Real Rating: 3.25* of five
<I>What Maisie Knew</i>, with added (and unnecessary) murder, from a lawyer's PoV. It's not much of an improvement TBH. A lot easier to read than James's prose; less intensely compelling, too.

Tendentiously moralizing tale of a child's nightmarish loss of innocence. Judge less, understand mor

I read this book while simultaneously listening to it. Which is an amazing way to experience this book BTW.

The story is amazing as always with this author. Nothing is as it seems but all gets tied together at the end.

I will definitely be referring this book to everyone!

I was looking forward to this book but unfortunately the writing style just wasn't my type. There was a lot of telling and hinting at things in a way that felt a little more juvenile. The plot was decent but the pacing/writing made it hard for me to keep reading.

This was a gripping and unexpected thriller! I love Sarah Pekkanen's work, both with her co-writer Greer and alone. This book lived up to my expectations. This is perfect for fans of twisty thrillers that involve nannies and children.

I love Sarah Pekkanen’s previous books and this one was another home run!

I thought the plot of a best interest lawyer was new-to-me and I loved it! It was a thrilling to have Stella, the lawyer, meet her new client, Rose who stops talking after seeing her nanny die before her eyes. Ahhhh! As a speech-language pathologist who has not had much experience with mutism, this was so interesting to me! It gets even better when we start to learn more about the parents and grandparent that are close to Rose. And the weird quirks of having no glass in the house. This story was very bingeable and the short chapters helped me to keep working towards who killed the nanny. Honestly, Pekkanen did a great job at casting doubt on Rose, her parents and grandma. The ending was really good! 4.5 stars!

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Sarah Pekkanen for my advanced copy!

Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney. She has been assigned to work as counsel for Rose Barclay in a custody case. Rose is only nine years old. She usually avoids working with children this young due to her traumatic childhood. She has agreed to work this case because Rose is suffering from traumatic mutism something that Stella understands as she too had it as a child. Stella needs to work closely with the family and determine which parent should have custody of little Rose.

Rose witnessed the death of her nanny. It may or may not have been an accident. Upon entering the home Stella feels uneasy and the more time she spends with the Barclay's the more twisted everything and everyone becomes. The Barclay's have secrets and everyone is a suspect. Things intensify when Stella starts to experience some of the same episodes that Tina (the nanny) did. Stella needs to find out just exactly what's going on in order to ensure which parent is best one to get full custody of Rose but will she lose her own life in the process?

House of Glass if a FAST paced read. It had my full attention. The read is intense and kept me guessing. My ONLY issue with the book was that I simply could not figure out the imagery of the window and the house.

House of Glass is a solid thriller, with unexpected twists. I questioned every character at some point. I enjoyed several of the characters: the ominous child who doesn't speak, and potentially unreliable narrator with a traumatic personal background. This was well done without re-using the tiresome tropes we often see in this genre. The ending was really satisfying.

I have read several of the author's co-written books, and thoroughly enjoyed them. This is the second book I have read by this author written independently, and it was my favorite of the two. I am looking forward to future reads from this author!

(I apologize in advance, as I thought I hit submit on this review, and it appears it did not go through.)

Rating: 3.5/5

This author never fails to deliver and this one was no exception. Look forward to more from. her. Thank you to NetGalley and publisher.

Sadly I think I've come to the conclusion that I prefer this author's work when it's co-authored with Greer. Or maybe I just prefer Greer's writing, who knows. Anyways, this book was not it for me. While I could appreciate the short chapters this book felt entirely too long and dragged out. After all the hype I've been seeing and everyone saying they were freaked out and even couldn't sleep, I'm questioning whether we read the same book. Nothing was creepy or thrilling to me, the two "huge" plot twists at the end didn't shock me and honestly I skim read the last 50 or so pages and didn't feel like I missed out on anything. I didn't care for Stella or really any of the characters so there wasn't much I did enjoy about this book. I'm only giving it 3 stars because I did think parts of the plot were creative but I do feel like I wasted my time reading this.

Many thanks to St. Martins Press for the gifted copy for my honest review!

When a nanny dies after falling from of a third story window at the house where she worked, the "perfect" family she worked for comes under suspicion and they bevy unraveling.
Stella, a child advocate lawyer, is appointed to determine the best living situation for the family's 9-year old, who's been mute and acting strange since the death of her nanny, when her parents decide to divorce. Everyone seems to be covering up something and Stella finds herself tangled up in their webs of deceit.
I was excited to read this, as I've enjoyed previous books coauthored by this writer, but I found this one uninspired and pretty predictable. Bummer.
Thanks to #netgalley and #stmartinspress for this #arc of #houseofglass in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this was hands down one of my absolute favorite reads of this year! This is what every thriller fan needs to read.

You never know what goes on behind closed doors. Or even glass houses that is. Stella is a best interest lawyer and is set to help a couple find the best interest for their young daughter. In the midst of their divorce. The young daughter, Rose, who witnessed the brutal death or possible murder of her nanny. She is beyond traumatized and hasn't spoken since the incident happened. Now Stella needs to figure out the truth of what happend in this family full of lid and secrets. Nothing is as it appears. Will Stella be able to uncover the truth in time?


What I loved:
- this was holy heck of a ride. You will instantly be sucked into this book from chapter one. The pacing is excellent and you will probably stay up all night reading this too.
- I loved Stella! I thought she was a great MC. She really was there to help Rose and figure out what the heck was going down.
- the twists! I did not see any of the plot coming.


5 stars out of 5! This book helped me get out of my reading slump. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Stella Hudson an attorney has been assigned to determine who Rose should live with after her parents' divorce. Unfortunately, a murder has occurred at their fancy home and Rose could have done it. There are lots of twists and turns in this book and it seems both parents are hiding something. Stella also has an interesting back story with the loss of a parent. This was a great quick read.

I was pulled in immediately to this story. Was the little girl behind everything that happened or was there something more sinister? I had an idea but was not completely prepared for the truth.

An affair with the nanny, and now she's dead. The child now has a traumatic mutism. What did she do or see? The parents are getting a divorce, and both want full custody of the child. But, how did the nanny die? And who should the child live with?

These were some of the questions I kept asking myself as I was reading this book. I loved the short chapters and how I literally had no idea what really happened throughout the book. A really well done whodunnit.

Thank you to Netgalley, Sarah Pekkanen, and the publishers for this free ebook. This review is 100% my own and honest opinion.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s rare that I’m unsure until the very end who the guilt party is. The author did a great job of character building. I appreciated her empathic handling of childhood trauma, how it impacted the lead character and the family that she is working with. If you enjoy a psychological character study/mystery this book is for you.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest opinions.

I enjoyed House of Glass. It was well paced and written, and I wasn’t entirely sure where the story would end up. I look forward to Sarah Pekkanen’s next novel.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC!
3.5/5

I have mixed emotions about this one. I have been loving Sarah Pekkanen’s books, but this one…. I’m struggling with how to rate it. It was very slow. I thought the build up was going to be this crazy plot twist, which in my opinion it wasn’t. However, the ending wasn’t rushed which was good.

I was expecting an unputdownable fast paced thriller. But unfortunately this wasn’t it for me. Maybe if I had less expectations, I might have enjoyed it a bit more.


“A young nanny who plunged to her death, or was she pushed? A nine-year-old girl who collects sharp objects and refuses to speak. A lawyer whose job it is to uncover who in the family is a victim and who is a murderer. But how can you find out the truth when everyone here is lying?

Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny - in the midst of her parent's bitter divorce - and immediately stopped speaking.

Stella, the lawyer, notices there's something eerie about the house itself: It's a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found.

As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays are desperate to hide, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present are set on a collision course in ways she never expected. Everyone is a suspect in the nanny's murder. The mother, the father, the grandmother, the nanny's boyfriend. Even Rose. Is the person Stella's supposed to protect the one she may need?”


Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Press for a DRC. House of Glass is available now.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for an e-ARC of House of Glass in exchange for an honest review.

Stella is an attorney who helps to place children with the best parent during divorce proceedings. Stella meets Rose, a 9-year old girl suffering from traumatic mutism after witnessing her nanny fall to her death. Rose’s parents are going through a stressful divorce, and Stella just wants to do what is right by Rose. But what if the nanny’s death wasn’t an accident, and perhaps Rose wasn’t just a witness?

I devoured this book while I was super sick. It was the best timing because I couldn’t do much other than cough in bed, and all I wanted to do was figure out what was happening in this book! I don’t know what it is, but if you put a creepy kid in a novel I am intrigued. Rose was very creepy, and I couldn’t decide if I was super suspicious of her or sympathetic.

The author also did a fantastic job of showing us Stella’s background and unraveling her story. I think focusing on two mysteries at once left the book moving so quickly for me. The characters were all great and it was very hard for me to riddle out what actually happened to the nanny. I didn’t end up guessing it by the end of the book, and my theory was way off base.

If you like thrillers, please read this. It was a wild ride and is in the running for my favourite book of October!

Such a wonderfully twisting and turning mystery! With every page you think that you might have figured everything out just to turn the page and realize that you are still nowhere near knowing the answers to this mystery.

House of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen follows Stella Hudson, a lawyer who takes on the mysterious Barclay family as clients. It was a favor to Charles, her father figure. Despite her reservations, Stella agrees to help and is thrust into a web of secrets. The Barclays’ nanny has been found dead, having plunged from an upstairs window in their home. Stella's task is to determine whether the family are innocent victims or if there's something far more sinister lurking beneath the surface.

At the center of the mystery is Rose, the Barclays’ 9-year-old daughter, who suffers from traumatic mutism. She hasn’t spoken a word since the incident, but she’s been quietly collecting sharp objects when no one is watching. Given Stella's own childhood experience with mutism, Charles believes she may be able to connect with Rose and understand what’s really going on. However, as Stella spends more time with the family, she begins to suspect that Rose, with her unsettling behavior, might not be as innocent as she seems.

An eerie detail catches Stella’s eye—the Barclay home has no glass anywhere. The windows are plexiglass, the tumblers are acrylic, and there isn’t a chandelier in sight. Beth, Rose’s mother, has developed a phobia of glass since the nanny’s death, adding another layer of strangeness to the family’s already secretive behavior. The Barclays are intensely private and clearly don’t want Stella prying into their lives, but the more she digs, the more she realizes that no one in the family is who they seem.

This book is truly unputdownable. The suspense builds as secrets are unraveled and the truth slowly comes to light. I found myself constantly guessing—who is the real killer, if there even is one? House of Glass is a thrilling, twisty read that keeps you on edge, perfect for anyone who loves a good mystery.

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for the e-book.