This was VERY well-written. Unfortunately the content was just too much for me. I read a lot of thriller & suspense novels but this was more on the horror end of the spectrum. I would be interested in reading more from this author because I did enjoy the story and writing, but the horror side of things was too much for me!

Through the Midnight Door by Katrina Monroe is a chilling horror story woven across multiple timelines and perspectives. It delves into the bonds of sisterhood as the Finch sisters navigate a haunting old house, confronting terrors that linger long after they leave.

While I appreciated the concept of a creepy old house interweaving horror, family dynamics, and the psychological manifestation of fears, the execution fell a bit short for me. The writing style is engaging and will likely captivate many readers, but I struggled with the lack of clarity in the timeline, some characters avoiding accountability, and an ending that felt rushed, leaving me with unanswered questions.

Overall, it’s an intriguing read with potential, but it didn’t fully resonate with me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am so thankful to Poisoned Pen Press, Katrina Monroe, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this galley before publication day. I really enjoyed the dialogue and plot of this book and can’t wait to chat this one up with my friends!

I wanted to love this book, but unfortunately it lost me. I was trying to get through it so I could have a better review but unfortunately I ended up DNF this book. I thought it had such a strong beginning but wavered off rather quickly. I may try again in the future!

Thank you so much to Poisoned Pen Press & Sourcebooks for the complimentary copy of this book!

I am torn on how I feel about this book. I thought it started off strong & I was pulled into the story but then the more it went on, the more confused I became. I am not sure if it was my mental space just wasn't grasping at what was happening. There were just a lot of moving pieces towards the end and I know the whole first half of the book was leading up to the moment.

There was a mystery within the mystery. Meg & Esther's sister Claire is found in an old house they visited as kids where she committed suicide but Esther cannot fathom that she had done this herself. She is convinced that she was murdered. They also try to unwrap the mystery of their other sister Julie's death as well. At the heart of all the thrills & mystery in the book, this book is about sisters. The relationships of when they were young and how it evolves & (can) become complicated as you enter adulthood.

This book is told from two timelines - the past and the present with dual timelines between the sisters Meg, Esther & Claire. I think bouncing from the different timelines kept the story going and allowed us into their past which ultimately shaped their future. I really felt for Esther as she was having such paranoia thoughts and her husband was trying his best to keep her steady.

I would check this book out if you are looking for a book centered around sisters and a creepy abandoned house.

I’m a little torn on this one. Overall I enjoyed it, but I would say it’s less horror and more about family relationships, childhood traumas, and how those traumas stay with us throughout our lifetimes.

The story is told from multiple POVs and through dual timelines. Monroe’s writing drew me in immediately. She uses evocative language that really pulls you into the story and makes it easy to feel like you’re right there with the characters. Her descriptions of the house and everything related to it created a spooky atmosphere which was one of the stronger horror aspects of the book.

Through the Midnight Door had me hooked at the start, making me want to learn more about Claire, Esther, and Meg, and what each one was going through. I was invested in their past and was eager to find out what happened to them “that day” that changed the course of their lives. The build-up to the house reveal was suspenseful and kept me turning the pages.

The initial reveal of the house and what happened to Claire in the room was well worth the wait, but once past the initial reveal the story takes a turn and slows down. We get less of the horror story and more focus on the sister’s histories, the cracks in their relationships, and the mystery surrounding what happened to their youngest sister.

There were some interesting scenes between the sisters and we get some glimpses of how they were each affected by their time in the house, but it didn’t feel like there was enough time spent on what happened to each of them in those rooms. With those scenes not fleshed out as much as they could have been it’s hard to believe the enormity of the house’s impact on the sister’s lives. It also made it hard to believe that the sisters would have kept what happened in the rooms to themselves, that they wouldn’t have shared with each other at some point in their lives.

If you’re looking for straight horror this one probably isn’t for you, but if you enjoy stories about complicated relationships, family drama, and past trauma threaded through with horror then definitely give this one a try.

Thanks NetGally and Poisoned Pen Press for the advanced copy.

This was a gripping read. The tenderness mixed with unease and even terror is wonderful. Will definitely be reading this authors other books.

✨Thank you to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the gifted digital copy of this book!✨

2.5⭐️ rounded up.

When the description of this book said “for fans of The Haunting of Hill House and The Babadook”, I didn’t think it was meant so literally.

First chapter in, I knew this book was an almost direct ripoff of The Haunting of Hill House(the television show, not the book). I’ve watched the show multiple times, and I just finished watching it again a couple of weeks ago. Everything from the very first death, to the name of the street “the house” was on(Hill St), to their last names(show: Crain, book: Finch…both birds) was ripped off from the show. Plain and simple. But I just held my breath, and jumped in.

Every character in this book is some combination of the characters from Hill House. Claire is a combination of Nell and Theo, Esther is a combination of Theo, Shirley and Luke, and Meg is a combination of Steve and Luke. It’s just so blatantly derivative that it’s almost offensive.

The story itself was okay, there were some original elements, however the explanation of the allegory for guilt and grief should never have needed an explanation. This is where the ripoff of The Babadook comes in. An allegory is meant to be implied, as it was in The Babadook. That’s what makes that movie so clever and honestly so scary.

Objectively, this book was written decently well and had a pretty good plot. However, it just wasn’t original enough for me to enjoy it.

I really enjoyed this! It's well written and the writing style sucked me into the story. I would highly recommend this! Special Thank You to Katrina Monroe,Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was fantastic! I really enjoyed Katrina Monroe's previous work, and this one absolutely did not disappoint. Featuring three sisters with tumultuous relationships with each other as well as everyone else, a dual timeline, and strange, creepy entity dogging their footsteps, this was definitely a phenomenal gothic, harrowing read, perfect for October! It feels very insular in terms of how the characters deal with their own issues around grief and trauma and mental health, which in itself feels very horrifying, before you see the external horror that seems to pin them in. I really like the blend that provided, how the external made them reflect upon the internal and vice versa, and I think Monroe has a particular skill for that, given what I've read before. I can't wait to see what comes from them next!

Through the Midnight Door is a little psychological and a little bit horror. Three sisters wind up in a haunted house that haunts them for the rest of their lives. When something happens to one of them, the other two are on a missing to figure it out… but just know this house holds all their answers.

If I’m being honest, i didn’t love this book. This book was slow, and honestly, I wasn’t excited to reach for it. The sisterly relationship did provide complexity that may be relatable for some. I felt the ending was predicable and wrapped up in a little bow very quickly.

There is a TW for mental illness, suicide, child loss.

I gave 3 stars overall. Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I so wanted to love this book but it just didn't fit with me. I love a creepy, scary thriller but I could never relate or empathize with any of the characters and I did not finish. I may try again at a later date to read but for now it just wasn't for me.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book.

A spooky house visited with a door for each of the Finch sisters holding secrets that color the rest of their lives leaving Meg unable to be reliable, Esther paranoid to the point of actually almost shooting her son, and Claire, driven to the edge and ending in suicide in that mysterious house. And there is the mysterious boy, Donny who showed them the house. With that kind of start, this book was full of slow creep with flashbacks to what happened when the girls were young and the present where Meg and Esther are trying to find out why Claire took her life and figure out all the truth before they end up dead themselves.

However, while I enjoyed the hauntings of Claire (or something that looks like her) with Meg and the unraveling of Esther, I did not much like some of the flashbacks. This family was broken before even their first visit to the house with lies and secrets and a buried tragedy. Claire's story was so tragic because she did not know at first what had happened when she was little and then she piles on the burden, thinking it is her fault for letting the darkness into her family. So much could have been avoided if only her sisters had really talked with her. And I hated what their mother did. It was inexcusable and so very wrong and everyone just lets it slide because their mother was grieving and had dark spells?! That kind of behavior made it harder to read this book as I went on. But I did finish even though I guessed who and why. I do feel the house was well done with creepiness and the shadow plus what it gave in return for the bits it took.

So, this had good points for a creepy horror but also stupid bits like age inconsistencies for certain actions that were not believable. It could have been great but only reached pretty good.

Honestly I'm not sure how I feel about this book it was kind of hard to read because it just felt like it didn't flow that well to me and the writing was un polished. But the story idea was fresh and interesting. The blend between supernatural and realistic was interesting but I'm not sure I liked it. The fact that it was Donny was a little too predictable to the point that I thought maybe it wasn't don't because it was too obvious or that the author thought the readers were dumb. But all that being said my main disappointment is that the house and the despair creature weren't main characters, that we don't know why that curse lingered there I think that was a big missed opportunity. Overall I have to give the book credit for being an original idea and fairly dark and twisted.

This is the third book I’ve read by this author who keeps getting better and better with each read. This one would be a great Halloween read and is full of chills and mystery. I love the authors style which I can only describe as horror wrapped in family drama and full of twists and turns. The story and setting is so atmospheric and the mystery will keep you hooked and wanting to read more. I look forward to seeing what else this author comes up with.

An excellent read for Fall, this has a heavy focus on sisterhood, family, trauma, mental health, and overcoming your own past. There were some seriously creepy, eerie moments in this that had me flipping the pages almost quicker than I could read so that I could know what was going to happen next. My only negative was that sometimes the characters were a little hard to distinguish from one another - they're sisters, so it makes sense that they would share some similarities, but there were bits of thought or dialogue from one sister that could've been interchangeably applied to another without any loss of understanding or plot holes.

A good book for the start of fall. A cross between horror, sisterhood and psychological suspense.

One sister dead while the other two search for answers.

The eerie atmosphere almost acts like another character. Told from all three sister’s POVs in the past and the present, it weaves their current struggles with their past traumas.

It’s the perfect disturbing and dark book for fall spooky season. The sister’s experiences are a haunting look at depression and mental health.

While I enjoyed the beginning, and parts were creepy, I found it difficult to get through over multiple attempts. It may have been due to the sisters being difficult to distinguish. I think it would have helped me to have separate descriptions of each sisters personality, background, likes/dislikes etc early on in the book. I found it difficult because everyone was thrown in together at the beginning. Nonetheless, it seemed like a decent plot. Thank you for this ARC., but unfortunately I had to DNF this one half way through.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC. From the description I thought I would like this book. The first half was fine but the second half I just couldn’t get through it. I think it’s well written but just not for me.

CHARACTERS
These were the most frustrating characters I've read I just wanted to reach into the page and throttle them for some of the decisions they made and the thoughts they were having

I loved every single one of them

Apart from Donny. Scum.

PLOT
Oh my where do I start. Trigger Warning from the first page. The events that happened. The investigation into it.
BRANDON?! Poor kid.
I love the premise of a house being alive, the darkness creeping into people and influencing them. Amazing.
Only a star knocked off because I guessed the true intention of Donny quite early and I love my thrillers to take me by complete surprise. Still an amazing story though.

NARRRATIVE STYLE
Katrina Monroe is so skilful with their words. The way she described the sisters was so relatable, and how they interact as the book goes on was very realistic (in line with the context of the book obviously). I love the growing darkness evolving over the book, and Claire (my god ew) and her POV towards the later end of the books giving you the insight of how things went down.

All in all, bravo.