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!

Mina Ellis is a newly graduate student which a degree in child physiology. Mina is also still grieving the death of her brother Eddie, who died from pneumonia years before. Mina meets Sam, a journalist, who also grieving the loss of his young daughter. Sam approaches Mina to help him out with a story of a teenage girl, Alice who is being possessed by a witch. Mina agrees to help Sam out as they both want to help Alice Sam and Mina are seeing and feeling strange things that they can’t explain. .Now more than anything they must figure out what is really happening to Alice before it’s too late. This book is just spooky enough that you may want to read it with the lights on. I would like to thank both NetGalley and Minotaur Publishing for an advance copy of this book.

This is a book I had to read with the lights on for 🤣 I thought I liked thrillers but I guess horror mystery is not the genre for me. Despite freaking me out and imagining witches climbing out of fireplaces & bees swarming. . . This horror novel was well written with well defined characters, both main and supporting. I felt that this novel had a really good pace that kept the reader hooked to unwind the mystery.

Thank you Minotaur for the ARC.

This book was pretty good. It took a while for me to get
Into it and read but that was just due to my book slump. It gives witchy, creepy vibes all in one. Some of the language was a bit weird and confusing

This was just meh to me.

I think I thought it was going to be something else other than what it actually was which disappointed me. I didn't really care for the reveal/ending. It sort of reminded me of Head Full of Ghosts but I didn't find it as creepy or enjoy it as much as that book. This was a quick read and there was nothing incredibly bad or wrong about it, it was just a meh book unfortunately.

While this sounded very promising, I found that it was largely predictable with well-trod horror twists and turns. Yes, it’s a somewhat creepy story. However, I don’t feel as if this accomplishes a thing particularly unique or memorable.

Something in the Walls is a book about a newly licensed psychologist Mina who is invited to assess a teenager who seems to be possessed by a witch. I was invested in the story, but at some point, the story I got was not the story I was invested in. The first half of the book was highly creepy paranormal activity vibes and the second half of the book was a completely different story. Not a bad story necessarily, but so different to the first that I didn’t walk away from the book with any kind of resolution to the first half. Sometimes, a book without resolution is an intentional choice by the author to leave a lingering unsettled feeling with the reader, but in this case, it felt less intentional and more like the whole book warped into something different and earlier plot points left forgotten— Which is a bit of a shame considering how crazy and awesome the ending was. The ending was everything you could want in a spooky thriller book, but with the first half of the book largely unaddressed, it looses some of its punch.

I would like to thank St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Mina is an inexperienced child psychologist who just recently got her degree. She attends a grief group to help her process the loss of her brother. While there she meets a journalist, Sam, who has lost his daughter. They get to talking and he tells her about a case he's working on. In the remote village of Banathel a thirteen year old girl named Alice Webber is accused of being possessed by a witch. He wonders if Mina would be willing to travel with him to speak with Alice and to gauge her mental state.

Mina's excited to get some experience and to get to the bottom of Alice's ailment. Surely she isn't possessed by a witch.....or is she? You'll have to read this to find out!

There is definitely some witchiness brewing in the air of this novel by Daisy Pearce. The atmosphere of dread and menace is as thick and as humid as the heat wave that's suffocating the village of Banathel. The first 3/4 of this book had me held in it's grip but then it takes a bit of an unexpected turn and all that built up dread simply vanishes. Now that's not to say the ending is bad by any means but it wasn't the direction I was expecting the book to go. What I can say with authority is that Pearce is an incredibly talented writer and I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another one of her books in the future. 4 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my complimentary copy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The plot developed steadily with a mounting sense of dread and the conclusion was satisfying. The main character was well-developed, although I wish the reader knew a little bit more about some more ancillary characters. Overall, it satiated my love of folk horror.