I wasn’t really sure what this book was about at first, but I actually had a fun time reading in the middle of the night. If I had to describe it I think I would say it’s like the exorcism, but with a witch, but there might also not be a witch. I liked the writing style and the small-town setting, but I wish we had more answers about the ending because I still have a LOT of questions!
Thank you to netgalley for access to this arc!

Mina has just become a child psychologist who’s brothers death is still haunting her. She meets a fellow griever Sam, who invites her to take her first case in a small town. Is the child in question really haunted by a witch and able to speak with the dead or is it in her head? Desperate for the possibility of a line to her brother, Mina takes the case.

Banathel is a small, eerie town full of superstitions. The atmospheric tone of the book kept me engaged throughout. There are a few twists that kept me guessing and I never saw the ending coming. It was the perfect read for the start of fall and spooky season. Full of creepy, supernatural and sinister events.

Something in the Walls is a chilling, atmospheric horror set in the mysterious village of Banathel, rich with superstition, witchcraft, and sinister traditions. The story follows child psychologist Mina. At a grief counseling meeting, she crosses paths with Sam, an investigative journalist dealing with his own loss. Sam soon draws Mina into his investigation of a 14-year-old girl, Alice, who believes she is haunted by a witch.

The author keeps you guessing whether the events in Banathel and with Alice have supernatural origins. Mina remains rational despite evidence suggesting that more than mental health issues might be at play. The story starts strong, and I was deeply invested in unraveling the mystery. Though the narrative sometimes wanders as the dark, chilling superstitions of the village are gradually unveiled, these moments reveal the sinister forces driving the townsfolk’s alarming behavior.

Even with some questions left unanswered, I found the ending satisfying and felt the story concluded appropriately. It made for a great fall read, perfectly blending horror and thriller.

Thank you NetGalley and Minotaur for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

Sam and Mina go to a small town as a young girl named Alice is said to be haunted. The town is filled with folklore and witch traditions. Alice believes she is being tormented by a witch. The story is spooky, creepy and bizarre and as things unfold you are not sure what to believe. Mina is psychologist and thinks she will come to a logical explanation. Sam is a writer on a hunt for a story but both have lost someone and long to connect with them once more.

Just so many moving parts which kept you wondering how it was going to end. Perfect spooky read for the season!

First and foremost, thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an eARC for an honest review!

Before starting, I want to say that I did enjoy this book wholeheartedly. It was a story that provided enough tension and chilling truth while still creating an air of mystery. The way that the story shifts and changes throughout creates a feeling of surrealism that provides a beautiful background for a horror story. However, it is the very same surrealism that I think made the experience somewhat lackluster at times. Mina Ellis is an interesting character, both in the fact that she is flawed and that she doesn't seem to have a sense of herself throughout a fair portion of this book. She is a character that exists in a bit of a limbo of relatability, but at the end of the day is still someone that you want to see succeed. This is seemingly a shared trait through multiple characters in the book, as it feels like none of them get quite enough development to truly immerse yourself in the story, but you are still enthralled and at times taken aback. The same goes for the supernatural elements in this story, which I do like, but again find themselves in a sort of limbo.

As mentioned before, I do actually enjoy this book! It was a book that I was drawn into relatively quickly, because it hooks you effectively. I wanted to keep reading about this strange town of people and the potential challenges that presents in a case like this, and by the end, I was mostly wanting more of the story and more of the characters. It is something that I recommend to horror fans, and I hope to see more work like it in the future!

Okay, weird complaint time: I don’t think the title ‘Something in the Walls’ fits the book. I mean, I get it…but the book is so wonderfully folk horror and very intelligent and the current title makes it seem like it’s a not-very-much-watched horror movie on Netflix.

Mina is terrific, Sam a bit less so, and I was so incredibly curious about Alice and our witch.

The story is nicely creepy and there’s a terrific payoff.

Honestly, it’s one I didn’t want to stop reading.

Loved the book and would read the author again in a heartbeat.

• ARC via Publisher

Daisy Pearce's Something in the Walls is a captivating and atmospheric read that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The story masterfully blends mystery and suspense, drawing you into its eerie setting with rich descriptions and a haunting atmosphere. The characters are well-developed, and their journeys unfold in a way that feels both relatable and gripping. While some plot twists may be predictable, the overall execution and Pearce's writing style shine, making this a compelling read. It’s a fantastic choice for fans of psychological thrillers who enjoy a touch of the supernatural!

Such a great suspenseful thriller! I loved the combination of creepy kid, paranormal, and true crime. The plot was easy to follow and hooked me from the start!

The author does a great job distinguishing characters and making them easy to follow. At times the main character Mina felt a little flat, but overall the characters were interesting and had good connections with each other!

Holy crow! I literally could not put it down. This book had me on the edge of my seat for day and the surprise ending…… (me reading frantically in shock)! Highly, highly recommend and if the author always writes like this, I’ll be checking out more of her work.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book.

This was spooky, unsettling, and claustrophobic. Set in 1989, a young woman just finishing her psychology degree agrees to accompany a journalist, Sam, who is heading to a small village where a young girl is haunted (maybe possessed?) by a witch. Sam wants a story, and he wants Mina there to give her opinion on the young girl's condition. But both Mina and Sam--who met at a grief/survivors' group--are haunted by loss and they both have other, personal motivations for investigating the supernatural; they both want to re-connect with lost loved ones.

When Mina and Sam get to the girl's village, the read becomes not only spooky, like I mentioned, but Pearce manages to make the atmosphere visceral. The heat wave, the small house, the smells of the slaughterhouse that the girl's father brings home from work every night--I felt sometimes like I had to put the book down it was so palpable.

The spooky stuff works quite well, especially in the first half or so. The pace changes sometime after the halfway point, which relieved building tension but also served to lose much of the anxiety and impetus that the first part of the novel established. I thought the end was fitting and it worked, but I was looking for a greater return to that tautness that was present from the beginning.

Overall, this is a great Halloween read. It's a cross between a ghost story and superstition and folklore. I will be looking for more from this author.

This book gave me goosebumps and chills! What an interesting book concept. I had no idea where this was going to go and couldn't put this book down. I loved that this was tied to witches and general spookiness. It was the perfect pick for end of September. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books!

I do not find it a coincidence that the last three books I’ve read have had to do with witches. Why? Because it’s a short step from taking away the autonomy of women to calling them witches. And every woman who fails to tow the patriarchal line is bound to get burned.

Something in the Walls starts off with normal grief then spirals ever more into insanity and what is real and what is not. Is Alice really a witch or is it psychological? Mina, a child psychologist, is trying to find out but as she digs deeper more and more secrets are revealed and not everybody is happy about that.

This was an edge-of-the-seat read and I thoroughly enjoyed discovering the answers.

"Everyone loves to look into the darkness." This eerie, unsettling tale unfolds with perfect timing, building intense suspense that kept me on edge. The twist was completely unexpected, and the ending left me with more questions than answers, making it a story I'll be thinking about for a while. Without giving too much away, I highly recommend this book. Pub Date: February 25, 2025. Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Daisy Pearce for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Okay? I will also leave it, I will also put a picture of it up here in the in the thing. And, so the description of the book goes, unbearably tense, utterly propulsive, and studded with folklore and horror. Summer in the Walls is perfect for anyone who loves Midsummer and The Haunting of Hill House. Okay.

I have watched both of those. They're not watched. I'm sorry. I have read those, and I did enjoy them. And so I'm like, okay.

Seems interesting. And I was in a horror mood or a scary mood. So I figured I'll give it a chance. So the whole entire book thing says newly minted child psychologist, Mina, has little experience in a field where the first people called are experts. She's been unable to get her feet wet.

Instead, she aimlessly spends her days stuck in the stifling heat waves sweeping across Britain and anxiously contemplating her upcoming marriage to careful, precise researcher Oscar. The only reprieve from her small close world is attending the local bereavement group to mourn her brother's death from years ago. That is until she meets the journalist Sam Hunter at the group grief group one day. And he has a proposition for her. Alice Webber is a 13 year old girl who claims she's being haunted by a witch.

Living with her family in their crowded home in the remote village of, Alice's symptoms are increasingly disturbing and money is tight. Taking this job will give Mina some experience. Sam will get the scoop of a lifetime, and Alice will get better. Mina's sure of it. But instead of improving, Alice's behavior becomes increasingly explicable and intense.

The town of Banethal has a deep history of superstition and witchcraft, and they don't expect outsiders to understand. As Mina raises to uncover the truth behind Alice's condition, the dark cracks of Bethel begin to show. Mina is desperate to understand how deep their sinister traditions go and how her own past may be the biggest threat of all. Okay. So I imagine you can figure out why this book appealed to me.

You know? I I like superstitious books. I gave this book 3 stars out of 5. I did not particularly enjoy reading it. It was it all went smoothly.

Everything went good on it, but it just it seemed like miss Pierce did not answer the questions that she started out looking for. You find out why Mina is grieving. You find out that a and fair warning. This may have some spoilers in it. I will try not to.

You find out why she's grieving and all that, and you understand and you and you understand why. So that is handled. But then the way she describes the haunting is just not I didn't particularly like it. It wasn't to me, it wasn't that interesting or that shocking of a haunting. It seemed a little lackluster in my opinion.

There I think if she fleshed out, in my opinion, I think if she had fleshed out the haunting a little more or the witch a little more, basically gave the witch a little bit of a back story. And she took this just as it was just a something like not something would normally happen. Nothing big. And while that may be what she was trying to achieve and she did it, but to me, she made it more to where the which just wasn't believable, which Mina doesn't believe that it's happening, that she's actually a witch. And mind you, Alice lives in a house with 2 other children and her parents.

Okay? So that's 4 people in a 3 bedroom house that is from what I understand of the description of it is probably like a mobile home, you know, like a 3 bedroom mobile home. There's it's small. It's crowded. It is not necessarily a comfortable thing.

And I'm also realizing also in the process of reading that her family is on hard times. Okay? They don't always you know, they have bills that are out dated, that are past due. They are about to, you know, lose things, lose part of their house. The house is gonna get foreclosed on the, you know, they don't know exactly where the next meal is coming from and all that.

So if Mina is act if Mina I'm sorry. If Alice is actually being haunted by a witch, then that would be a scoop, and that would open up magazine deals, videos, TV shows, TV interviews, things that people would be willing to pay them for. At the same time, Alice's father works in a slaughterhouse, and they and if I remember correctly from the story, he works 1 week on the killing floor and 1 week on the slaughtering floor on the butchering floor. And the weeks that he works on the killing floor, he doesn't act normal. He comes home, and that is completely understandable.

I don't think I could handle a job like that. In fact, I I know I couldn't. I have a hard time killing an insect even if it's annoying me. That's me. So it basically comes down to the point of you get to where Mina, as a child psychologist, is trying to prove whether or not Mina is actually being haunted by this thing in her chip in her chimney of her bedroom, or is this just something that Alice is doing to either get attention, to help with the family, or she's just so distraught over everything that her mind is playing tricks on her, which in Mina's opinion, that's what's going on, is her mind is playing tricks on her or Mina is making this all up?

Because Mina will act like she is possessed. I'm sorry. I just did that again. Mina will not act like she is possessed. Alice will act like she is possessed every now and then.

Well, then and part of all this while Mina is trying to determine whether or not Alice is actually possessed or, you know, semi faking it, you get this history. You get this itty bitty little history thing of their village of the town. Well, in my opinion, that backstory to the town needs to be fleshed out quite a bit because you don't really you don't really understand why. It's kinda just, like, dropped on you that this town has some really bad secrets, in my opinion. And so I'm I'm really trying not to trash this book because it is it's a good story, but in my opinion, it just it lacks some things that needed to be done.

And I'm trying hard not to bash it. But and, yeah, you might guess I'm having a little bit of a difficulty not bashing it because I'm sorry. It just it wasn't a for me book. If you want a tame horror story, one where you don't really if you're fine accepting things and having some unanswered questions or curiosities, then this book will be fine. But if you're like me who likes to dig into these things and likes to know every little thing, this is not the book for you.

This book will, for the lack of a better word, annoy you. You will be sitting here going, okay. So why did this happen? Who is this person again, and how does this relate to this? You'll be going and doing that.

I did, especially at the end because it just in my opinion, it just was not fleshed out. There was too many too many whole area holy areas that I think she could have filled. And it may be that the publisher is the one who said, no. We're not putting it in, and her original edits may have had the entire fleshed out story or something. But even even if she's gonna make this book into a series, I think it did not start off well because, honestly, I would not read it again.

There was in my opinion, there really was nothing remarkable about the storyline. You don't even get some questions answered. You find out why Mia is grieving and why she feels that she needs to grieve, but I think there was a whole lot more that could have been put into it. It could have gotten fleshed out a lot better, in my opinion. This is one of those books where I have read it and then I'm like, okay.

I'll just rewrite the parts that I think I need to in my head so that way, you know, I can call the book as good. And some people may like a book like that. I don't particularly. I want the book to finish. If it's a series, then fine.

End to me on a cliffhanger. That's fine. But this book, in my opinion, goes off that it is a standalone book with no other parts. And sorry. I was getting a nose on my phone.

And it just I only gave it 3 stars because it was a good story. I just think that it could have been better, and maybe I'm just being too hard on it or something. I don't know. But it doesn't really make me want to read it again or look at her other books to see what other books she has. And I probably should because I can see she is a good writer.

I can tell that, but I just don't know that she was comfortable with this story. I almost kinda wonder if this story wasn't something that was not necessarily fostered lost given to her or she just didn't flesh it out in her head before she did it. The characters, in my opinion, just never really seemed to come to life. And so that was another issue I had. I I like my characters to come to life in my head.

When I read a book, I watch a movie. I don't see the words. I basically watch a movie in my head of the book. And if I am just sitting here seeing words, then the characters are not coming to life in my head. The story never came to life for me, and that just I just did not enjoy it that much.

I finished the book, but I just really did not enjoy the book that well. So, basically, the book is expected to be published in February of 2025. It is if you like a mild horror story, then it'll be a good story. If you like something that is not very scary or anything, I think you would be just fine with it. But if you like a decent horror that is going to scare you, leave you sitting on the edge of your chair, nail biting, trying to figure out, I was like, oh my gosh.

This is not that book. I don't know if the author will republish or anything, but I know this is a new book that is not due out until February of 2025. So in no way am I sitting here telling you not to read it. I just would rent it from a library. I don't I would not buy it, but that's me.

If you think this sounds interesting and you think that my review is all completely wrong, that's fine. That's your choice. So that ends that concludes my review of this book in order to satisfy the Netgalley requirements. And so at that point at this point, I'm going to leave you and I will see you next time.

This book is the perfect merging of psychological thrills with supernatural chills. Brilliantly written and extremely tense, you don't want to miss this!!

Just finished this and left feeling like “wow, that escalated quickly!” Mina, a child psychologist, and Sam, a reporter, meet at a grief support group. They both have lost someone and feel that there is unfinished business between them and their dearly departed. This leads to a spiritual business trip of sorts where they set out to help a seemingly possessed teenage girl in a small Cornish town. The atmosphere of the town is spooky in itself. The residents are very superstitious. Legend, tradition, and dark reality clash. Pearce writes in such a way that when the characters are afraid, the reader is also afraid. I could perfectly imagine the twisted, evil smiles that she described. The book gave me some serious Midsommar vibes towards the end. My only wish is that I had a little more closure about one of the main characters who I won’t name to prevent spoilers. Maybe the author left it up for interpretation on purpose. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review creepy delight right around Halloween. 👻🧙‍♀️

Mina, eager to prove herself in a career, is pulled into a gripping mystery involving a young girl, Alice, in a remote village who claims to be possessed by a witch. Mina's character is complex and has an emotional history than expected. Alice's increasingly strange and disturbing behavior and Mina's clinical approach begin to crumble as she is confronted with a village's entrenched superstitions. The village has a long history of witchcraft, which casts a shadow over Mina's attempts to solve the mystery.

The book is rich in atmosphere, and the oppressive village is remote and insular, with its own rules and customs that seem hostile to outsiders. The most captivating element of the book is the escalating horror surrounding Alice. Her claims of being haunted by a witch blur the lines between psychological and supernatural terror. Mina becomes more deeply entangled in uncovering the secrets. Mina's struggles from losing her brother make her character resonate and create an emotional bond.

I did not see the extent of the reveal. It asks what haunts us externally and how much is rooted in our unresolved fears and guilt. This psychological depth adds layers to the horror narrative, making the novel not just a story about fear but about confronting buried pain. It also addresses the mistreatment of young women throughout history to rid the villages of witches by horrifying and torturous means. There were a few pacing issues in the middle, but the ending led to a shocking finale. It's a slow-burn thriller that mixes psychological tension with eerie supernatural elements. I could not put it down and finished it a day.

I received an ARC ebook for my honest review. Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books.

Do not read with the lights off!!!!

This book was one crazy ride,

I had to only read in the daytime and with lights on. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

I had a funny feeling who would be involved in what was going on with Allice, But I was still in shock..

This is a must read for sure!!!!!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This was neat! The twists were well done, the setting was well established, I just wish the main character had been fleshed out a little bit more. She was a bit of a blank slate for the books story.

I was really excited to be approved for this ARC. I really didn’t know what to expect going into it. It’s a very sobering read and deals with potential hauntings, folklore, and possession. The towns long kept traditions are reminiscent of ‘Midsommar’. Overall, I liked it. Rating based on my vibe through out, I’d give it a 3.5. Solid read.