I really enjoyed this! It's rare when I am surprised at a thriller's ending (finding out who the killer is), but I was!

This is a wild ride! It’s a little futuristic mystery combined with domestic thriller. I enjoyed this book more than her last and it’s a great escapist read.

Stella is a best interest attorney, working to determine the best situation for children embroiled in custody cases. As a favor to her mentor, she takes on the case of Rose Barclay, a nine-year-old girl who witnessed her nanny’s fall from a high window, which is being investigated as a murder. Caught in the middle of her parent’s divorce as well, Rose has gone completely mute. From the moment Stella enters the house, she feels there’s something eerie about it, like the fact that there’s no glass to be found. She’ll also come to find that Rose is more troubled than she could have predicted, and when it comes to murder, every family member is a suspect.

Sarah Pekkanen did an excellent job setting up a number of suspects in this quick story to keep the reader guessing until the end! Not going to lie, I definitely had a particular person in mind and I was surprised when the reveal happened!

I liked the eeriness of the house and I didn’t think this story was too dark (personally). My qualm with this was mostly that I just didn’t really enjoy Stella’s back story and the way her flashbacks and investigation of her mom’s death took up as much time as her ongoing case. I’ve also felt lately that a lot of thrillers have a very dry narrator, even when told in first person, and it creates a disconnect for me! Anyone else feel that way?

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for my digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

3⭐️

Stella is a child advocate for 9 year old Rose whose parents are embattled in a bitter divorce and custody case. Rose's nanny recently fell to her death at their home and Rose is understandably traumatized. As Stella starts to uncover more details about the family, she realizes they are hiding more secrets than she can count. Stella's job is to recommend custody arrangements but she got a lot more than she bargained for with this case.

I loved this thriller. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Sarah Pekkanen knocks it out of the park every time. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of House of Glass.

This book sucked me in a wouldn’t let me go! I absolutely loved the story of the house with no glass. There were so many twists.

I absolutely loved this book! It gave silent patient vibes—I was hooked immediately and found myself staying up far too late at night to finish it. This is my first from this author but now want to read more.

Thanks so much for the arc even though I am way late to review—was so excited to see all the publicity this got from being a BOTM pick

Would recommend for fans of…
🔎 The Bad Seed
🔎 Everyone Here Is Lying
🔎 The Push

Sarah Pekkanen always delivers! Both her solo novels and those co-written with Greer Hendricks are always fast-paced, enjoyable reads that will satisfy all sorts of mystery lovers

Her latest, House of Glass, follows Stella, a best interest attorney who’s trying to figure out the best custody agreement for young (and creepy) Rose Barclay amid her parents’ divorce and the death of her nanny.

This book was so creepy! As Stella investigates, it becomes clear that every member of the Barclay family is hiding something — even Rose — and I loved how much tension that added to the story. It was easy to put together a bunch of theories about what happened, but even with all the theorizing, I was still very surprised by the ending.

As much as I enjoyed this book, there was one thing that kept it from being a full-on 5⭐️ read. Stella’s backstory and personal life was important to the story as it established why she was so invested in Rose, but as we explored it further (specifically what happened with her mom and her relationship with Detective Garcia) I felt like it took away from the momentum of the main story. I also felt like some of these details were a little too surface level and could have been omitted.

Overall, House of Glass is one of my favorite books by Pekkanen and I can’t wait for her next thriller.

House of Glass is out now. Thanks to St. Martin’s and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this slow burn of a domestic thriller. It had aime twists I didn't see coming and an edge of your seat ending.

3.5
I was immediately sucked into this one. There were a few things that didn't make sense to me and I figured out the twist. But overall, a good, fast paced read. Definitely recommend if you are looking for a good thriller.

When I started this read I was so engaged. I just couldn't wait to learn more about this creepy girl. But sadly I feel like we didn't get enough of Rose. I feel like it was a missed opportunity as I wanted more of her. The parents were just lack luster characters. I honestly didn't care what they had to say. I found them unlikable. And I have to be honest I guessed the big twist pretty early on. So this was not a bad book by any means ... it was just okay. Overall an average read.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the E-ARC.

All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.

I have read enticing plots summaries and glowing reviews of Sarah Pekkanen’s novels, but this is the first one I have read. I loved the premise of main character Stella as a BIA- Best Interest Attorney- tasked with recommending custody arrangements for a traumatized child after the death of her nanny. The impending divorce results from the father’s affair with the nanny, and it seems that everyone in the family could be a suspect if nanny Tina died by murder and not accident. In the course of interviewing the family members and all involved with Tina, BIA Stella is consequently also discovering the details of the nanny’s fall from a third-story house window.
I was immersed in the story, but less so in the several subplots involving Stella’s past and personal life that developed. I think mostly they detracted from the mystery and developing the characters vividly. But overall it was an engaging story with frequent suspense.

This book kept me guessing until the end for sure. There were so many layers and twists that it felt like a wild ride.

I will say FOR ME some of the things the MC does didn’t make sense. And that took me out of the story bc I was analyzing that decision. But that’s my only slight complaint.

*I received a free copy of this novel from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my honest review.*

Stella is an attorney appointed to look out for the best interest of a 9 year old while the parents are going through a nasty divorce. At every turn, the parents and grandmother thwart Stella's attempts to get to know Rose and find out what would be in her best interests. Another wrench in Stella's job is that Rose has been non-verbal since her nanny died by falling through an attic window. And Rose may or may not have witnessed the fall and the death. This is just one of the answers that Stella can't get to. While the family is divorcing and Rose is non verbal and they are recovering from the loss of the nanny, they are slowly switching all of the glass in the home out for plastic of some sort.

Stella is also coping with the crappy time she had growing up and almost witnessing her mother's overdose and, naturally, taking on this case helps her start to resolve those feelings and be able to investigate the overdose.

The family comes off very unlikeable and manipulative in the book. There is a good pace and the writing was pretty great. I listened to the audio version and the narrator did a great job with the suspenseful parts. It kept my attention and my heart raced a bit when the twists were revealed and when creepy things happened with Rose.

Worthy read. Mystery, thriller with a great story line. Stella helps teens with struggling family situations- helping to heal a childhood trauma of her own. When she is asked to help a nine year old with a divorce and unsolved death of the family nanny, she reluctlantly accepts the challenge. This in turn brings up bad memories of her past and possibly puts her life in danger.

I think I'm one of the very few people that actually enjoys the Evil Child trope so I really had a fun time reading this. There were so many red herrings that I was starting to second guess EVERYTHING the main character was experiencing. I genuinely did not like a single character in this book but it made it more interesting since I wasn't actually rooting for anyone to be "good" or "evil". Overall this was a fun thriller about a stupidly rich family full of selfish people. It was nothing to write home about, but I had a good time regardless.

5/5 Stars

I have completed this book but as it is published by an imprint of St. Martin's Press, I will be withholding my thoughts until they meet the demands of the boycott.

2.5 stars

Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney. By recommendation of her mentor/father figure, Charles, she takes a case with the Barclay family who are divorcing. Though Stella doesn't typically accept cases with children under the age of thirteen, she feels a bond with Rose Barclay who is suffering from traumatic mutism after the death of her nanny. Stella herself had traumatic mutism for a period after her mother died. She soon finds that this case won't only be about making a custody recommendation to the courts. It will be about solving the mysteries surrounding the nanny's death.

I have really enjoyed thrillers from Sarah Pekkanen in the past, but I found this story very predictable. I want to be surprised and entertained when reading a thriller. I was neither. The person who killed the nanny was very obvious from the beginning. I even guessed most of the twist when it came to Stella's own side story. The audiobook narration was extremely painful. I almost DNF'd the book 60% in because the audio was so bad. I should have. I would give Sarah's books another try, but would not recommend House of Glass to others.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This books have the hallmarks of a good thriller - short, tense chapters, multiple characters who could’ve done it, a narrator with a traumatic past and a good twist at the end, although it wasn’t entirely surprising. I’m rounding a 3.5 to a 4 because I really like this author.

House of Glass is a fast-paced psychological thriller about a wealthy DC-area family who’s nanny who fell through a third floor window and a child with traumatic mutism.

As someone who grew up near the book’s setting, the lush, vivid descriptions of the area felt so real to me, adding a layer of authenticity. I was fully immersed in the world, especially during the heart-pounding scene in Shark Alley at the Baltimore Aquarium (if you've ever been there, you’ll know why that made my heart race. Google it if you haven’t!). The anticipation builds with every chapter, peeling back layers of the Barclays’ secrets and Stella’s history. While the pacing occasionally falters, the October setting makes it a perfect read to get you in the mood for fall—and all the spine-tingling twists that come with it!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

*House of Glass* is a compelling psychological thriller that explores themes of trauma, family, and the unreliability of perception. It follows Stella, a woman haunted by her past, who becomes entangled with the Barclay family while investigating the disappearance of their daughter, Rose.

The story has a tense, slow-building atmosphere where nothing is as it seems. The characters are complex and multilayered-Adding in childhood trauma and showing just how far a loved one would go to protect each other.

Solid 4 stars!