SO COOL and honestly made me rethink my whole opinion of this book and absolutely love it!]

The characters were ones you love to hate. The writing style is really fun and sucks you right in! And I loved learning more about Australia (not me having to look up a lot of common Australian animals and phrases I wasn’t familiar with).

Overall, this was a solid thriller and I’m so glad to have read it!!! I will definitely keep this author on my radar and I can’t wait to read more in the future! And if you picked this as a BOTM selection, you made a solid choice!

Thank you to NetGalley & Bantam Books for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review. What a treat!!

Instagram influencer and celebrity therapist Sarah Slade buys a notorious home, infamous for the murders that took place in the house 40 years ago where a seemingly normal husband takes a hammer to his sleeping wife and daughter one fine morning.
Sarah Slade finds a therapist job in the coveted town of Beacon and promises her followers to keep them updated about home renovations on her website.
Little did Sarah know that the house not only has dark secrets but also a life of its town. The house hates to change, to be better just like herself?
Ever since she moved to the house, her husband seems to be absent. Is he still brooding over the mistakes committed in their past?
I finished this book in one sitting, I could not put this down and this book had me guessing till the very very end . Totally unexpected twists though I wish some of the characters were more fleshed out. Some loose ends but over all managed to keep me on the edge till the very last page.
Highly recommend this author!
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for an ARC of this book for my honest opinion!

3.5 stars,

I just read another haunted house book that had much higher reviews. That I didn't really like. Now this one has lower reviews and I enjoyed the heck out of it.
It has hateful ass characters who I wanted to see what happened with and the perfect creep factor that I felt like someone was watching me while I read it.

The author has a note at the end where she describes some of the experiences of her own life and I actually really liked that. She describes the "dark night of the soul." and I know exactly what she was talking about.

Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

The Stranger Upstairs follows Sarah, a social media influencer and therapist who purchases a murder house to both renovate for profit and make content for her blog. She hopes that renovating this house together with her husband will help save her deteriorating marriage. However, her neighbors do not want her there and are unwilling to hide their dislike. She deals with them and the other challenges that come with living in a house everyone is scared of throughout the rest of the book.

This book was very creepy and the story was unlike other psychological thrillers I have read. It was a fast paced read that left me thinking about the book even when I wasn't reading it. It is a great debut novel! This was 3.5 stars for me!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing-Bantam for the ARC!

This is average for me. There were some things about the writing that irritated me like the author’s tendency to use words like “creeeeeak” and “meowwwww.” Thank just felt distracting. There is also an element to the ending that is becoming tiresome in thrillers.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an eARC of this title!

I gave this one the good old college try, and unfortunately, gave up at the 40% mark. I thought to myself, "Do I care about the ending of this?" and when I realized I had no desire to know what happened, I figured it was best for me to put it down.

I think what bothered me the most was the main character/narrator. I found her to be absolutely insufferable and exhausting. She clearly has some skeletons in the closet (skeletons I guess I will never know about since I decided to not finish the book) and a bad attitude that I could not stand. I know a lot of readers enjoy "flawed characters", I felt this MC was beyond that - I thought she was detestable. I didn't want to spend another 100+ pages in her head!

I do want to recognize that the author was likely trying to create a character that was horrible, so I do have to give her credit for that! But this went so far that I didn't want to know anything about her - I can't think of one likable trait she had.

I also didn't find the sections that were supposed to be spooky to be spooky at all. I wasn't scared, didn't feel suspense (and I was reading it mostly in the dark while my husband slept), I mostly just felt bored.

All in all, bummer for me on this one. On to the next!

This is a creepy, unnerving novel about Sarah Slade, a writer (and a fake therapist), who moves into a house where a husband murdered his wife and attempted to murder his daughter decades prior. While living there with her husband, she begins to have hallucinations, be paranoid, and think she's hearing things in the house. I was surprised at the end of this but it wasn't a favorite. I would still read another book by this author!

Black Wood house's newest owners aren't who they say they are... and the house knows. Best-selling therapist Sarah Slade and her bartender husband think they've found a good deal when the Black Wood Murder House goes up for sale. They plan to blog about the renovations, get some sponsorships, sell it and start their new life with the massive profits. Unfortunately, the townspeople and, it seems, the house itself, want the house bulldozed. As things continue stacking up against her, Sarah will have to race to finish the renovations while she still can.

I absolutely loved this one and flew through the bulk of it. The only issue I had was that the end got very confusing. Ultimately it mostly sorted itself and the last bit was phenomenal, but there was definitely a bit at the end where the characters became extremely hard to keep track of and I had to read it twice.

For a debut novel I believe Lisa Matlin has hit a home run out of the park folks!!! I loved the alternating timeline to bodies discovered yet again that fall victim to the Black Wood House, but then flashes back to current residents Sarah Slade and her husband living amongst all the strange and creepy happenings since they moved in and started trying to renovate!
The house isn't just a house it seems, Sarah and Joe aren't who they seem, so many secrets waiting to be revealed! Throw in the past murder 40 years ago and also a previous missing owner and there are a few more secrets to this house! Well done unfolding of a murder house with an even creepier attic inside!! I loved every minute of this and loved the suspense ride!! This book has a sadness that is so eloquently written dealing with mental health and bravo to the author from start to finish with this debut!! I hope there is something else in the works for another twisted filled psychological thriller because I will be watching for one!! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the gifted copy to immerse myself in and find another hit!!

"Want a great deal on a house? BUY ONE WHERE SOMEONE WAS MURDERED! Here's the killer truth: A brutal murder can slash the price by as much as 50%. But would YOU do it?"

Sarah Slade, author, therapist and influencer, has bought the infamous Black Wood House. It was the scene of a vicious murder/suicide forty years ago and no one has lived in it since...except someone has. No one will even acknowledge her existence, but a woman named Amanda lived in the house for a brief period of time. Sarah is anxious to extend her social media following and thinks that the renovations will be a boost to her blog and popularity, at least until her new book comes out. Well, that is, if she ever gets around to writing it. Sarah is not doing well - she can't focus on her patients, her husband Joe is increasingly absent, and she is losing time. But she loves the house, even down to the bloodstained bedroom floor. Besides, she can't give up when she has so much to lose.

Confession time: I would buy a house where someone was murdered.

So I thought this book would be perfect for me. But I had a hard time with it. Sarah was just so erratic. I can deal with her being unlikable, but she seemed to bounce around like she was living in a pinball machine. Is she having some kind of breakdown? Is someone stalking her and leaving her notes? Has someone poisoned her cat? Or is she just plain old crazy? For most of the book, I couldn't tell. I could never really plunge myself into the storyline and get lost the way I like. This was really leaning toward 2 stars for me but the ending and epilogue did save it a bit. Overall, I was rather disappointed though. This book really should've been tailor-made for my weird little heart.

Creepy and compelling. I flew through this one. Well done, Lisa -- I can't wait to see what you come up with next.