What a delight!

Haunted hgtv style.

Mara is kinda aimless and in need of a job so her cousin gets her assistant work on his show- basically a renovation show with a dash of ghosties on each episode. Mara is part of the ghosty team creating sound effects and scenarios that look like haunting a on screen. Until one day….

Not very scary but very fun and a quick enjoyable read. The audio is mostly one narrator with some quick bits by others. It did have sound effects for the beginning of chapters but they weren’t annoying.

Thanks to netgalley and Macmillan for an alc

and here we have a soft, light horror novella about mara, who's suffering from a massive case of not knowing what to do with her life. by a stroke of luck, a production assistant job comes up for her cousin jeremy's reality show called haunt sweet home - just imagine if zak bagans had an hgtv show.

mara's job is simple. she gets to scare people. weird concept for a show, imo - why does it just so happen that every single house in need of a bathroom reno end up with some kind of spectral entity? that said, the now defunct quibi had a micro-show that featured homeowners living in murder houses getting major renovations (complete with blood left over that seeped under floorboards) and i gobbled that shit up. but i digress.

after a while, a floater from daytime production named jo shows up and stuff starts getting weird. how did she make that screaming cow noise?

ngl, this is not an expressly scary novella. it kinda read like a ghost whisperer episode. i'd have read the whole thing in the dark without being too terribly flustered. it was a pretty decent read despite that, but if you're looking for an actual horror read, i'd perhaps look somewhere else.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
Pub Date: 9/3
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Haunt Sweet Home is a HGTV meets Ghost Hunters of sorts. It’s a short novella that has a stead pace and is more of a cozy paranormal story which a great meaning behind it.
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I may sound contradictory in this statement but, I felt for her in her lack of decisiveness, for her not knowing what it was she wanted to do with her life and feeling like a failure because of it; buttttt, I also found her to be a bit bland. I felt like the only level I could connect with her was on that indeciciveness feeling.. I really enjoyed Jo though, she was spunky.
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Since this is a short read I flew through this one really quick. It’s a super fun read, especially with the addition of the episodes of the show intermittently throughout the book.
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I really enjoyed how light it was and how it just made it more enjoyable. The pacing is steady / fast throughout and its addicting. There’s one twist that is not overly shocking, but where Pinsker continues the story up through the ending is unique.
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I listened to this one via audiobook which has a full cast narration - my absolute favorite! Jennifer Blom; Jess Nahikian; Matt Godfrey; Robb Moreira were all phenomenal, I love how well they played off of each other. This is a really awesome audio - highly recommend!
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Overall, this was a fun read. I think that this will be super fun for people just getting into horror. It will also be a fun spooky season read! Be sure to check this out!
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Huge thank you to NetGalley, Sarah Pinsker and MacMillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.
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Do you have a favorite HGTV or ghost hunting show?If not - would you go on a ghost hunting show?
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#netgalley #netgalleythreeandahalfstarread #netgalleythreeandahalfstarreview #netgalleyalc #netgalleyaudio #alc #advancedlistenerscopy #audiobook #audiobooksarebookstoo #ilistentomybooks #readittome #cozyhorror #cozyparanormal #hgtvmeetsghosthunters #remodelingandghosts #tvshow #hauntings #ghosts #paranormalactivity #newjob #television #hauntsweethome #sarahpinsker #macmillanaudio #macaudio2024

What a fun quick read!!

This book is set on a reality show with fun little chapters with scenes of the show but also a girl whom works for the show as the main character.

It was a fun not too spooky of a read with a really cool ending that I absolutely loved!
I do think I’d enjoy reading this book opposed to listening to the audiobook, the main narrators voice didn’t match how I’d imagined.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I started Haunt Sweet Home this afternoon, and here we are at the finish line.

Sarah Pinker has put together a unique and cozy take on a haunting. I found the somewhat apathetic MC very compelling. She's lost and just sort of floating by when she accepts a job offer from her cousin to work as a PA on a reality tv show.

While filming of the show is a major part of the action here, this is really about a woman who's stagnating a bit and what/how she moves on in life.

Parts are a little slow and more introspective, but I think Pinker has penned a delightful novella.

3.5
rounded up!
A cute novella about an HGTV meets Ghost Stories TV show told from the perspective of an onset assistant. I like it, but the narrator was very monotoned and it threw me off a bit. Almost as if she wasn’t really excited for anything, really, which was strange for a book about hauntings (even if they're faked). Thank you to NetGalley for letting me listen to this cute little book!

Whatever team chooses audiobook narrators for the publisher deserves a raise. I have always enjoyed the voice actors and they add so much to the story. Perfectly cast. This was an unexpected gem of a book and was not what I thought it was going to be. Will definitely be recommending. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the audiobook copy to review.

I tried so hard to get into this book but I constantly found my mind drifting. Ended up having to stop partway though.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

haunt sweet home by sarah pinsker 👻 on the set of a kitschy reality TV show, staged scares transform into unnerving reality in this spooky ghost story 🖤

this was a lighter horror novella, think a cutesy ghost story! while still being lighthearted, this book gives an insightful look into what it feels like to be an overlooked, unambitious person still looking for your calling, and perhaps stumbling upon it in an unlikely place. I also really enjoyed following the hokey production of a reality tv show based on haunted houses!

while this being a multicast production, the main narration style took a more monotone and boring voice approach but it matched up with our fmc’s persona and dry sense of humor perfectly 🦇 3 stars! thanks macmillan audio for the early copy!

This was pretty fun! I didn’t realize it was a novella and I am ultimately glad it was on a shorter side. I appreciated Mara’s character a lot. I think a lot of readers will resonate with her listnessless and inability to choose a path for herself.

The job she comes across as night crew for a kitschy HGTV haunted house renovation show sounded like a lot of fun and definitely a program I could easily picture becoming quite popular. While things didn’t start getting overtly weird for a while there was an overwhelming sense that something was off and it was enough to push my interest forward.

Unfortunately much of the book felt repetitive, but because the story was so short it didn’t feel too much like being beat over the head.

I liked this interpretation of a haunting - that’s ghosts are wishes and regrets and hopes and dreams. It wrapped up nicely and made for a fun little spooky read!

The audio production was great through and through. I loved there being interludes of an episode with a full cast mixed within the single pov narration.

I liked the premise of a reality tv show about haunted houses but the narrator for this book felt really robotic and I wasn't a fan. While it's a quick read it wasn't super memorable and I would find it definitely skipable. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review! Sadly I won't be recommending this one to others. Maybe it reads better in print though.

I enjoyed the audiobook for this spooky paranormal novella. When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin’s ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she's truly been deceiving and hiding from all along—is herself.

I thought the premise was really fun and interesting, and I liked the reality tv series aspects. Some of the twists are a little predictable, but the story was still fun and worth the listen. It's a mildly scary story, there was nothing that genuinely scared me, and there was a HEA ending. It was a little repetitive at times, but I thought it was the perfect length for the story. The characters were interesting and had a good depth for the length of this book.

The audiobook cast was amazing- Mara's narrator had the perfect voice for her character. I loved the multicast narration for the transcript sections of the book- it really brought the reality tv sections to life.

Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, Tor Publishing, and the author Sarah Pinsker for the ALC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I picked up this audiobook without knowing it was a novella. I was confused on whether everything was a production or if a haunting was actually taking place in the story. The ghost TV show was an interesting premise for a haunting story.

Haunt Sweet Home offers a lite and refreshing take on horror, blending eerie elements with humor. Just what I was in the mood for. 👻 The novella centers around Mara, who should be called Daria (like the show) as the narrator gave me this vibe which I loved. Mara is a night-shift production assistant on a haunted house reality show who’s feeling lost in life. She helps create scares for unsuspecting homeowners but she starts to wonder if all the frights are just for show…

The story is clever, capturing the aimlessness of a quarter-life crisis and the complex ties that family can accompany that stage of life. Provides a sharp and entertaining look at the world of reality TV (which I love) with the audio narration being spot on. Dry humor Mara I enjoyed. ☺️ Received an audio review copy via NetGalley, and these thoughts are entirely my own.

This was a short fast easy read. A very unique and interesting concept. However it dragged a bit in the middle and was very repetitive.

A very short story that I listened to in a day while doing very bland work. Some of the ghostly aspects were kitschy, but that may have just been the ghost story aspect of any story. Quick, fun, unexpected twists.

Haunt Sweet Home caught my attention because I love a campy TV show about fixing up houses AND campy ghost adventure videos. This audiobook was a mixture of both of those things from the perspective of a mid 20's girl who seems to be wandering through life without knowing what she wants to do and really letting life happen to her.
I would have loved to have this fleshed out to be a full novel but I can also understand why the author may not have wanted to do that if they felt they told the story they wanted to tell.
Maya, our main character, has placed herself on the outside of nearly every social circle she has. She refuses to stand up for herself and she does not let herself be heard as though everyone else is more important or takes president. The problem with that, is that everyone else keeps moving forward and Maya finds herself further and further behind everyone else, not going anywhere.
In some ways, the main character is relatable but in some, she is also infuriating. I wanted to shake her and make her stand up for herself.
I really enjoyed the story and the slightly spooky vibes. I hope more people will give this novella a chance. It's well worth a listen or a read.

Thanks @macmillan.audio for my first advanced reader copy! I listened to this on my commute and really enjoyed the dark humor and cadence of the story. It’s a really quick read, I was able to listen to it over just a couple of days.

One thing I really liked about this book was that the main character at times was kind of a downer. She felt down on her luck and that made her feel more real and gave her more depth than a lot of characters have. I also really enjoyed how the entire story was set on the set of a reality TV show about renovating “haunted” houses. It was a really original concept and I haven’t read a book like it before.

I would have liked to see some more depth in the plot as well as the side characters, but I think the point of the story was to be more light hearted and funny compared to in depth and spooky. I found the plot a bit predictable, but overall the content was fun and good to listen to in the mornings.

This book is releasing early September and I definitely would recommend it for a nice early spooky season read! It has great cozy fall vibes!

Following a listless and disconnected main character she accepts a job as a night shift production assistant on a home makeover/haunted house reality show. Think Ghostbusters meets Fixer Upper.
When I requested this book, I was unaware that it was so short (about a 4hr long audiobook) as well as the fact that it was a satirical humorous horror. Those surprises were both very welcome and I think meshed with the vibe of this book.
Overall, this was a fun and short book that I would recommend as a pallet cleanser and for someone who wants haunted supernatural things but don’t like to be too scared.
3.5 stars

I listened to the audiobook for this one and really enjoyed it. It is a short paranormal horror novella that tells the story of Mara, a young woman lost in the world and trying to find out what to do with her life. Through her cousin, she lands a job working on the night crew of a haunted house reality show where it is her job to help creatively scare the owners in order to make for good television. With the addition of a new member to the team, many spooky and unexplainable things start happening on set. This book is definitely on the cozier, lighter side of the horror genre. It was a unique and interesting take on a story about paranormal happenings. The middle did get a bit repetitive but then the action picked up and I was invested. The outcome was pleasantly surprising and left me feeling fulfilled. If you like this genre, I would definitely recommend this read for you! Thank you to NetGalley for the gifted ARC audiobook recording in exchange for an honest review.