Anna is lost. Her beloved husband called and confessed to a murder. A shot sounded out through the phone and his body was found along the river. Anna chooses to sell their home and live for a short time in the run down motel turned apartments that he used as a studio. In the motel, she meets many characters that are full time residents and makes an attempt to learn more about her husband's secrets.

Cass runs the complex and has a history of her own to hid. Wronged by her long time boyfriend, she is barely scraping by and has to turn to some nefarious activities to stay afloat. When the activities lead her to someone who has even more to hide, she puts herself in danger. Can she crawl out of this hole?

Charming and thrilling story of the denizens of a small complex. Really enjoyable! #Harlequin

Thank you @thrillerbookloverspromotions @seraphinanovaglass @graydonhousebooks for including me on this tour and the gifted #earc!

I know I just posted about this tour BUT I couldn’t help myself and had to dig in right away…and you know what?! I loved it!

This book was music to my earholes and eyeballs because it had:

✔️ Deceitful characters
✔️ A handyma’am 💪🏻🛠️
✔️ Heartbreak
✔️ Determination for truth
✔️ Blackmail
✔️ Loyal friendships

Yes, yes, and yes! I didn’t mean to binge this but I absolutely did and I’m not mad about it! 😆 I absolutely loved watching these characters with broken pasts come together in the end. The setting is creepy, the characters are easy to become invested in and I loved the small town, roadside motel with the unique cast of characters!

This story is set mainly at the Sycamores where people with a splintered past live. Cass is one of those people who ends up at the Sycamores becoming the handyma’am in exchange for a place to live after an unexpected change in her relationship. She ends up getting divorced when she finds out her husband had an affair with a much perkier, spry younger woman. It feels like a kick in the shin and she is trying to make ends meet.

Anna is the other main character and she learns of her husbands suicide after she receives a frantic phone call where he apologizes for making a mistake. As she listens to him sob, she hears the phone fall and a boom. He then washes up on a riverbank. Everyone assumes it’s suicide until it’s proven it’s not.

As Anna digs to find out what really happened to her husband she crosses paths with Cass who happens to have seen more than she bargained for. The unraveling of the story will bring out the truth once ugly detail at a time!

A digital copy of this book was provided to me by Graydon House Books. The opinions given are my own and freely given.

Cass loses the high-style life she is used to and takes a job as a maintenance woman working at a motel turned apartment building. There over the course of a few months she becomes part of the residents.

Anna's husband rented an apartment at the Sycamores to use as his painting studio. One night he calls Anna in tears, and she hears what she thought was a gun shot, and realizes her husband committed suicide, so she sells her house and moves into his apartment.

Anna is trying to get to understand what led to her husband's death. She thinks the residents are hiding something. There are the pool girls, who spend their entire day at the pool playing cards while their kids are playing. And Callum, who is a former co-worker of her husband's and recommended the apartments to him.

Anna receives notes and "presents" warning her away from the place. But she can't figure out who would do such a thing? Because of what happened to Cass and what brings her to the Sycamores, she takes it upon herself to "warn" men to do the right thing, but will that get her in trouble?

This story... Oh my. I was very impressed with. There were a few things going on that you wonder how in the world they can be connected. But man do they connect. I love the pool girls. They just seem like the crass type; however, they are the real friends that would do anything for you. And you always have to watch out for the quiet ones.

This is my first novel by this author, and this will not be my last.

Thank you @thrillerbooklovers and @graydonhousebooks for my copy.

Thanks to Netgalley and @graydonhousebooks @thrillerbookloverspromotions @seraphinanovaglass for access to this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first book I read from this author and I found it great. There are twists that I never saw coming. There is a lot going on in the lives of those living in the apartment complex Sycamores. Trying to find out the mystery surrounding the death of her husband for Anna. Dealing with her life and ex for Cass. And so much more that you don't have time to get bored. Halfway through the book, I thought I wanted another ending, but I loved the actual ending even better !

You know that motel place that you've driven past and just knew to never stop there.... for any reason, no matter what! Well this novel gives us a wild ride of just what secrets hide behind those metal balconies and banged up colored doors. This novel is about these characters that end up at these roadside places with no other option and the secrets they carry, hide, and become a part of. Loved, loved, loved this wild ride! Two women find themselves at this motel turned apartments, and both have their own reasons for being there but like all of the others at this place, they've ended up here for a reason. It doesn't take long for Cass and Anna to become absorbed into the Sycamore family and as events unfold, each one has to determine who to trust to have your back and who just might stab that knife as soon as your back is turned. Suicide, grief and a missing person weaves the webs that connects the characters at Sycamore Apartments and the web really starts to spiral as Anna and Cass try to put the pieces together to find the answers they have been searching for. Thank you so much to Graydon House Books, the author and Thriller Book Lovers Promotions for allowing me to be a part of this exclusive early review tour and for the complementary ebook. I loved this one and am going to go and purchase all of her other books! This review is of my own opinion and accord.

The Vacancy in Room 10

By: Seraphina Nova Glass
5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Sycamores is host to an eclectic group of people down on their luck. We follow Cass who is now working at the motel to have a free room. She has gone from living the high life with her boyfriend to working as a handyman. Cass is a hot mess, but you will be rooting for her! She is a woman scorned and you don’t want to mess with her!

Callum is a man who lost his wife and is grieving. He has major debt from his wife’s medical bills. Anna has lost her husband and is trying to find answers in his apartment. Her life has been turned upside down when she gets a call from the police. Before the police call she gets a phone call from her husband confessing to murder.

There are several cast of characters that make this novel multi layered and when someone goes missing they all each have a story to tell. Will they work together or turn on each have a story to tell.

This is a highly anticipated novel coming out April 9, 2024. A truly addictive page-turner that you will want to read in one sitting!

Feeling truly thankful to be on the Exclusive tour with Thriller Book Lover Promotions with author Glass.

#thevacancyinroomten, #seraphinanovaglass, #graydonbooks,#thrillerbookloverpromtions, #bookreview, #bookstagram, #booksconnectus, #stamperlady50

Anna has lost her husband. She didn’t realize the depths of his despair. She decides to move into his studio, his home away from home, and perhaps discover what drove Henry to his tragic end.
Cass cannot believe that pulling clumps of hair from clogged drains is what her life has become. Her longtime partner Reid kicked her out of their house. Actually, his house, with basically just the clothes on her back. He has replaced her with a younger model. All her friends are apparently really only Reid’s friends, and she has sunk about as low as she can go. Being the superintendent of The Sycamore apartments is not glamorous, but at least she has a roof over her head and maybe some people she can trust.
Cass and Anna both fit right in. Nobody who chooses to live here is whole. They all come from a place that led them to this barely held together life. The question for Anna is why did Henry wind up here? For Cass, how can she build a new life when she has nothing and leave this place far behind.
Told from Cass and Anna’s POVs, Anna soon learns there was a lot about Henry she didn’t know. Cass makes some poor decisions trying to break free from this place,but her choices may cost what little life she has left.
The Sycamores may have just been a rundown building, but to me, it was another sad character. A place falling apart, and each apartment, holding a sad tale. However, it had people who may have been down, but were definitely not out. The ‘pool ladies’ constantly made me laugh, and the relationship Cass forged with a little boy, was heartwarming and heartbreaking. Funny thing is that if I was down on my luck, this place actually seemed like a decent place to start over. The residents all got together for weekly cook outs and offered each other help when needed.
I felt sad for Anna and all the secrets she uncovered. Cass was by far my favorite character, and I was cheering for her, hoping that she could make a new life. There was also one despicable character (maybe two actually) who I kept hoping would get what they both deserved. A page turner that kept me guessing. Funny how I could picture that apartment complex vividly and while it wasn’t pretty, man did it have a heart. A page turner that kept me up way too late. I loved it!

𝑰 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒆𝒚𝒆𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒈𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌.

It can be completely sobering to realize just how the smallest, most insignificant of actions can lead to our life intersecting with the life of another. Sometimes Fate smiles, and that chance meeting brings friendship or love, but other times, the entanglements are so menacing, so laced with danger, that we curse the very concept of Fate and all that she represents.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞. The lives of Anna and Cass, two women broken in very different ways, are headed toward a shared collision course. Anna and her husband have had some problems. His depression has been crippling, so he's rented a room in the run-down Sycamores motel to work on his art. When Anna receives a heart-wrenching phone call from him confessing to a murder, she hears a bang and the line goes dead. His body is soon found washed up on the river bank.

Cass has ignored every red flag in her relationship and has found herself humiliated, traded in for a younger model. Left homeless and penniless, she accepts a job at The Sycamores as a 'handyma'am' in exchange for rent. Desperate for extra cash, she starts blackmailing easy targets, men who are cheating on their wives. This nets her some easy cash until she tries her scam on the wrong man.

Anna desperately wants answers, an accounting of her husband's final days and his other life at The Sycamores, while Cass is determined to keep her scandalous secrets hers alone, and with Anna hanging around asking questions, it's creating an environment that's just too dangerous for Cass to navigate alone.

I binged this book in about four hours, and I was spellbound the entire time. The characters and bleak setting played like a movie while I was reading, and the plot was so expertly layered and progressively more complex that there was NO way I was stopping until I was finished! What a stunner this one was! Many thanks to Graydon House Publishing, the author, and Thriller Book Lovers Promotions for this early read. This title will publish April 9, 2024.