First of all thank you @Netgalley and @SarahPinsker for the ALC of this book.

Okay, so I always have the same problem with any short story/novella.....I want more!

That being said horror and short stories go hand in hand and this one was good. I loved how real and relatable the main character was and this one took a turn I really wasn't expecting going into it. This is not your typical haunted house ghosty story it goes much deep than that.

Some things I loved
The reality TV show aspect
The direction the story took (no spoilers here)
and the relatability

Some things I didn't love
It could have stood to be a little long (I wanted more character development)
I wanted more of Jo
It's pitched as kitschy and while I agree, it could have been a little more. I love quirky horror with a hint of humor.

Overall for what it was it was good and I would recommend for anyone looking to read a quick/fun horror this fall season, or anytime!

𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
3 🌟
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Haunt Sweet Home has a mix of paranormal, ghost, and faux elements.
A quick, easy, cozy spooky season read! You can easily listen to this book in three hours. It's very interesting to read. The audiobook production is good, with different narrators. I like how the story is told in a reality TV style.
𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 Sept. 3
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Thank you, Netgalley, and MacmillanAudio for the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

3.25 stars. The audiobook narrator did a good job with this one, it was a fun listen. I found the story entertaining and it held my attention the whole way through.

Mara, our protagonist, is a bit standoffish and wooden, so I wasn’t super invested in rooting for her. The pacing felt a bit off too, with lots of exposition and description of shooting episodes of the show, and not much about Jo.

The explanation at the end of Jo becoming a ghost due to the apple tree sculpture Mara was carving felt weak, and then the book just kinda petered out after that. A strong start and interesting story, but probably won’t be super memorable for me.

Aaaahhh! the tension! the audio! the chillssssss! it was SO GOOD.

Brief description:

Mara, down on her luck and pretty down on herself, takes a job as a production assistant on her cousin Jeremy's reality show Home Sweet Haunt. Things start to get strange shortly after Mara starts her new night shift job.

My thoughts:

Fine, I'm accepting it, I'm a horror girlie. Particularly anything with ghosts. Gimme all the ghosts!
This was insanely tense for such a short read - about 4 hours for the audiobook. The main narrator put her heart and soul into this audiobook and you can hear every bit of it. Such a fantastic job! I find some audiobooks hard to focus on, but this kept me on the edge of my seat!

The story was so well written and had themes of learning to accept yourself and embracing your flaws. I don't want to say too much, I don't want to give a single spoiler! Perfect quick read for getting into the Halloween season!

Publish date: Sept 3 2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the chance to read this early!

Haunt Sweet Home is my first book by this author so I went into this not knowing what to expect. This book ended up being a miss for me but it did have some positive aspects I'd like to share. The beginning of the story starts off interesting and draws you in. But it quickly started to lose my interest. The events that occured throughout the story felt repetitive and made things drag. I really liked Mara's character. She was unique, well thought out, and fun to get to known. Sadly most of the other characters felt bland and unfinished. So while the book had an interesting concept and a likeable main character, this one just wasn't for me. But I did absolutely love the narration for the audiobook. Each narrator did a wonderful job at bringing more life and personality to their characters and the story.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I received a gifted an ALC copy of HAUNT SWEET HOME by Sarah Pinsker from Macmillan Audio!

HAUNT SWEET HOME follows Mara who lands a job as a PA on her cousin's Haunt Sweet Home "reality" TV show. It combines a bit of Ghost Hunters with a home renovation series, focusing in on haunted homes. And if the homes aren't haunted enough (none of them are), the production crew is responsible for scaring the homeowners and the audience with special effects. When a new crew member begins to shake things up, scaring even the rest of the crew, Mara isn't sure what is going on and what she can believe.

I have really enjoyed Sarah Pinsker's writing, especially her short story collection, SOONER OR LATER EVERYTHING FALLS INTO THE SEA, so I was excited to get this new novella! I liked Mara as our main character. She's a bit lost in life, not really knowing what her true calling is. Her family makes fun of her for her inability to settle into a job or an education, or really any path in life. I also found the idea of this TV show to be really interesting - I would certainly tune in! I liked that we got bits of the actual show brought in between Mara's chapters and the way this tied into the book as a whole.

I think there is some debate in my mind on what genre this settles into - Goodreads has it as horror and there is a haunting element, but Netgalley's Fantasy listing might make a bit more sense to me? As Mara herself is behind the scenes on much of the haunting aspects and not really scared herself, I think the potentially atmospheric and creepy moments didn't entirely land for me. Still I found it an entertaining binge listen!

I really loved this! Haunt Sweet Home is a beautiful exploration of finding yourself and becoming the person you want to be.

Mara is a twenty-something who still hasn’t figured out what she wants in life. Her cousin offers her a job on his makeover reality television show as the new night-shift production assistant. With nothing else going on in her life, she takes the job and begins to “haunt” the homeowners. However, weird things begin to happen from there, and Mara befriends a strange coworker.

I really loved the concept of this book! I loved following the television show behind the scenes and seeing how Mara set up the various “hauntings”. The audiobook was amazing and included a full cast. The transcript sections sounded like you were watching an actual television show, and that really added to the overall vibes of the book. I also really loved Mara as a character. It’s easy to relate to her as an aimless young woman not really knowing what to do with her life and just coasting from job to job. She doesn’t know who she is or who she wants to be. She feels out of place in her own family because everyone seems like they have their lives together.

I was expecting this book to be a lot darker or scarier since it’s tagged as horror, but instead Haunt Sweet Home is a beautiful coming of age novel about a young woman learning how to find her place in the world. The ending has an air of melancholy laced with hope at the idea that life is about being free and open to possibility, finding yourself, and telling your story the way you want it to be told.

This is a fun little story. A little spooky, but not really. I think it's pretty clear what the "twist" is but I had a good time with it. A cute one-sitting read for fall.

I am thankful to have gotten the audioARC for free from Netgalley and Macmillan Audio so I can leave my voluntary review.

This short book was an interesting concept! I enjoyed the experience of listening to it as they marked the show script aspect of it and had a cast of characters to do all the voices. It was more like a radio show with breaks for a regular audio book narration in between.

The narrators however were a little flat in their speaking voices, especially Mara’s voice. Part of it is her low energy personality but it does make it drag a bit at times.

But overall it was really enjoyable and it was only a few hours long so it was perfect to get through the whole thing during a short project or travel to and from work, especially if you speed it up a bit which I suggest.

I also like the glimpse into the making of reality TV a bit. It does make you think about how real different “reality” shows are and how much is the production.

One thing I’ll mention is that it’s listed as horror but it’s not at all. Paranormal, yes, but not true horror unless cozy “horror” is now a thing!

The book comes out September 3rd 2024 so it’s perfect to put on your TBR for spooky season.

My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars and I rarely round up.

⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again

Mara is a young woman who, through her cousin's recommendation, accepts a job as an assistant in a paranormal reality tv show production. Her job is to set (or fake) props and sound effects that will make the contestants believe the house they're at is actually haunted. Eventually, things star to get weird, spooky and out of control and Mara starts to believe there is some genuine paranormal activity going on.

Unfortunately, this novella didn't please me as much as the synopsis did.
In my opinion, the author spends too much time developing Mara's character, and the plot itself worked more as a side character.
Mara can be a relatable character to a lot of readers, especially the 20- something ones who still struggle to figure ou what they want in life. Well...personally speaking, until not long ago, I was Mara myself, so I could understand and relate to her struggles. However, I wasn't in it for the main character's life struggles. I was in it for the spooky vibes and the paranormal (or not) aspects of the story, which sadly only happens after the 70% mark.
What's more, Mara sounded to me quite dull and boring most of the time. I was not interested in her at all. I only wanted the reality tv show paranormal scenes - which there were very, very few ones.
It is a quick read, I'll admit that. Even though this book is much more character-driven focused than plot-driven, it reads quite fast, and I personally was curious the entire time to see how the spooky and ghost-like part of the story would unravel.
To me, it ended up being just OK, but I can see other readers really enjoying and loving this novella.

I listened to the audiobook and I liked it. But a note: the audiobook has 4 narrators, but 3 of them only appear now and then, in very few short chapters - which, in my opinion, were the best moments of the audio. For more than half of this audio, we listen only to one narrator who voices Mara. On one hand, I didn't like that narrator. I thought her narration sounded dull and boring. On the other hand, Mara herself is, in my opinion, a dull and boring character, so I guess the narration fits perfectly to that character's personality?!
I'd still recommend the audiobook, though.

Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, for allowing me to listen to an advanced and free audiobook copf of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was a weird and creepy story that I really enjoyed! I found our hapless narrator entertaining rather than irritating, which is unusual for me and millennials. I chalk it up to Pinsker's ability to present her straightforwardly, rather than self-indulgently or in a way that seems designed to force sympathy out of the reader. Her life is a hot mess, but she just seems to roll with it and keep trying, and the story builds on that and uses it in a way that really worked for me.

I found this to be a fun blend of creepy / weird and slightly snarky. I was a little nervous about the multi-cast narration - I don't tend to prefer that because it often feels overdone and melodramatic. But using it to present the episodes of the TV show really worked and made those pop out in a way that I found entertaining and engaging. I really liked this one!

This is a fun quick audiobook, perfect for the transition into fall.

We meet Mara as she takes a job as a production assistant on her cousin’s TV show. She didn’t know she would be on the night shift on the reality show that documents ghost haunting/makeover show. The work is less glamorous and Mara is forced to find herself.

This is perfect for someone that wants a hint of spooky in their book. The audio was well done.

I was happy when I started this one and it sucked me right in. Haunt Sweet Home is about a girl named Mara who takes a job working as a production assistant for a film crew that does a popular home renovation TV show with a cheesy paranmoral ghost hunter twist.

Mara's job ends up requiring her to secretly create scary sounds and effects at night to scare the people who are being featured in the show. It all seems pretty straight forward...until it's not and spooky stuff starts to actually go down.

This was a fun read. The writing was entertaining and was mystery with a side of silly, which I love. I wish it was a full novel! I haven't realized it was a short story until it abruptly ended and I wanted more.

The audio was good! It has multiple narrators and I enjoyed it. It took me a little to get used to the MC's flat-ish tone but once I adapted it was fine. I think the way she read actually added to the character and fit the personality.

What an incredibly fun book! I'm genuinely sad it wasn't longer—I found myself wanting more by the time it ended. The audiobook experience was fantastic; the narrator did an exceptional job capturing the essence of the main character, adding an extra layer of depth to the story. This book offers such a unique and refreshing take on a ghost story, blending suspense and originality in a way that kept me hooked from start to finish. I’m eagerly anticipating what the author will come up with next.

Beautifully and uniquely written! What a fun ride. I very much enjoyed this spooky book and each page had me wanting more. The audiobook cast narration was perfectly done and I felt fully immersed among them. Will be recommending!

This was…ok? I checked out the audiobook version & was pretty excited to see it was a multicast narration. I always prefer a multicast because I find it a little awkward when one narrator has to do all the voices. I’m not sure who was cast to play Jeremy but they were great! However, Jess Nahikian, who voices Mara, sounded bored while narrating so I felt a little bored while listening. Which sucks because this story itself is good and makes me feel like I should have gone for the book instead. In Jess’ defense though, maybe that was the direction that was given. I haven’t heard Jess’ other work so I can’t say for sure.

Anyway, surprising coming of age story is surprising, for something advertised as a staged HGTV-esque haunted home reality show. But worth it, imo.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this advance audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this, and I think the short format worked well for the story, but I doubt it is something that will stick with me long term. A good eerie ghost story though and audiobook was great.

This was a quick book - I was able to listen to it in one sitting. I had higher expectations for the haunting, this was more coming of age than a traditional haunting book.
The audiobook was an excellent recording.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this audiobook.

Think a kitschy HGTV show but hauntings but are they ALL fake or not? You'll have to read to find out! It's incredible how Pinsker can deliver a creepy haunting story that is also funny and lighthearted at times. There's a lot to read and uncover in this novella.