First, thank you to the publishers at Macmillan-Tor/Forge and Netgalley for this e-ARC of The Last House on Needless Street.

I have no words for this amazing story. Just, wow. Absolutely incredible! What you believe is one story just warps into something completely different and unimaginable. Full of psychological drama and twists and turns, this will surely be one of fall’s most unputdownable reads!

Told from the perspective of many different characters, The Last House on Needless Street mainly revolves around Ted, a sheltered man in his late twenties/early thirties. The long ago suspect in the case of a missing girl, Ted still lives in fear of others, living in the house at the end of the street with boarded up windows and constant weariness of strangers. What or who is Ted hiding in his house?

Dee, the older sister of the missing girl, Lulu, ends up moving to the area after all these years, and is determined to find her sister and exact revenge on her kidnapper and/or killer. As I said earlier though, the book is nothing like what it seems. It’s even scarier than you might have originally have imagined.

I highly, highly recommend picking up a copy of The Last House on Needless Street, releasing September 28, just in time for a spooky Halloween read!

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley.

I was on the edge of my seat for the duration of this novel. It reads breathlessly and urges you onward with its dark hints and secrets. The leads provided would pull you in different directions that cause one’s brain to run the gamut of speculation. It sometimes caused a bit of confusion, but the writing always reassured that soon, you would understand. And it delivered.

The story is told from the perspectives of Ted (our main character), Lauren (Ted’s daughter), Olivia (a cat), Night-Olivia (another cat), and Dee (a grieving woman looking for her lost sister). Ted is an introvert who loves to spend time with his cat and his daughter, but always (and strangely) separately. We learn about Ted’s terrifying relationship with his mother and how her coldness affected him growing up. Dee is a girl who lost her sister when she was very little and has been spending her life trying to locate her kidnapper. Their lives intertwine like a cat’s tail around your legs and you cannot help but feel for every single character.

I was very impressed by Catriona Ward’s ability to convey such empathetic characters. They were touching, relatable, and unreliable. I was so intrigued by the character of Ted’s mother that I would love to see a whole book dedicated to her history alone. The dive into Ted’s mental state where he is losing time and seeing the world in a different way, was fantastically drawn up. The Afterword section was very welcome and only further proved that there was much research and heart put into creating the characters in this book.

I absolutely recommend this to anyone who enjoys psychological horror, true crime, and drama.

This book nabbed my attention from the first page. And just when I thought I had a bead on what was going on, it changed again. Wow! Loved it. I won't give away any spoilers, but if you love true crime or fiction about serial killers, you have to read this book.

Wow...

This book...

Okay, let me start by saying I'd seen this book all over Twitter and Instagram. I didn't really know what to expect other than it was a popular book being read by a lot of reviewers, so it must be engaging. What I got was so much more. Ward is putting on a clinic for writers. The writing, the plot, the characters, the twist...Holy guacamole the twists!! It's a dark book with really intense topics, and every time I assumed I knew what was happening, I was proven wrong. It's a book the explores mental illness.

It sticks with you.

Honestly, it wasn't at all what I was expecting, and that's always a pleasant surprise. If you like unsettling horror, this is for you!

Wow! What a ride! Every time you think you know, here comes another surprise! Well written, well researched, and unputdownable!

This is the best book I have read in quite a while! The writing is superb, the story is unique, & the twists & turns are unforgettable.

Well I didn't expect that. A fascinating story, woven together in a truly unique way. The trauma and horror lives in the edges, sort of like the peepholes of light. Actually the horror of the book lives in the truth, that this sort of abuse and terror exists and monsters are real.

Quality of Writing: 8/10
Pace: 7/10
Plot Development: 10/10
Characters: 9/10
Enjoyability: 9/10
Insightfulness: 10/10
Ease of Reading: 7/10
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’d like to thank Netgalley for the advanced reader copy of this book.
This book was not what I expected it to be. I thought I was walking into some kind of creepy murder mystery thing, but that’s not even close to what I got. I got something so much better.
The characters in this book are very rich. The only one I had a real issue with was Olivia, the cat who reads the Bible. She’s a good character, but I was always confused as to how she fit into the story. Why was she necessary? Now, if you stick it out, you understand everything in the end, but for the first half of the book, I almost gave up; it was so confusing.
The writing is very well woven and complex. I’m impressed with the author’s ability. There is a lot of confusion in the beginning, but I decided by the end that that was warranted in the book.
Nothing is what you expect in this book. I didn’t see most of the twists coming, whatever ah thought it was at the beginning, it wasn’t that at the end. Thank you Ward for taking me on such a journey with your characters.

I stopped reading about a hundred pages in. One of the big twists felt painfully obvious to me, and unfortunately I wasn't compelled to carry on to prove myself right.

The Last House on Needless Street was wonderfully written, delightfully complex and so very horrifying! I consider myself to be a rather jaded, experienced reader, yet with this book I found myself at a loss as to what was going on throughout most of the book, which only added to the suspense/creep factor. I loved it! This is the book that I will be recommending to folks looking for a read that will keep them up at night. A great read and many thanks to netgalley and the publisher for letting me read and advanced copy.

Gosh, I feel completely stunned after reading The Last House on Needless Street. It might have been the first time reading a horror/psychological thriller where I didn't know where to place my loyalties. The characters in this novel were all so deep, incredibly sad and easy to care for.

Broken. This novel falls into you in broken, jagged pieces. You'll scramble to try and fit the them back together, to figure out this great puzzle and have answers. . . you'll be wrong. Some pieces are all wrong and from a different puzzle all together.

This story was meant to be told by Ted, Dee and Olivia and to truly understand you'll need to hear it exactly as they remember it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan for the eARC.

I don't know really what to say about this book because I don't want to give anything away. As others have written, it is probably best to go into this cold and just let the story unfold. If you like psychological thrillers or spooky mysteries then I suggest you give this book a try. I think this is a book that one will either really like (see all the great reviews) or find it just okay. I fall into the latter category, but that it mostly because I am not a fan of this kind of writing or genre. For me this book was just okay and it was a grind to get through it and I can't say it was worth the effort. It was enjoyable and different enough, but I felt I kind of wasted my time reading this book. It is a quick read though.

An intriguing plot with interesting voices which kept me turning pages. Interesting twists with a satisfying conclusion.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward is an intense psychological thriller. Love the unreliable narrator trope coupled with flashbacks a la Gone Girl? Then strap in for this roller coaster ride!

Ted is a weird guy living in a dilapidated house with his daughter and Bible reading cat. Dee Dee’s sister went missing at a nearby lake, years earlier. Dee Dee thinks Ted had something to do with Lulu’s disappearance despite him having an alibi. She moves into the house next door to do a little investigating.

Catriona Ward skillfully gives each character their own, incredibly realized voice and point of view. Each secret revealed leads to more questions in this intricately woven story.

The tension slowly but unrelentingly heightens and the overall feel of creepy house unease leads to truly horrifying moments as Ted and Dee Dee’s stories intertwined.

I loved every horrifying moment of dread-soaked writing!

Well written with good character development but very predictable to me. I just couldn’t get into it. Is the girl a girl or a cat? Are we really listening to a POV from a cat the entire story? I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The summary for this book does not offer spoilers, and I won’t either. The writing style for this book is truly unique. I found myself drawn in to the thoughts of the characters, even though their thoughts were not necessarily pleasant. But from the very first sentence of the book, I was hooked. We are taken on a meandering journey through the day-to-day lives of characters impacted, in one way or another, by the disappearance of ‘Little Girl With Popsicle.’ The story is intriguing, and the journey to the outcome is different than any I’ve taken before. The way the author spins the tale is magical and engaging, not to mention violent, scary, and disturbing at points.

The only very minor criticism is that I would have been happy for the story to end earlier than it did. The closing chapters were interesting, but in my opinion did not contribute to the overall arc of the story. But I can see why the author is compelled to include those chapters.

A copy of ‘The Last House on Needless Street was provided to me by Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire /Net Galley for an honest review.

Where to start? This is a horror story narrated by an unusual cast of characters. A few of which are a creepy guy in a creepy house, a woman hoping to solve her sister’s disappearance, and a Bible reading cat. There’s not much else to be said without getting into spoilers, but this was a roller coaster of a novel that kept me wondering and engaged till the last page.

Good god. Another King endorsed novel that just took my time away and gave me nothing in return. No horror, zero suspense, a talking religious cat who reads a bible, a seriously disturbed person, and another yes another child who acts ay too adultlike to be believed. Sorry this novel did nothing for me. Thanks for the opportunity for myself to give ‘er a whirl though, netgalley .

Come in to this book knowing next to nothing about the plot and you will be all the better for it. It took me about half the way through it to have what I thought was a firm-ish grasp on what exactly was going on, but everything I thought or suspected was completely upended shortly thereafter. Unpredictable, wonderfully written, utterly heartbreaking. I haven't had a reading experience quite like this ever!
A big thank you to NetGalley and Tor for making an early copy available!

To say that I was excited to read this book would be like saying that as a child, I was excited for Santa. It does not even begin to describe the anticipation leading up to what I could only hope would be an unforgettable Christmas morning. The Last House on Needless Street was every single one of my childhood wishes wrapped up and left for me to unwrap every page.
I first heard about this book when Stephen King recommended it, months and months ago. As I started to see more and more people talking about this book on Instagram, my desire to get my hands on a copy grew and grew. Do you know who my Secret Santa was this year? Yep, Tor Nightfire and access to a DRC!
Okay, you probably didn't need to know all that, but I wanted to convey the fact that my expectations were indeed sky high. So what is this book about then? It is the story of a man, his daughter, and a cat who live in a boarded-up house at the end of Needless Street. Or perhaps it is a story about a missing girl and the lengths her sister will go to find her. Or perhaps both sentences are true and false. What I do know is that it starts as one story and ends as another.
So vague, so intentionally vague, because I do not want to give anything away. Did it live up to all the hype? Yes, and yes, and definitely yes! I was left trying to figure out what I had just read more than once. Every page left me wanting more, and do not think for one minute that my Fitbit was pleased with me the next morning. Sorry, not sorry Fitbit!
I could not put this book down. A bad man, a good woman, an articulate cat, and a wounded girl. These are truths as well as lies. Don't even look at reviews that may or may not contain spoilers until you read this book. Then, if you are like me, you can peruse reviews and see what other people thought and felt. In case I didn't mention it, I loved this book!