Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this classic Gothic horror story about a haunted house passed down by generations to the Wakefield family. It reminded me a lot of the Netflix series Haunting of Hill House. It was creepy and perfect reading for a rainy afternoon. The writing was a little much for me at first - it was so flowery and old-fashioned that I thought when I started reading it was set in a different time period - but I got used to it quickly. Don’t read this if you’re looking for a happy or uplifting ending!

This has a great mix of creepy atmosphere, ghost stories, and the impending doom of motherhood. I especially enjoyed the relationship between the sisters. I would suggest this book to my students who enjoy ghost stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC of It Will Just Be Us by Jo Kaplan. I love Gothic novels and this is one of the best!

Sam moves back home to live with her mother, Agnes, after being mugged at gunpoint. Home is a creepy mansion, full of ghosts, spirits and memories. She begins seeing a mysterious faceless boy, who is full of disturbing mischief when her pregnant sister, Elizabeth, returns home as well. Her husband, Donovan, has been violent with her and she must leave to protect her unborn child. Who is this boy and why is he so violent? How is he connected to the one locked room in the mansion? Sam must unravel the mystery before it is too late.

Wow. This book blew me away! I am a huge fan of Gothic literature and It Will Just Be Us should be considered among the classics. It was that good! It reminds me of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The biggest character in this story is the house, as typical in great gothic horror. It has a hold on the characters, preventing them from leaving by physically making them ill. The setting is creepy and unsettling and haunts this story in all of its swampy imagery. Kaplan expertly weaves between the present story and the tale of the past. And that ending! I cannot recommend this book more to fans of the Gothic genre.

5/5 stars

I'm a sucker for a ghost story, and sometimes they're good, while other times, not as much. I thoroughly enjoyed this. The "creep factor" was strong (loved the atmospheric tension), I remained interested, and it was just genuinely spooky.

I felt at times that it was a bit drawn out, but the positives outweighed the negatives here and it was great entertainment while stuck in the house!

It Will Be Just Us is the story of Samantha Wakefield, a young woman who returns to her childhood home after being violently mugged. The house is a crumbling mansion on the edge of a Virginia swamp currently occupied by her constantly imbibing mother who shares the space with the ghosts of generations of Wakefields. Sam has always had the gift to see the ghosts who haunt the house and surrounding swampland playing out memories of the past as if no time has elapsed.

When Sam’s sister Elizabeth returns home very pregnant seeking solace after having left her husband, the energy of the house begins to shift, and Sam is haunted by a new figure wandering the halls- one that she believes is a malevolent manifestation of the future and not from the past.

Locked doors, impossible spaces, and a swamp witch all contribute to the dizzying fever pitch of this well written novel. Kaplan elevates the haunted house genre and gives readers a perfectly creepy family drama that had me hooked from the opening pages and that horror fans will really enjoy. This is a book that needs to be read with the lights on!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review - thank you NetGalley.

I enjoyed this book a lot.
It did have a very unique take on a classic ''haunted house'' story, and it was intriguing and interesting pretty much from the beginning. I do wish the book had been scarier and I must admit that it was a bit predictable.
But in the end, the book was a good read, and especially the ending was hard to put down.
It is recommendable for anyone looking for a original horror book.
I would give the book a big 3½ star, but since it isn't possible, I will go with 4.

You've got your shape-shifting house, crazy dead relatives, dead ghosts, live ghosts, future ghosts, ex-slave ghosts and a swamp witch — you get a ghost and you get a ghost and, well, it’s tiresome. Silly, confusing layers of interacting time periods, an unreliable narrator, a distracting backstory — disappointing.

Solid four star read. Great atmospheric ghost story with a slow and building sense of dread.

When I started the book I felt the narrator was a little too formal, and the story a bit too gothic for my tastes. I love Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson, but usually when contemporary authors try to match their tone it falls flat for me (with a few exceptions, like John Saul). I am also not much into historical or period piece ghost stories.

This book, though, has its own authentic voice and a great premise: a faceless “ghost” of a child who has not yet been born. Though it started somewhat slow and formal, I came to really like the narrator and could really visualize the house. Stick with it until part three, when things really get cracking. Though well written and very scary, it got a little busy with ghosts and history and ancestral drama for me, but if that’s your thing, this author writes it really well.

I could not figure out how this novel could possibly end - if you know for certain an evil child is about to come into the world, what would you do? The ending is not something you will predict, but it is great.

Thanks to NetGalley, Jo Kaplan and Crooked Lane Books for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Completely out of my realm by reading a horror story, this novel captivated me and had me sh*ting my pants as I continued to read! If you like the series on Netflix "the Haunting of Hill House" this is definitely the book for you. Creatively written, keeping you guessing and terrified, all the while the writing style was magnificent in describing each scene, event and disturbing detail. Well done and thank you for never letting me close the lights at night anymore! haha

Thanks NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a pretty good read, focused on Sam(antha), who has moved back to her childhood home, a crumbling mansion in rural Virginia. Her pregnant sister, Elizabeth, shows up after a fight with her husband, drawing even more ghosts into Sam's world than she already knew. This is a true ghost story where you do have to suspend your disbelief, but it is very well done.

On the good side, I liked the premise and the setting, and felt there was an overall creepiness throughout the story. The end was super dark, which I always appreciate. I liked the descriptions of the rooms in the mansion though I would have been happy for even more descriptive passages about what it looked like there.

On the less good side, I felt like I didn't really understand what went so bad in Elizabeth's marriage that sent her rushing back home, and it was never really described until the book made it clear that Don was a bad guy. Secondly, the prose was beautiful but sometimes didn't sound like the way people would really talk, which threw me off a bit and made it a slow read, particularly in the first third of the book.

Overall, this was a fun ghost story and I think it's worth a read for those who like this genre. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley for this arc.


⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Two sisters and their mom living in their very old ancestral mansion by the edge of a swamp and get this, there’s ghosts but unlike your typical ghost who shows up to kill you and makes your life a living hell, the ghost in this house plays memories of the past. This book is hair-raising, spine-chilling, and unpredictable. It is not your typical ghost story, the first part may be a little slow but it kept me curious and scared.

Kaplan’s new novel is a well written work of art that captures American gothic to a tee whilst she gives a nod to Shirley Jackson’s work, most notably The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived In A Castle with a bit of the Remington House thrown in for good measure.

The plot is a riveting bit of fiction that captures the mood and setting. Kaplan masterfully puts together a tale that you are not quite sure what is real and what part of the narrator’s imagination is. At times, the mystery involved sometimes starts to take over but Kaplan knows exactly when to pull back and juggle her many plots into a cohesive history lesson without taking her fingers off the pulse. This is an incredibly hard task to pull off and Kaplan does this winningly.

The characters are all very well drawn and even though this is told in the first person. Due to the fact that the main character is very insightful, the other characters Agnes, Elizabeth and Donovan are still fully realised. This is a great deal of thought brought into each of the characters and the way that they are drawn out is very masterfully done. This is a real work of art.

Overall, this is magnificence piece of literature that by passes most horror novels out there currently. The book is excellently written and is a credit to the genre for which it belongs. Exceptional prose, fantastic character development with an ending that has a profound approach on the reader which they will be entranced until the very last word. This is a must read for people who like their gothic horror intelligent, thought provoking and haunting. This is a sure fire winner.

Spooky and nail biting. This story stayed with me long after I finished reading it.
Many thanks to Crooked Lane Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

So....I really ended up liking this book, but it was one that REALLY ebbed and flowed... It would pick up and be very suspenseful and exciting, and then just as quickly peter out and kind of drag along. It was not so severe, however, that it ever put me off from continuing to read. One of my favorite things about this book is that the author has such a beautiful way with words. The word that popped into my mind often was "prose", which just somehow sounds more eloquent than "writing" or "style", in this sense. I don't usually read stories about ghosts, witches, haunted houses, domestic violence, or any of those sort of things, but I was glad I requested this book. (And even happier that I truly enjoyed it!!) The whole Winchester-type house on the edge of a swamp setting was intriguing from the beginning, and I liked that the main characters were all AWARE that the house was haunted, instead of having them spend half the book wondering if their eyes and mind were betraying them. It's just a very DIFFERENT story, but one that I enjoyed immensely. I will look for future titles by Jo Kaplan. 10/10 would recommend.

If you want goosebumps and nightmares then this is the book to pick up. Unable to put it down you’ll go through the past of a family and discover what may lie in their future as one member fights to discover how to change what may come to happen. Creepy and frightening this book covers it all.

"It Will Just Be Us" was the perfect atmospheric story of a haunted house (and what a haunted house it was!). Reminiscent of both Michelle Paver (in general; and "Wakenhyrst" in particular) and Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in the Castle", Jo Kaplan takes us to the ancestral home of the Wakefields, at the edge of the Dismal Swamp.

Built by Mad Catherine many generations ago, the manor has seen more than its fair share of miseries and horrors. And it remembers them all.
Sam Wakefield and her mother, Agnes, the currently only living residents of the manor, share their home with memories of past inhabitants, some pleasant and some less so...
Over time you can grow used to even the once most upsetting visions of past recollections, as Sam and Agnes have.
But when Sam's heavily pregnant sister, Elizabeth, returns to their childhood home, darker and much more frightening things start to walk down the seemingly constantly changing halls of the Wakefield estate.
Memories that Sam has never come across before, memories that seem to... see her... want to hurt her... be able to hurt her.

Jo Kaplan has a captivating way of telling a story, and her voice is absolutely perfect for a ghost story.

I'm giving this one 3 stars. Dont be put off though. I thought the story was actualy really good. What I struggled with was, I personally found it to go.up and down. I almost gave up on it. Then it started getting really good.....then i found it went flat again. I felt like that throughout the whole story. I've seen it has some very good reviews though. So I hope on one is put off by mine.

4-5 chilling, scary stars! This book was very well written and developed in a way that actually brought on some real scares! I literally had chills at parts of the book, and loved that it mixed a few genres and seemed to come up with a tantalizing read! It’s definitely full of chills, scares, thrills, and shocks! Highly recommend to those who love a greatly written scary story, with a edge of mystery in the mix!
Will make sure to buzz it up on all the different platforms!

Sam's childhood home isn't your lovely, sunlight filled house most people grow up in. On the contrary, it's a decaying mansion built on the edge of a swamp. Not only that, but it was also build by one of her mad ancestors, who became obsessed with the grandness of her future home. Sam lives with her hermit mother, who refuses to leave her home. When her pregnant sister gets into a fight with her husband, she also moves back in. The oddest thing about their ancestral home is that memories from past times keep replaying themselves. Up until now, these so called echoes have been harmless and merely stories that played themselves out. Suddenly though, Sam keeps encountering a faceless boy, whom she is convinced means to do harm to both her and her loved ones.

I'm going to start by saying that I love this book. The story is amazing, and is like a fresh breath of air into the modern Gothic fiction genre. I have always been in love with creepy old mansion in stories. As an avid horror lover this book still managed to give me chills. It's truly creepy and eerie. Even though this story plays out in our modern times, it felt more of an "old" book. There was hardly any evidence of modern things, which I truly appreciate.

I do think that the book could've been a bit shorter and was just a tad bit dragged out. The author surely has a way with words, and some things were described in an exaggerated manner. I'm not saying that that is necessarily a bad thing. Just something I observed throughout the novel. Otherwise I really loved it.

4 out of 5 stars!

Thank you for the ARC Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books.

DNF, sorry this was just not my type of read, I prefer more mystery over a haunted house. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!