I’ll Be Waiting by Kelley Armstrong brings us another supernatural tale perfect for fall. Narrated by Jennifer Pickens, listeners will travel to a haunted house. Get ready for things that go bump in the night, as Nicola tries to contact her lost love. But Nicola has secrets, and this isn’t her first encounter with the dead.

Nicola Laughton, who was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis as a child, never expected the norms life offers like falling in love and growing old. When she turned thirty, thanks to medical advances, she met Anton, who promised to love her until the end.

A tragic accident ripped him from her, as he told her he’d be waiting. Those last moments went viral and now spiritualist are hounding her, offering closure. To thwart their efforts, she agrees to have a seance with a parapsychologist. Her friends and family rent a beach house on Lake Erie. A home Anton’s family once owned.

The tale that unfolds delivered a creeptastic haunting with strange events, eerie sounds, and dead bodies. Armstrong built the story well, grabbing me from the onset. What unfolds is an atmospheric tale with supernatural events, strange sounds, and heart-pounding suspense. Nicola has secrets, secrets that make her more sensitive to things happening in the house.

Jennifer Pickens captured Nicola and the atmospheric tension of the story with her narration. I loved listening and found it enhanced the suspenseful, spine-tingling moments.

It was nice to see representation for someone suffering from a rare genetic disease. Armstrong brought attention to the disease and its conditions, while strengthening the character and her story.

I enjoyed Hemlock Island her first foray into horror, and I’ll Be Waiting, delivered a supernatural ghost story that will have you leaving the lights on. This one is perfect for fall. Grab your flashlight and your earbuds for this ghostly tale!

Title: I'll Be Waiting
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Page Count: 336
Time Length: 10H 3M
Dates Read: 9/26-9/30
Format: Audiobook
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Summary: This was an Arc given by Netgalley for exchange for an honest review. When you lose the person you love, what lengths will you go to talk to them again?

Review: Right from chapter one, I was trapped within the story. My heart broke into 1000 pieces, and I had to find out what was going to happen. This was a twisty story, but the ending really pulled it together. The main character was truly relatable, and her feelings were deeply portrayed. I would reread and I would recommend to other readers.

I'll Be Waiting hooked me right from Chapter 1., and, even if I hadn't read the synopsis (which is amazing), I would suspect from the title alone that Kelley Armstrong's latest is another in her lineup of edge-of-your-seat, sleep-with-the-lights-on paranormal thrillers/horror. Nobody has the ability to creep me out like Kelley Armstrong, and I loved this one, even though I couldn't read it when I was home alone at night. It's going to be a while before I hear another dripping noise and not be completely freaked out!

Oh Kelley, is there anything you cannot do? This was a messed up story and I was not expecting how dark it would get or that ending.

I felt so sad for Nicola when Anton died, I felt her sadness as she came to grips with the fact that she had outlived him, something that never should have happened. I completely understood her desire to speak to him one last time to find out what his last words meant. Looking forward to reading more of Kelley Armstrong's stand alone novels and of course Cold as Hell when it is released in February 2025.

Jennifer Pickens did a great job narrating this story and I look forward to listening to more of Jennifer's work in the future.

I’m having mixed feelings about this book. It started out strong and I found myself very intrigued by the plot, but by the middle third of the book I found myself loosing interest. The story felt repetitive and the passing was rather slow. There was definitely a lot that I think could have been edited out to help with flow.

I did think the narrator did a great job with the narration. Her voice helped me feel more connected to Nicola. The grief in this book was so tough. I really felt for Nicola after the loss of her beloved husband. The haunting aspect was interesting, but never fully delivered for me.

I’m giving three stars because the narration and premise were both great, but taking two stars because the book started to feel so repetitive with all of the seances.

Posted on Goodreads:

4.5/5⭐️(rounded down)

Oh so this audiobook was so good! Excellent narrator with stellar voice acting. I’m pretty sure I enjoyed this more than if I would have read myself.

Nicola is a grieving widow whose husband, Anton, died in her arms after a horrid accident. Several spectators watched him take his last breath and heard his last words to Nicola. However, Nicola can’t help but feel that her husband didn’t say everything he wanted to in the end.

In come the seances. And every single one has been full of fake spookies. That is until she meets a professor that has no qualms calling out fraud. So, Nicola, the professor, her brother in law and friend all stay at Anton’s late grandmothers former house.

Over a couple of days they attempt to make contact. Sounds are heard, a person is missing, bugs are a plenty and Nicola is starting to remember an incident of her past where her high school best friend was murdered.

As the days go by, Nicola is starting to realize the incident of her past and her current situation may be very connected.

This is horror grief at its finest with a bit of body horror. There are multiple little twists that I didn’t even see coming. I enjoyed this book a lot and after learning that Kelley has more books, I’m going to make sure to add them to my TBR.

Thank you netgalley, st. Martin’s press, And Kelley Armstrong for the opportunity to listen to this book.

Perfect spooky season read. I was lucky enough to be able or both read and listen to this book. To start the narrator did an amazing job and kept me engaged throughout the whole book. This is a bit of a ghost story, more than a horror. I enjoyed the character development and just a warning that the story has some gore. I will sure be checking out this authors backlist.
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an ALC of this audiobook.
4 star

Thank you for giving me access to this title! But ultimately, I found the main character to be boring and annoying. The twists weren't anything spectacular or shocking. I wanted so much more from it. Especially with the jump scares or even more of a haunting behavior at the house. It was just flat.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

I love a spooky story and Kelley Armstrong delivered just that. While not very fast paced, I never found myself bored or not invested in what was happening.

The main character, Nicola was likeable and competent. And, the story was believable (if you believe in ghosts). My point is, the story was not so far-fetched as to have me rolling my eyes.

Loose ends were tied up and while there was the tiniest bit of gore, it was not over the top nor put in for seemingly no reason.

I listened to the audiobook and Jennifer Pickens did a nice job narrating.

I received a free copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

I did enjoy this. It put me in the mood for spooky season. It's a little predictable but still enjoyable.
Narrated by Jennifer Pickens. She was fantastic.

It took me a few chapters to truly be able to immerse myself in this book. I love audio books, but sometimes, due to changing from past to present or different point-of-views, audio makes it just a bit more difficult to follow along seamlessly.

The review:

Nicola is a mid-30s female, who's battling CF, and who tragically lost her husband soon after being married. His last words to her, as he lay dying, we're "I'll be waiting," Struggling with his death, she decides to hire several psychics to help her talk with her deceased husband. They all turn out to be fake, and Nikola is left searching for answers.

She finds a professor at a university who says he can speak with the dead, so she hires him and they set up to hold a seance using her husband's cremations to summon her husband, Anton. Also attending is her brother-in-law and a woman Nic met at a grief group, along with the professor and Nic.

Strange things start happening right away. There are midge swarms encasing the property, strange noises throughout the house, and a missing neighbor.

The book begins great by telling us just enough to want more. By the middle, it feels like the same things are being repeated (constantly mentioning her CF, for example). The last quarter picked up, however, it also took on such a back and forth of what was happening, it made it a bit more difficult to follow again at times. I feel this would be such a great book, had it not turned to such elaborate far-fetched details toward the end.

For this reason, I am going to give this an average rating of 3 stars. If some things get tweaked, I absolutely feel this could be a 5 star read.

Kelley Armstrong is one of my favorite authors through several series and standalones I have enjoyed everything she’s written and this book did not disappoint me. I will admit I didn’t read the description of this book at all because of the author and I was a little surprised by the amount of grief it punched me with (I shouldn’t have been, it’s clear in the description, this was my stupidity). It was well written, but perhaps a little too close to reality of grief and this is a tough time of year for me, I might have waited a bit but I still enjoyed it.

Nicola lost her husband in a car accident which wasn’t how it was supposed to go, she has had CF her entire life and achieved so much she was told she’d never have, but she always knew she would die and leave her healthy husband behind. After his death she is desperate to communicate, but she knows all of the mediums and clairvoyants she went to were scam artists feeding off her grief and taking advantage. She and her closest supports, her brother Keith, his wife Jin, and Keith’s ex-wife Lori all decide she needs to give it one last attempt. I did find the plot of the story to be fairly predictable, but it was very creepy and a fun ride. I was completely surprised by the midges!! While they seemed bigger than what I’ve seen clouds of bugs that cover everything is accurate and they are completely creepy. Definitely upped the atmosphere for me. Overall I gave this 4.5 stars rounded up because the story was very fun.

Nicola loses her husband in a car accident. She never expected to lose him. It was always supposed to be her first since she has CF. Now in a grieving group, she is hoping to get closure from her husband's last words through siances only to be tricked over and over. Her family decides to search for a real professional to do a proper Siance one last time and be done with it. Nicola and her brother-in-law, along with her mentee from the grieving program, plan to meet Professor... to do a proper séance at her husband's grandmother's lake house. Nick hopes to get answers to her husband's last words. He seemed to have been ready to confess something. But now... this week at the lake house is bringing up her unwanted past. More and more things are happening at the lake house and she can't tell what is real and what could be just tricks.

I really liked this book. I was constantly on the edge of my seat. I loved that Nick was also trying to explain how the professor could be tricking her. And the past totally creeped me out. It was a good haunting story. Toward the end, I couldn't trust anybody and I never knew how it was truly going to end. Thank you Macmillan Audio for giving me the chance to review this book through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

A truly creepy ghost story from start to finish!

Didn’t see them coming at all right up until it was happening.

Kelley Armstrong is one of my favorite authors and so I stepped out of my comfort zone to read her latest book, I’ll Be Waiting. I’m not generally into horror or whatever genre this might fall under, but I figured I’d give it a try because of the author. And it was really quite good!

This is more of a ghost story than horror, although there are some pretty gruesome things that happen along the way. Nicola has cystic fibrosis and wasn’t expected to live to adulthood but here she is, married to Anton and in relatively good health. She has a new medication and some fancy gear that combine to help her handle the CF. I didn’t know that much about this illness so this was quite informative. Because of her CF, she and Anton never figured that she would outlive him, but she does, because of a terrible car crash. As he’s dying, he tells her “I’ll be waiting”, which is where the title of the book comes from. Bystanders video all of this, and her story goes viral.

Everyone grieves in a different way and Nicola becomes obsessed with Anton’s last words. She consults mediums and go to seances and tries to contact Anton. I enjoyed the first seance described and how Nicola figured out how the charlatan was doing things.

The later sections got a bit convoluted and left my head spinning. The bulk of the book leads you through a multi-day retreat in an effort to reach Anton, guided by a professor who she believes is the real thing, not a charlatan like so many others. In addition to Nicola, a younger woman from her grief group comes along, as well as Nicola’s brother-in-law Jin. There are a lot of weird and spooky things that go on - including a massive swarm of midges, which sounded absolutely disgusting - and we gradually learn about something tragic that happened when Nicola was in high school.

If you enjoy ghost stories and don’t mind some violence and gore, you should definitely pick this one up!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of this book and to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advance copy of this audiobook. It was beautifully narrated by Jennifer Pickens. All opinions are my own.

This one kinda snuck up on me. It was a little slow in the beginning--the heartbreak had me reeling a little, and I was wondering when the "sinister" would show up. Well, IT DID.

If you like ghosts, seances, the afterlife, anything paranormal, I recommend!

The concept of this book intrigued me, prompting me to dive in! Although the audiobook narrator performed exceptionally, I only truly engaged with the plot around the halfway mark. The initial chapters progressed slowly, and I struggled to connect with the protagonist, yet this wasn't a major issue. My main challenge lay in the repetitive sequences that made the narrative drag a bit.Around the midway point, the story began to captivate me, building up suspense and leaving me curious about the unfolding events! The mysterious atmosphere intensified, keeping me hooked. However, the conclusion felt somewhat disconnected from the earlier sections. While the beginning focused on mystery, grief, and hints of the supernatural, the latter part veered into horror territory. Upon finishing the book, I was left with lingering questions, craving a more cohesive resolution to tie up loose ends.

What an ending! Definitely a great thriller read. This was great as an audiobook. Car accident, paranormal, mystery, and suspense. Murder? Possession? Enjoyed this one. The cover is stunning too! :)

An utterly terrific ghost story! Part psychological thriller part horror, all wonderfully gruesome. A horrific auto accident leaves Nicola "Nic" a grieving widow seeking closure regarding her husband's death. She tries using mediums to communicate with her dead husband, but everyone she encounters proves to be a sham.  The past is not what it seems. When a body turns up, things get very interesting. A very fast paced, well written book with a great cast of intriguing characters

I would like to thank the publisher for giving me an audio-arc in exchange for an honest review through NetGalley.

This was such a wild ride, and I was absolutely here for it.

Nic lost her husband in a car accident, but not before he gave her a message. After that, people reported seeing his spirit leave his body, and Nic has spent her time since then trying to contact him through a medium/seance in order to speak to him one last time. She finally finds one last person who just might be able to help her, and so she goes to spend a week at a beach house her and her late husband would stay at along with her friend and her brother-in-law in order to try and contact her husband one last time.

And then everything goes absolutely off the rails.

We have a missing person, we have bugs that are swarming, creaks and footsteps in the house, voices, objects moving on their own, and an overall eeriness that makes reading this book rather unsettling. I was hooked from the very beginning and couldn't put it down. The horror isn't in your face, it's subtle, it quietly lets itself settle in until you start to question everything yourself along with Nic.

I know there's mixed reviews about that ending, but in my opinion, I thought it was fantastic. It was wild and portrayed a familiar old trope in a new way that was refreshing and exciting. I loved the reveal, and the finale had me at the edge of my seat. Overall, excellent book to kick off the spooky season. And if you get a chance to listen to the audio, take it. Jennifer Pickens does a fabulous job at ramping up the creepiness from beginning to end.