Unfortunately this missed the mark for me. I did have some suspense built up, and I was eager to see where the story was headed. The ending though just fell flat. The first 50% was good, the rest was boring.

Short and sweet. It got to the point quickly and had me hooked. I was not wanting it to end. I did appreciate the epilogue.

April 1, 2025 The Sublet by Greer Hendricks 4 Stars
Book: The Sublet
Author: Greer Hendricks
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Pub Date: April 1, 2025
My Rating: 3.5 Stars

Melody Wells is obsessed with all things lavender. In fact, Melody has women everywhere almost as obsessed as she is by subscribing to her B-Well supplicants “Lavender Serenity” which she sells at her visualization workshops. “Lavender Magic is her mantra – let lavender magic carry you away.
Next step for Melody is a book. She, of course, needs assistance in writing it; so she hires Anne, a Ghostwriter, who is also an author working on her own book. Anne and her husband Paul along with their with nine year old twins Ben and Beatrice living in a crowded Manhattan apartment, Anne is looking for a larger apartment but knows she can get the job done for Melody even in these crowded conditions..

However Melody gives Anne a lead on a beautiful sublet. Anne and Paul are impressed with spectacular view including the East River as well as three bedrooms. The Apartment is 14E. When they enter the elevator they notice the floors go 12 then 14 – in other words the apartment is on the 13th floor.
The price is right so they take it. As they settle in and meet neighbors. Anne finds things are not exactly the way Melody described. It seems the woman who lived there drowned. There are other thing as well which leads us to believe the apartment is haunted or the very least is evil!


Since I like dark and creepy, This was a fun super-fast read

I enjoyed the four stories written with coauthor Sarah Kekkonen, [book: The Wife Between Us, An Anonymous Girl, You are Not Alone, and The Golden Couple.]
So knew this short story was a must read for me!

Want to thank NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories granted me this short read.
Publishing Release Date was April 1, 2025.

Since her writing partner Sarah Pekkanen has been penning solo novels, I was eager to still read something by Greer Hendricks. If all I get is a short story, that’s fine because I love the quality of her writing. “The Sublet” is another of the gems that Amazon Original Stories excels in allowing larger audiences to experience terrific well known genre authors. “The Sublet” is part mystery, part ghost story, part horror story — I’ll bet other reviews mention that “the ghostwriter has ghosts.” It’s more complicated than that.

Anne is a bit stressed out — she’s a ghostwriter assisting a wellness author, Melody, to finish her book about “Lavender Serenity.” She’s also the mom to busy twins in a cramped apartment when Melody gives her a lead on Manhattan sublet at a great price with 3 bedrooms. But the move has some bumps in the night — their cat is totally freaked out, six-toed lion-like scratches are on the wallpaper, the neighbor says the previous young occupant died instead of moving to Palm Beach, there’s a weird closet, and Anne, totally immersed in Melody’s preachings and supplements, is channeling more Melody than recommended.

It’s a compact story that will still give us full-length novel vibes. I truly enjoyed it. 4 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES But it’s a cat.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO The sublet has manicured landscaping.

Thank you to Amazon Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

I was pretty excited for this one when I recognised the author, but I think for me with short stories it’s hard for me to enjoy them as much as I’d like because of the inability to express information in such a short book, or the fact that they feel rushed due to the fact there’s a limit.

What I will say though, is that even if I would have enjoyed a more fleshed out story, that I love this authors writing style and if you are a fan of short stories, I think you’ll love this one. Highly recommend if you’re searching for something super quick and easy to read with a bit of a shock whodunnit vibe.

Thank you to NetGalley for the review copy of this book!

A great short story by suspense writer Greer Hendricks that sucked me right in all the way through. I’m sorry here is no way to buy it for our library.

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

This is a short story about a ghostwriter and the famous client that she has. Things quickly unfold and get weird.

I thought this one was just ok. It was a quick read and i did find it interesting. I liked the themes and the idea of being perfect.

However, I do feel like everything needed to be explained more. The ending seemed abrupt and i wasn’t satisfied with it.

I think this one had potential but it didn’t work for me.

A short story that is quick and fast paced! I enjoyed it and would’ve read more! It’s about a couple that rents an apartment and the weird things that happen. It jumps right in and gets to the point. It wrapped up quickly and I would’ve loved to read more and see what happens to the villain of the book.

3.25 ⭐️

The Sublet is a short story about Anne, a ghostwriter who is ghost writing a book for a fitness/lifestyle influencer, Melody. Their relationship is interesting and through it, Anne finds a new, bigger apartment for her family and starts taking Melody’s new line of supplements. As the story progresses, Anne discovers many strange details about her apartment and the previous residents and begins to become suspicious about many things in her life. I thought that there were many good and interesting parts of this story, and other parts that felt more abrupt and lacking in detail to fully tie in to the end. I also felt that the end could have used more build up. Overall it was good, but not as good as the authors other books. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC in return for my honest review.

“The Sublet” is a shorty story by Greer Hendricks. I liked the pairing of a ghostwriter with a “flash in the pan, strike while the iron is hot” influencer to be an interesting one. I thought that the book was going in one direction, when it seemed to flip to a different one - which was pretty enjoyable. I think that this book needed a bit more time to build up to the conclusion - and the ending felt a lot abrupt. Overall, an interesting idea and interestingly executed over the majority of the book - I just wish it had been about 50-75 pages longer for a smoother ending.

Anne, a married mother of twins and aspiring novelist is offered a position with Melody. Melody teaches empowerment at serenity at her motivation workshops. The job comes at a high price, but is it a price she's willing to pay? I like it but didn't love it.

Didn't love or hate this one. It is hard to fully develop characters in a short story, but they ultimately fell a bit flat for me.

I was intrigued by the premise. It was a quick read, perfect palate cleanser between longer books.

2.2 "drink your lavender tea and chant ...a missed opportunity..a missed oppurt..." stars !!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Amazon Original Stories for providing an ecopy. This was released today April 1, 2025. I am providing an honest review.

There was a lot of very good potential here with a tale that could have been wicked and deliciously dark. The prose is half decent chick lit style but enjoyable.

There is way too much here for a short story and the last third becomes a whirlwind of lazy cheap nonsense...

Could have been very good to excellent thriller but instead was just a quick dollar for the author.....aw shucks ....

I love Greer Hendricks collaborations with Sarah Pekkanen like the wife between us but this really did not do it for me. I read a lot of short stories in between novels and this one was just lacking anything. It was like a non story.

For me, it's so hard to rate short stories usually. They are typically not enough time to really get to know characters, care about them or their problems, root for them to be successful, etc. But this one was well-written and I ended up loving it. Superbly creepy scenes in the apartment and I loooved reading Melody's character. This one had wonderful twists!

Plus that cover is SO beautiful!

Would definitely recommend!

i know novellas are meant to be short, but this one seemed to have a rushed ending. i still enjoyed it, but could’ve used a little more suspense at the end.

Rating: 3.5/5

As I have said on more than one occasion, I am a great admirer of any author who can successfully tackle the short story format. Delivering a properly rounded story with fleshed out characters in so few pages requires a certain skill. Many try and fail, but Greer Hendricks has certainly shown that she is up to the task.

Ghostwriter, Anne, has picked up a challenging but potentially rewarding job penning the book of wellness guru, Melody Wells. Better still, Melody also gives Anne the heads-up on an opportunity to sublet an appealing apartment - but things are not all that they seem.

A well-constructed and entertaining short story that provides about an hour's worth of engaging reading.

Anne is a ghostwriter, married and mother of 9 year old twins. They live in a cramped Manhattan apartment because money is tight. She ends up ghostwriting for Melody Wells, a celebrity nutritionist/self care guru. She has meditation classes, supplements, powders, drinks, etc. She uses the color lavender as part of her theme and technique. Melody gets a bedroom sublet in Manhattan that’s affordable for Anne and her family. The apartment is too good to be true but there is discrepancies about its history especially about the last tenant and her death.

This story was only 49 pages. There was nothing exciting or suspenseful about this story. It was anticlimactic and boring.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

Greer Hendricks has done it again! The Sublet combines page-turning suspense, a touch of humor and brilliantly drawn characters in a story that keeps turning up the tension. One of Hendricks (many) talents is her ability to take fully relatable people and show how - one step at a time - they end up in ever-escalating circumstances. In The Sublet, an over-taxed mother, a wellness guru and our desire to 'be better' collide in an increasingly tense yarn. The twisty plot will keep readers guessing right up until the end!