This book is one of those where nothing good happens, but you can't put it down.

Influencer, therapist Sarah Slade moves into the Black Wood House - a delapidated murder house- with the intent of using the renovations as content. Think of the movie the Money Pit, with conspiracies, unfriendly neighbors, strange noises, and mysterious notes.

It's set in Australia so it was interesting to hear about local animals while bad things are happening.

Thank you to the publisher for my #gifted eARC in exchange for an honest review🤗


𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬:
First of all, I just love this cover!😍 The premise of this book sounded so good and so promising, so I was incredibly excited to receive a copy on netgalley. We follow Sarah and her husband who buy a an old Victorian home with a plan of restoring it and fixing it up. They get this house for a steal considering the neighborhood that it is in, and that is because a gruesome murder was committed inside the home years ago. A good deal is hard to pass up though, right?! Soon after starting the work on the old house, Sarah begins to question the house's past…its dark, sinister, and haunting past. Sarah begins to get a creepy feeling from the house, and when weird things start to happen around the house…and slowly Sarah starts to spiral out of control, losing all sense of reality. What exactly is happening? Is Sarah going crazy? Is it the old house? Is it actually haunted? Or is something more sinister going on?
This was a fun read, especially for a debut. I loved the amount of built up suspense and the mystery behind the old house. The author definitely fulfilled the goal of giving off an eerie, creepy, spine tingling vibe while reading this. I was definitely entertained and captivated throughout this one—AND THAT ENDING🫨 I totally did not expect the ending to play out as it did, and I was all for it! What a great debut and the perfect read for spooky season!

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞?
Are you a fan of haunted houses? You will love this one! Especially if you enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House, because this has similar vibes and made me think of that.

𝐌𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️4/5

Creepy and disturbing! At every turn there’s more rot and wrong in this macabre tale. You’ll find yourself grimacing while eagerly turning the page! It’s a whodunnit, psychological, domestic thriller mashup!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my free copy. These opinions are my own.

The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa Marlin
Release date - 9/26

This debut caught my attention from the catchy and colorful cover! Plus its spooky season :-)
It follows the story of a young woman and her husband who purchase a murder house—that is, a husband brutally murdered his wife and attempted to kill their daughter before she got away. It has sat vacant for a very long time. Sarah is a social media influencer who plays a therapist by day, an author, and now she’s taking on a new role as an interior designer in this dreary mansion with one window.

Not everything is sunshine and roses, however, as strange things begin to happen to her, and with her relationship with others around town. Sarah becomes convinced that someone is out to kill her — or a ghost in the house, perhaps?? She’s sleeping in the murder room itself, after all! The house becomes a character as well, in this cold mystery.

This novel is getting 3.5 stars from me, rounded up, and here’s why:
The beginning quarter or more, I almost DNF’d as it’s crazy messy with an even crazier protagonist who I did not like at all. I immediately felt like she was a nut job (likely intent) but those types of books are not for me. Also, it felt predictable.
Likes: Many mentioned the cuss words as a turn off, but I don’t mind it when it puts you inside the character’s state of mind, making it authentic to the crazy train plot. Also, about the half-way mark, things started getting strange in an intriguing sort of way — so now I had to keep going! Haha! The pacing got better so I had to see if my prediction was right. (It was in the same arena, but I was ultimately wrong… it was a unique scene/plot stealer.) I also appreciated the author’s note.

Thank you to Bantam Books for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The House didn’t want to be fixed, pulled apart, made new and clean again. And neither do I.

I was in need of a real good bite my nails kinda book and man did this one have me on the edge of my seat! What I enjoyed about the story was the build up of the plot. You get the base of the story down and then have to join the main character in figuring out the who/what/when/where. There was so many parts of the book that were creepy and I was reading it in the middle of the night! One woman was murdered and another took his own life so you spend most of the book wondering is the disturbances from the house being haunted or is it someone trying to scare the homeowner away. All I know is this…no matter what it was I would not have stayed in this house for a second! Lol If you’re looking for a creepy thriller I highly recommend The Stranger Upstairs.
People probably think Sarah is crazy for buying a “murder house” but buying the house at a discount means she can flip it and make a substantial profit. Sarah is a therapist and plans on documenting all of her renovations online in hopes she can gain followers as well as sponsorships. Everyone is interested in how a normal couple can live in a home that has seen such tragedy, but somehow it intrigues Sarah and even excites her. Very quickly strange things start to happen that can’t be explained and as the days go by even Sarah is starting to become frightened. The thing is…is it that the house is haunted by ghosts of the past or is someone messing with her hoping they can scare her away? Sarah won’t walk away from her investment and she will do everything she can to find out the truth of Black wood House…..even if it kills her.

I feel there have been too many books recently about a woman descending into madness while everyone around her refuses to believe anything she says. While it was clear that the main character was meant to be unlikeable, I found myself growing quite tired of her over time. I get that when you're eager to buy a house where a murder occurred and that no one else wants, you'd probably cut a few corners with getting it inspected and making it livable. But the big reveal in the end just seemed unrealistic.

That feeling when you go to look at an author’s backlist and realize this crazy good book is actually their debut novel‽

The creep factor is top notch, and there were so many twists throughout the entire book I was guessing until the very end.

Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. Great story line an characters.. was definitely an excellent read. Book kept me interested.

Sarah Slade is a social media influencer who along with her husband Joe purchased an abandoned murder house to renovate. Sarah is hoping that documenting the renovations on her popular lifestyle blog will help her gain more followers as well as fix her failing marriage. She even goes so far as to sleep in the bedroom where the grisly murder suicide took place. Soon, strange, and creepy things begin to happen around her, and Sarah begins to unravel.


This book had the perfect amount of spookiness, and I could envision the murder house in my mind with the creepy wallpaper and blood-stained bedroom floor. There are several mysteries going on in the story. What happened to Sarah’s sister? Who is leaving her notes? Is someone out to kill her? I was not able to predict a single thing and was shocked when everything came together in the end. And the ending! Absolute perfection!

If you are looking for a book for the upcoming spooky season pick this one up right away!

I may be one of the few but I felt this debut novel started strong and fell short. Reminded me a little of Rose Red.

By far from my favorite and I struggled from 35% forward trying to finish. Disappointed, I hoped this would have been an amazing story with a way different outcome.

If you get a copy, I would read it but I wouldn’t go out of my way to but it on the top of my list.

Thank you Netgalley and the author for a chance to read and review this debut novel. The author definitely has skills, I just wished the story would have panned out differently.

What a great debut! I love a good haunted house story, and this one delivered.

I will say, I love a good unlikeable main character... and Sarah Slade is pretty unlikeable! But as the book kept going, I really enjoyed the look we got into her inner thoughts. Everytime she talked about slipping into a certain skin, it gave me the heebie jeebies and I LOVED it.

I had a hunch where this story was going, and my hunch was correct. Sometimes that can take my enjoyment out of a book, but I will say the epilogue helped change my opinion! I enjoyed this one as I was reading, but I assumed it would end up as a 3 star read once I made it to the end. But the epilogue helped bump it back to 4 stars! I really liked the way it was done.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the copy in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you for giving me the chance to read this intense mystery thriller book! I was hooked by the second chapter and wanted to know what happened next. I didn't love how she got her job as a therapist without any qualifications, and the drunk screaming was a bit odd, but it was fast paced, interested, and intense.
This book is a solid way to start spooky season!

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this early. Like usual, I got around to it a bit too late and it has already been published.

For a debut book, I actually enjoyed this more than I expected. It was also short enough that I read it in a single sitting, which definitely says something for it being paced nicely and interesting enough to keep my attention the whole time.

I did think there were a lot of twists here, and it kept me engaged and even a couple of them caught me off guard. I read this with my mom, who enjoyed this even more than I did, and she was guessing incorrectly the entire time! So it definitely does have things that perhaps you may not see coming. Some are a bit more of a stretch than others, but if you aren't so focused on that and letting that impact you negatively, than it is quite fun! I will also say that the book seems to be really well written and the author does a great job of setting a creepy and atmospheric tone.

Like all thrillers, I think it's best to go in blindly, especially one this short, But I do think that it's worth a read and I will be picking up a copy to have on my shelves and I am definitely interested in the next thing this author comes out with!

Dnfing… the writing in this book was very, very weird and a huge turnoff for me. “Maybe it’s mabelline, maybe it’s murder”?! Really? It was just so cheesy and felt very elementary. I’m sad this didn’t work for me because I’ve been craving a good thriller.

Thanks anyway for the ARC.

I found THE STRANGER UPSTAIRS, an Australian psychological thriller, riveting but very weird, and the Epilogue perturbing. Oh, wait, "perturbing" was a main theme. Even before I knew much about the protagonist, even very early on, I disliked her character. I also found no empathy for her husband. I did appreciate the MC's fellow therapist, a genuinely compassionate "Earth Mother" type, with a good heart, a solid marriage, "normal" kids [quite a foil for the protagonist, who purports to be mentally stable, advice-giving, therapeutically sound, solidly married].

THE STRANGER UPSTAIRS is wildly twisted, and it raises a number of very important issues. It also did a number on my head and I won't soon forget it, the denouement....or that highly perturbing Epilogue.

This was such a fun, quick, and easy read! It definitely had a lot of creepy and scary parts that kept me totally engrossed.

Sarah was horrible and completely unlikable, but for some weird reason, I love those types of characters. I'm not really sure what that says about me.

I can't wait to get my hands on Lisa M. Matlin's next book. This one was a wild ride filled with twists and suspense.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

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.