I was really intrigued by the storyline at the start and it was definitely an interesting plot but the execution kind of dulled for me. I didn’t care for the main character. And she was a huge mess which made the story kind of hard to follow. I ended up DNF this one because i just didn’t care and the story wasn’t picking up.

I went back and finished this book. I think after finishing it i enjoyed it a little more. I had wanted more spooky vibes from the house than was given. I was surprised by the turn of events tho. And this main character 😳 she is an unlikeable character but j liked the background info on her that comes toward the end. I liked that the ending was surprising and unique.

I also appreciated the authors note for this one. It gave me some good insight and i liked the author’s vulnerability and that she shared it to help others.

I’m giving this one a 3.5. I’ll round up in my rating.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4!

Synopsis: A social media influencer with a secret past buys a murder house to renovate, but finds more than she bargained for behind the peeling wallpaper in this gothic psychological debut.

For a debut novel is was quite an interesting and quick read. I felt like it was going into a few different directions at one point but didn’t expect the ending that came. I did enjoy it and it kept me engaged throughout the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine for granting me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

Publish Date: September 12, 2023

This is another one I’m not quite sure how to rate. I think the book was actually pretty good, but I didn’t enjoy reading it very much.
My favorite part was the morally grey MC. I love dark lead characters, and I thought the way Sarah was portrayed was excellent.
Overall, I thought this book was well done, but I think “madness” books just aren’t for me. I don’t personally enjoy storylines where the MC’s life is slowly spiraling out of control and they’re questioning what is real and what isn’t. That being said, the way it was done was still very effective! I’ve just realized I don’t like being in that type of anxious headspace while reading.
I also think there were a few plot lines that were left hanging in the end, and I wish there was more resolution.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC ebook of The Strangers Upstairs.

OMG! I promise you, you have just found your new thriller. This book will drag you under from the first page and not let you up for air until the last page is turned.

Meet Sarah: influencer, wife, therapist. She has it all, or so she wants you to think.

“ ‘Don’t be afraid of the truth,’ she says. Be afraid of believing your lies.”

Sarah has bought a new house to rehab. Not just any house though, a house where an infamous murder took place 40 years prior. As the physical walls begin to come down, so do the walls of Sarah’s carefully constructed life.

One of the best new thrillers I have read this year.

Shout out to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the advance copy of this book!

There were a lot of things I liked about this book. One was that I was not bored or dreading picking it up like I do with a lot of stories. Another was that it was a true psychlogical thriller. A lot of stories say they are, but they don't end up very psychological, or thrilling. I loved reading about Sarah. Lonely, doesn't even know who she truly is, misses her sister like no other, craving validation. It's sad but also relatable. It was a mystery til the end who was torturing Sarah, or if she was losing her mind. I felt actual concern about her character and wanted to get to the end to see if she'd be OK. I don't end up liking a lot of main characters or feeling connected to them. But I did to poor Sarah. The way she "slipped into another's skin" was interesting and tragic, and the ending was very original, and spooky. I loved it start to finish.

Thank you to Lisa M. Matlin, Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine, Bantom Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC of The Stranger Upstairs.
First of all, a horror – psychological thriller books is hands down my go to especially the closer we get to fall and spooky season. This is the authors debut novel and the competition in this category is fierce. It is a little slow at first, and at times it is hard to follow Sarah’s side thoughts that come around to real time – and that is ok. I will circle back around to what she writes next because she is good. Very good.
Sarah Slade is a therapist and self-help writer. With her husband, Joe, they buy the Black Wood Murder House that they intend to flip for a hefty profit. She has dollar signs in her eyes at every turn, but life isn’t going the way she expected it. Sarah and Joe’s marriage is falling apart and their renovations are not going as expected. The house seems to know things – things that no one else knows. As each day continues, Sarah seems to spiral more and more out of control. As a reader, you will suddenly encounter news stories from 15 days out and blog entries from the future with a lot of clues- then flip back to real time.
This is a page turner! With twists and questions that would make a great buddy read!

Riddled with suspense!

The story started off strong, hooking me with its dark premise and unique voice. I was immediately drawn in by the protagonist, Sarah, who buys an infamous ‘murder house’ with her husband, Joe, after which they quickly move into despite the tragedy that occurred inside years prior. It’s clear from the start they’re having marital issues and at one point, she even admits her suspicion that he’s having an affair. Then the notes start appearing.

The setting did a great job at creating an underlying tension and at one point it left me wondering if there was a supernatural element to the story. The pace slowed down in the middle as Sarah’s drinking increased and she forgot to take her medication, but it picked back up again in the last quarter of the book. The characters were believable but very unlikable, except for Emily, which made the ending all the more difficult to read. The theme of mental illness was very clear and woven throughout the story in clever ways, but in the end I felt confused about the specific condition Sarah suffered from. Her slippery mental state was palpable to read, including the scene when she collapsed at work and had to be sent home. The twist was interesting and somewhat logical, although I felt it a little too coincidental that the effects would play out in the exact same way with the previous owners.

3/5⭐️⭐️⭐️
For readers who enjoy dark topics, creepy settings, and unreliable female narrators.

This is a twisty psychological thriller with a supernatural element of a possibly haunted murder house.

Almost all of the characters in this book are unlikeable, except for a side character that works with Sarah and her cat Reaper.. who is my favorite character in the entire book. Sarah has bought a murder house with the intention of flipping it with her husband and documenting it on her blog and instagram hopefully to get sponsers and make some money. The further we get into the book, the more haunted the house feels, like its actively trying to get Sarah and her husband to leave. Sarah starts spiraling and we aren't sure if its the house or her own past coming back to bite her in the butt.

This is definietly intriguing in plot, but I think the characters were a little too unlikeable for me, it made it hard to connect with or care what happened to any of them. Minus the cat. Who I was very invested in seeing what happened to. But it had potential, and the house was sutible creepy, Lisa Matlin did a great job of bringing the haunted house vibes to life.

While this book didn't 100% work for me, I would definitely check out other books by this author in the future.
Im going to leave a slight spoiler below so if you don't want to know anything stop reading here...
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The cat lives

I was granted an early e-arc copy of this book, thanks to Netgalley & the publisher.

This is a debut novel from Lisa M. Marlin. We follow an influencer as she buys a house with the intentions of fixing it up, but as she is renovating the place up, she might have gotten herself into more than she bargained for. This house is known for a murder-suicide that took place years ago. Our influencer is planning on documenting the project for her social media accounts, but how much can she do for the views? When will the happenings be too much for her?

What a fun debut novel this was! I wasn’t quite expecting it to take some of the turns that it did, and they aren’t my favorite things to happen in books, but I was invested in this book for the vibes and they were defintlety giving all of the spooky Halloween type vibes. Overall, I had so much fun with the book, even though it was out of my comfort zone. I would highly recommend that you don’t go into this book at night, unless you are not easily scared.

The premise of this book was so promising, but it fell a little short in the execution, for me. It was hard for me to care about and connect with the characters, and there was a lot of showing rather than telling.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for a complimentary copy of this novel.

A 5-STAR DEBUT NOVEL!!! A Gothic, Psychological thriller with a murder house full of secrets. Social media influencer and therapist, Sarah Slade and her bartender husband, Joe, buy Black Wood House. But it’s not just the house with shady and murderous secrets. Sarah and Joe also have secrets of their own to keep hidden. Who are they really? What are they hiding from? And the town itself where Black Wood House is located seems to have its own secrets as well. A woman previously disappeared just before Sarah and Joe arrived. Before her, almost an entire family was murdered and their daughter disappeared. And Black Wood House doesn’t seem to want to be renovated. Sarah begins to hear footsteps in the attic at night, her cat begins to act weird and gets very sick. Strange notes begin to pop up that only Sarah would know the information contained in them. She’s slowly losing it. Will Sarah and Joe’s secrets be their unraveling or is Black Wood House going to claim them just like the previous owners?

I am not sure I would ever buy a house with a murder in it... especially after this book! This book was so twisty and I was not sure where it was going to end up. Great book for the fall season. You don't want to miss this thriller!
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for allowing me to read this book.

DNF at 25%. I found myself not invested in the story or the unreliable narrator of Sarah Slade. It was an interesting premise for a novel, but ultimately I didn't care who was murdered in the house during renovations.

Thank you to Bantam, Random House, and Netgalley for a copy for review consideration.

A creepy psychological thriller which has the MC questioning her grip on reality and of course leaves us readers throughly invested.

Wowzers! What a ride! Amazing debut novel, suspenseful, thrilling! Unexpected twists and turns, you never know what’s going to happen next!
Self-help guru Sarah Slade and her husband Joe buy an infamous murder house that’s been vacant for 40 years to renovate and sell. The people of Beacon aren’t happy with the renovation of Black House and aren’t afraid to let it be known. They think the house should be demolished. Strange things start happening and Sarah blames her neighbors. Soon she finds notes in the house with things no one would know. Sarah thinks her past has come to haunt her along with the house. Questioning the neighbors doesn’t seem to be helping but she finds out she isn’t the first owner of Black Wood House since the murders happened and that she disappeared not that long ago. Can Sarah find out what’s happening in her home before she disappears too?
Thanks NetGalley for this ARC is return for my review.

3.25 stars

Sarah Slade is a therapist and a self-help influencer who with her husband, Joe, just bought an old Victorian house in Melbourne where a man went crazy and murdered his entire family. Cozy! Her goal is to flip the house for a profit and document the journey on social media. 

Sarah and Joe's marriage is already falling apart when they move in, and living in the inhospitable house doesn't help. The neighbors want the place bulldozed, and Sarah starts getting mysterious notes and threatening gifts, and when she hears strange sounds in the attic at night she starts questioning if it's just the neighbors of if the house itself doesn't want them there. 
This would freak anyone out, but the notes specifically refer to a dark past that Sarah and Joe moved to escape. Someone knows Sarah isn't who she says she is, and she's worried that her job and status will all come crashing down around her.
If you don't like unlikable main characters and unreliable narrators, steer clear of this book. That being said, what a wild ride. Every time I thought I had figured out what was going on in this story something else would happen that made that impossible. I find that with thrillers there's a fine line between the good kind of "I didn't see this coming" and "I didn't see this coming because it makes no sense/what is happening". This one stayed on the right side for me but toed the line a bit, I think just because there were SO many different threads to the story.
I liked some elements of the plot twist in this a lot, but wish they'd been fleshed out more and given time to breathe. It can be fun when thrillers hit their climax and everything unravels at once, but I felt like if that part had been expanded some the ending would have been more satisfying for me personally. Overall I liked this story's concept and the author's writing, and will keep an eye out for her future work! I also really appreciated her author's note at the end on mental health and writing.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, & the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Stranger Upstairs
Lisa M. Matlin
September 212, 2023

Living in a house in Australia was getting difficult for Sara Slade and her husband, Joe. She needed to begin a new book and revamp her counseling therapy sessions. In reading about an old gothic house that has been vacant for forty years in Beacon, southeast of Melbourne where murder took place in the estate. Not a soul has wanted to live in or own such a piece of real estate. The price had dropped considerably and Sara felt that she and Joe could buy it, renovate it, then sell it making a fortune. Joe didn’t want to consider it but Sara was sold on her idea. She felt they could spend their time and money with the remodel then sell it for much more than they paid. She made the deal and scheduled the move. Once there she moved her beautiful bedroom suite into the master. Unfortunately the room still had blood stains on the hardwood floor from the murder.
The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin will be published on September 12, 2023 by Random House Books. I was selected to read the ARC of her novel by NetGalley. Initially I found it a bit humorous that she would do such a thing. As the novel continued and incidents happened I found the plot to be rather creepy. I did rather like the protagonist’s cat, Reaper.
Many readers may be enthralled by the suspense and chilling nature of such a read. I surmise that such a dark story is too much suspense for me. Do take a chance on this one if the dark and stormy action is your type of a gem to read.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC.

This book is what happens when you mix Haunting of Hill House with The Yellow Wallpaper and then make it into a digital age thriller on Lifetime. Reading that back makes is sound kind of good, but it wasn't really. At least not for me. There are going to be a TON of readers who are going to love this book, and I love that for a debut author, but as a Stephen King lover professionally trained in psychology I did not.

It's a very quick and twisty read, and all the loose ends do get tied up at the end, which is always nice. I hope the author continues to write and doesn't lean on the current formulaic thriller trend as much next time. Definitely see some potential here.

I'm not entirely sure how to review this one. It was a quick read, but wasn't my favorite. It definitely leans more towards horror than thriller, but not too much (because I can't handle true horror!). I had a hard time getting into it at first, but it kept my attention. Unfortunately, I feel like there were a lot of loose ends that weren't wrapped up and I had more questions than answers after finishing.

I read "The Stranger Upstairs" by Lisa M. Matlin on NetGalley. I couldn't put this book down and ended up staying up way to late to finish it. This book is about a woman and her husband who buy a house where a murder happened years before. They plan on fixing it up and selling it for a good profit but things do not go as planned. They have a mysterious past and things seem to be falling apart quickly. Is it the house or is it them?