DNF at 15%.

This is the story of a middle-aged woman who has moved back home and is taking care of her aging mother. They don't have a healthy relationship or past, and eerie, unsettling things start happening to the daughter.

The reason I DNFed this book was boredom. It starts off with a bang, but then becomes quite dull and more of a sad drama than anything creepy. I can enjoy something like if the writing or characterization are exceptional, but here they are not. I think this is "for you" if you enjoy a quieter, milder horror that is more about revisiting your past/trauma than it is about any creepy stuff.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Tamar escaped her abusive mother at the age of 18 but is absolutely shocked when she wakes up to find her unwell mother hovering over her bed. How did she find her? Why is she there?

This book was so creepy! I was hooked from the beginning wondering what on earth her mother was doing there and empathizing with Tamar for having to have contact with someone she was trying to heal from. There were some truly disgusting parts in this book and I loved it. I did find the ending to be a little boring but I enjoyed the entire journey it took to get there. This was definitely a solid creepy read!

This audiobook was narrated by Hallie Bee Bard. She did an excellent job portraying all roles. I felt the suspense and unease throughout the performance!

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Mina Hardy, and Crooked Lane Books for providing this free ARC. This is my honest review. This publishes today September 17th.

I have posted my review on Goodreads, my Facebook book club, and will make a TikTok to post before the pub date raving about this book!

While I enjoyed this story, I struggled somewhere between the audiobook narration and pacing. This book failed to draw my attention until halfway through the audio, and even then, I felt like it was take it or leave it.

I liked the concept and the religious aspect- not many stories (especially horror or thriller), involve Judaism and that felt like a nice change of pace. Mostly we hear about priests and Catholic Churches, so that detail set this book aside from others in the same category.

What a unique and riveting story! Read this in one day and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so sad when a book ended.
This falls wonderfully into woman’s fiction, paranormal and suspense with some religion in there as well.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!!

I really enjoyed this book. More than I thought I would. I liked the characters! Great writing style and I liked the storyline. This book kept me guessing. I finished it in one sitting. Creepy book but in the best possible way!!!!

Ripping domestic horror featuring the Jewish mother from Hell, literally! Mina Hardy always finds new ways to creep me out with her anti-heroines, but this book is next level! Five plus!

Thanks to #NetGalley and #DreamScapeMedia for the book #BitterIsTheHeart by #MinaHardy. Tamar didn’t have a good relationship with her mother growing up. Her mother was always mean and too hard on her, so she left at 18 years old. Now, decades later she wakes up and finds her mother in her house standing over her bed. She has to take in her mother, who has been kicked out of her assisted living facility. As weeks go by, Tamar starts to see something sinister in her mother. Why is it targeting her?

3.5⭐
Genre ~ domestic horror
Setting ~ Ohio
Publication date ~ September 17, 2024
Publisher ~ Dreamscape Media
Est Page Count ~ 298 (43 chapters)
Audio length ~ 10 hours 27 minutes
Narrator ~ Hallie Bee Bard
POV ~ single 3rd
Featuring ~ nightmares, night walking

Tamar, not Tamara or Tammy, is woken in the middle of the night by someone standing in her room. Yikes! But it's just her 80 year old mother, Ruth, who lives in a home 17 miles away. How did she get there in the middle of the night and why are her feet in rough shape?

Then Ruth gets kicked out of her home, so Tamar has no choice but to take her in. They don’t get along, so this is not going to be fun mother/daughter bonding time. There’s a lot of animosity due to childhood trauma and it took a while to find out why.

This is supposed to be a horror novel. I suppose it has some creepy aspects, but I didn’t find it scary or gory or anything like that. Some disturbing and gross things were done for sure. Probably not a good idea to read/listen in the dark.

Overall, a bit slow moving, but I was pleased with the ending even if it was a bit abrupt. Also, liked how Judaism was incorporated throughout.

Narration notes:
She did okay. I could have went for a little more emotion at times. Easy to listen to at 3x, which is good since I had to power through to finish for pub date.

I found Tamar to be intensely relatable, though after a lot of therapy I have a much easier time saying no and setting boundaries with people who hurt me. I loved the way Jewish culture was weaved into the story. I wanted to know what happened after the last scene, to see if Tamar made it out of the situation ok.

This audiobook was so creepy and sooo good. The narrator did an amazing job of keeping the story alive and kept me engaged.

The only criticism I have is that some of the chapters ended very abruptly like there should of been more to the sentence or paragraph.

Great book for spooky season!

Thank you NetGalley, Mina Hardy and Dreamscape Media for an advanced listeners copy in exchange for an honest review.

YES. Jewish Horror! This is perfection. I absolutely loved the narration. I was able to hear the difference between the mother and the mother thing. The ending was so good. I am trying to write this review without revealing any spoilers.
Thank you for this ARC, I cannot praise it enough.

Mina Hardy has done it again. This book is not only incredibly entertaining, horrific in all the right ways, but also filled with an intriguing story about the human condition. The story shows how real life can impact the bonds between mothers and daughters. I was intrigued from the very first page, and fell in love with the characters. The reveal at the end was super satisfying after the wonderful build up. The characters were thought out and even though I hated them, I loved them too. This is because the writing was so beautifully done and articulated perfectly.

This is one wild and scary look at generational trauma and one of the most dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships I’ve read in a long time. There were a couple of moments that really freaked me out and it leads to an ending that is absolutely crazy in the best possible way.

Not my favorite kind of book but I did like the narrator and I liked the two main characters. I liked the ambiance and I liked the authors attempts to connect with the reader.

_Bitter is the Heart_ by Mina Hardy and narrated by Hallie Bee Bard is a well-characterized, dark, and disturbing horror read. Tamar has moved back to her childhood town in order to be close to her sister and her family, but ends up becoming a caretaker for her abusive elderly mother Ruth. Tamar’s childhood traumas return as Ruth declines. The narrator gives life to Hardy’s characters and keeps the reader engrossed.

I really liked many elements of this book: the writing, the body horror, the weird horror, and the theme of abusive parents. There’s a fun ambiguity around whether the mother is evil, suffering from dementia, or if something supernatural is happening. It also incorporates strong elements of Jewish faith, which is rare in horror books, and I enjoyed that aspect.

The downfall of this book is its pacing and rhythm. I feel like it could have been shorter overall, or certain parts could have been cut. We get some really fun moments of high tension and horror, but then the story returns to a sense of normalcy, which disrupts the flow.

This book is beyond creepy and while it was weird it was an entertaining wild ride. I’m still sitting here wondering exactly what the heck I just read, and I think this is one I will continue to have on my mind for a while. I started with the audiobook for this one but switched to kindle after about 25 percent, I thought the narrator was doing a good job, but I had the kindle and I’m not a patient person. Tamar moved back home to be closer to her sister and her her nieces and nephews but after her sister’s husband got an a job offer he couldn’t refuse and now Tamar is alone having to deal with her estranged mother. Tamar and her mother always had a difficult relationship and while she takes responsibility to care for her mother she doesn’t do it out of love. But strange things are happening that make Tamar question what really happened at her childhood home before she ran away at 18. This book is definitely pure horror and I really enjoyed the tie ins with Jewish mythology which isn’t something you see often.

Creepy children in books scare me but then the elderly frail 80 year old woman in this book said "hold my beer." Holyyyy shiiiiit what a ride this was.

I am so thankful that I was lucky enough to have the best mother I could ever dream of, but unfortunately the main character of this book, Tamar, did not. Her mother haunted her adolescence and as soon as Tamar could escape, she moved out the house and far away from her mother's cruelty.

In adulthood, Tamar finds herself unwillingly responsible for her nearly 80 year old estranged mother when the care home she lives in no longer wants to board her there. Her mom is just too much...so Tamar has no choice but to allow her creepy mom to move in with her until she can find a solution. Welp, things really heat up from there.

Bitter is the Heart is a unsettling story with an emotional aspect tied to generational trauma. I loved the inclusion of Judaism and it was a unique aspect of a possession story. If you want to feel chills, then this is the one to read.

The audio narrator was perfection. Her various voices and pacing really brought this book to life and I for sure recommend the audio. The story itself is more of a 4.5 stars out of 5 for me, but the audio would make me consider it a 5 star. It's that good.

Haunting and creepy!

I really enjoyed this suspenseful and dark tale of Tamar, whose complicated relationship with her mother is brought to a head when her mother shows up alarmingly in the middle of the night, having wandered out of her retirement home miles away and shown up standing over Tamar's bed inside her house when she didn't even know (Tamar thinks) where Tamar lived. We learn that Tamar may have grown up in a haunted house. And that her mother has dementia. Or is it something even more sinister than that? This book will be fun and frightful for anyone who has ever suspected one of their relatives is a demon (and really, haven't we all?). Very well-narrated and the kind of book you look forward to returning to all day when you are otherwise occupied. I also loved the way it focused on Judaism, which gave the story a cool historical and cultural backdrop and provided a neat twist on the haunting/possession theme. I would compare this to Sara Gran's Come Closer, which is one of my other favorite books in the horror-suspense genre. Very good sense of creepy dread throughout until the high octane conclusion. I would love to read more by this author!

I received an ARC of this audiobook via Netgalley but all opinions are my own. This book really drug on for me until the last 20% of so. Then all of a sudden the author hit the gas and I was super engaged. If the pace was adjusted throughout the book I think it would be a lot more enjoyable.

I don’t know if I would consider this book horror in terms of scariness. It really wasn’t scary, but was more so lots of gross out moments.

The narrator did a fine job; no complaints.