To me, this was a sexy little mashup of the wicker man and the conjuring. absolutely obsessed with the vibes of this one. folklore, witches, small town hysteria. it's got it all.

i LOVED mina. complex and soft. she was perfect. the side characters felt real and fleshed out. one of the few books to have actually scared me. i legitimately had to turn my light on at some point because it freaked me out. the slow burn of horror in certain scenes was so GOOD. i can't get over it.

I really liked this book, so much so that I found one of Daisy Pearce’s older books and read it right after this one! This had just the right amount of horror, mystery, and character work. I unfortunately figured out the mystery quite early on, but even so the author managed to wrongfoot me because I did not see the climatic events coming, which featured some genuinely unbearable moments of body horror. 4/5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for letting me read an ARC of this book.

Something in the Walls is the third book by novelist Daisy Pearce, a British author with a passion for mythology and true crime. Mina is a recently graduated child psychologist who is bored with her life and struggling to get over the death of her brother, Eddie. When her bookish fiancé pushes her to go back to grief group, she meets a reporter, Sam, who is hoping to investigate claims of a teenager possessed by a witch. His newspaper has asked him to investigate to see if this is a real deal haunting or something less sinister - a con or mental illness. When he asks Mina to try out her new psychological chops on this teenager, she agrees to go with Sam to live in the teenager's home to try and determine if this is a ~real~ haunting.

This was fun! It had excellent creepy October vibes and I had a great time reading it. A great combination of witches, ghosts, medieval witch hunt vibes, and true crime. My one complaint is that not everything was resolved at the end of the book - it was not ever totally clear what exactly had been going on. Definitely atmospheric and creepy.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I really liked it!

✅ Horror
✅ Thriller
✅ Ghosts & witches
✅ Witch hunt
✅ True crime

📅 - Something in the Walls will be available February 25, 2025

🙏 Thank you so much to Daisy Pearce & St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for this ARC through NetGalley! All opinions are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!!

What a ride!! The heavy, paranoid atmosphere that just keeps building throughout the book. The hidden agendas and forces with sinister intentions. The twisted folklore infecting a small town. Poor Mina, caught up in it all!

I just loved this - it was everything I wanted out of a horror novel and more. Absolutely unnerving at times, I couldn't look away.

I have a lot of unanswered questions and I think that’s what’s bothering me the most. It was very obvious the story had a supernatural element and a bewitching but it was never solved. Alice and her family got up and left and what? The witch stayed behind in the burnt house? No closure for me on that end and that’s why it’s 3 stars

this was such an interesting and captivating read!

something in the walls follows a young child psychologist, mina ellis, who still can't let go of her brother who passed away years ago. through her bereavement group, she meets a journalist, sam hunter, who tells her about a young girl who claims to be haunted by a witch. taking this opportunity to gain experience in her field, she travels to the town of banathel to meet 13 year old alice webber. from the moment she steps foot into the town, she experiences eerie and disturbing events as she tries to figure out alice's condition and diagnosis.

this book was truly very creepy.. i felt the tension in my core. i was honestly pretty confused in certain parts of the book - it was slightly difficult for me to decipher what was happening and who to trust. all the characters gave sinister vibes. i thought this would be more of a realistic horror story, but there were elements of witchcraft, ghosts, and spirits that i actually found myself drawn to. the intensity of those scenes hooked me and i wish there were more! this definitely gave off midsommar vibes and the descriptiveness of the writing was so well done - i was able to paint each scene so clearly in my mind. it really seemed like i was watching a film. the end felt a little open ended and i wish i got more answers as to everything that unfolded, but i'd be curious to see how other readers analyze this!

I really wanted to enjoy this more than I did.

I found the gist of it to be really predictable and lacking excitement. Although there were twists and the overall storyline was creepy and witchy, there was nothing that made me think "wow that was good" at the end. Although it started off strong, the middle felt drawn out and slow losing my attention and any desire to finish the book.
I feel like if the middle "slow" part of the story had depth and excitement this would not have been so disappointing.

This book was fantastic! I enjoyed the characters and the story, the way the plot harkened back to folklore and superstition. The ending was satisfying and the pace of the plot was great.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book! Opinions are my own.

What a fantastic, creepy, horrible novel! I loved the whole darn thing!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

If there is a theme to my spooky season reading this year, it is first time or new to me authors. Daisy Pearce’s upcoming novel, Something in the Walls was my most recent read.

Mina is a new child psychologist hoping to get some experience under belt when she goes to a grief support group. Even though it has been years since the death of her brother, she is still haunted by it. It is at the group that she meets Sam, a reporter mourning the death of his young daughter. Sam offers Mina the experience she is looking for. He is investigating a case of a girl who claims she is being haunted by a witch and can talk to the dead. Perhaps Mina can solve both her problems at once.

This was an interesting read. Set during a heat wave in 1980s Britain in a tiny remote village steeped in folklore and old rites that has a history of persecuting witches, I was immediately intrigued. Alice is a surprisingly normal thirteen year old girl being tormented by the witch she claims lives in the walls of her bedroom. Kind of a folk horror/Exorcist blend and I loved that. I also loved the setting. In an era before cells phones and social media, there is a sense of isolation and terror in this strange village.

Mina is a well developed character, a voice of reason in a town gone mad. But she is open and curious to other possibilities and the hope that she might be able to contact her brother is always in the back of her mind. She is a well drawn character and seems real and relatable. Pearce does a good job of pacing as the terror slowly builds until the entire town devolves into a shared madness.

This is a good book and I did enjoy it overall. Unfortunately, I figured out the big twist early on and that disappointed me a bit because I was hoping I was wrong. Still, this book has some great spooky scenes that gave me goosebumps and who doesn’t love a weird town. I will definitely read whatever Pearce writes next. Thank you to @netgalley and @minotaur_books for this arc.

This book was so fun!
It reminded me of Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts as well as Blatty's The Exorcist (both books I loved reading).
Perfect vibes for an October read, I highly recommend picking it up if you're a fan of horror stories.

The mystery and intrigue is well built, the tension increases significantly as the story progresses and I got so attached to the characters (Mina and Alice especially), I had a really good time with this one!

I think the ending didn't fully satisfy my need for answers but it is a fitting end and I know I'll be thinking about this book for some time.

Keeping my review vague as I don't want to spoil anything.


Thank you NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Wow! Wow! Wow! I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. The characters are amazing and each of them is so realistic and interesting. The story is so intense that I couldn't put it down and kept turning pages rapidly. This is my favorite book of the year. I hope Mina can return in another book. Wow! I loved it

Absolutely loved this. Couldn't put it down. Not 5 stars though because I feel like ..... there are holes in this plot. Some things are never explained. Ugh. Whatever, I liked it!

Something in the Walls is an extremely creepy and unsettling book about a teenage girl who may have been cursed by a witch. After a reporter in search of proof of life after death catches wind, he brings in a child psychologist to help investigate the situation. Things quickly devolve from there, and this book literally had me up into the night trying to finish because I had to find out how it would resolve! This was the perfect addition to my spooky season tbr!

I had a hard time getting into this book. I tried multiple times and made it to about 1/4 of the way through and that was the best I could do. Thank you netgalley for the free review copy but this one was not for me.

This book is definitely creepy and will have your hairs standing up on the back of your neck. The imagery was very very good. The only problem I had was the ending. I'm not sure it answered all the questions that were raised in the book. But that's just my opinion. If you want a good scary read before you go to sleep. This book is for you.

I had high hopes for this book and was really looking forward to reading it, however it just did not live up to the expectations I had.
The book is witchy, and spooky, but the story was kind of all over the place. It takes a while to get into, and once you do, things change up on you a bit. And not in. “What a fun twist way” but a “what is happening” way. The ending was also predictable in my opinion.
It’s a witchy, spooky read, but just wasn’t for me I suppose.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I really enjoyed the first ¾, but after that the story just fell off the rails and I became confused. I also did not like the ending at all, it was super predictable, and the ending made me mad.

The characters were not good. They did not feel real and it continuously took you out of the story. The pacing was horrible and would read very slow when nothing was happening. The book was quite the opposite of what the book should have been. For example, the book went quickly when she should have moved slower, and slow when it should have been fast.

I do like the concept of the book. This book is about a psychologist, who is freshly graduated and looking for a job. She comes across a man named Sam. Sam has recently lost his daughter and wants to find a way to communicate with her… In his search he reads about a young girl who is believed to be able to talk to the dead, so they go out to prove whether or not she can.

What a strange but interesting book. It definitely kept me intrigued trying to figure out if Alice was crazy or truly possessed. It was a nice spooky October read, It does need a bit more editing as there are several typos and grammatical errors but I overlooked those.

Thank you to Daisy Pearce, NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

SLEEP WITH THE LIGHTS ON!

Before reading this book I highly prided myself in not getting spooked or scared while reading a book. I honestly thought it would never happen...until this book! while reading this book I constantly felt the need to look over my shoulder and read with the lights on (and maybe sleep with a nightlight!)

The author did an incredible job with the imagery in this book which added to the ambiance of the entire story. This book made you feel like the oppressive summer heat was eating away at you making you desperate for a dry t-shirt and a cold glass of water.

The overall story was very well done and while it did wrap up at the end there were till many small details left unturned that left the reader to fill in the blanks in the best way possible. The lore of this small town runs deep and by the end of the story the reader is also sucked in to see what side of the story they want to be a part of.

Very well done and will make an incredible addition for anyone's "spooky season" TBR and would make an amazing book club read for the fall/halloween season!