Alfie and his twin daughters are the family now. His wife has died. He is awakened by his twins who tell him that there is a man in their bedroom. He gets up and checks out the bedroom to find that there is no man in the bedroom. He thinks his daughters had a nightmare. However, it continues to the point that the twins set a place for him to eat with them. They also whisper to him. They tell their father that has told them that he is going to take them away. Alfie calls his wife’s sister Julia who is also a psychiatrist. He hopes she can get the twins to give up this imaginary man. Alfie will have to confront his own shameful secrets, the dark past of Hart House, and even the bounds of reality—or risk taking part in an unspeakable tragedy.

The author wrote an excellent creepy horror and suspenseful novel .I thought the family dynamics were fascinating. There are secrets in their mother’s family background. It’s a the author does an excellent job composing the essential elements in a narrative. There are unexpected twists and turns. Both Alfie and Julia’s secrets and sordid pasts flow into the narrative shaping the characters in the novel. It’s excellent for a first novel.

“𝑫𝒂𝒅𝒅𝒚, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆’𝒔 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎.”⁣
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Rating: 2.5/5 ⭐️⭐️💫⁣
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Creepy AF premise, and I thoroughly felt creeped out the first couple chapters. But after a while I started assuming someone had a mental illness brought on by grief, this continued until the last few chapters when more was revealed. Not enough to give a conclusion or clear understanding of what the heck was happening though. For that this is rated lower, otherwise it would have been 3 stars.⁣
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Thank you @netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

One night Alfie wakes up to his twin daughters standing at the end of his bed. They tell him there is a man in their room. Alfie searches the room and when he can't find anyone, he deems it a nightmare and gets them back to bed. The girls recently lost their mother so it's no surprise they would be having nightmares. When the twins can't stop talking about this figure, who they now call Black Mamba, their aunt Julia finally steps in to help. Julia is a physiatrist and tells Alfie this is completely normal. But is it? Cause weird things are happening and what once made sense no longer does.

But now Black Mamba is taking over their lives and making the girls act in ways they never have before. Alfie has had enough and tries to get rid of him while also struggling with reality. Is this a figment of their imagination or is something more sinister going on?

This was full on psychological suspense and I loved how uneasy it made me feel. The twins were excellent and came across exactly how creepy kids in horror movies do. I can't say I was a fan of Alfie or Julia, I wish there was a little more to their personalities. Throw in some religious cult background noise and you have a thriller making you question what is real and what isn't. While I loved the suspense and the twins, I felt there wasn't enough story here. It could have been longer with more info on the religious cult aspect.

5 star ending though!! I will absolutely be on the lookout for more from this author.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Let Him In was a chilling story about Hart House where a dad, Alfie, lives with his two twin daughters, Cassia and Sylvie. His wife, Pippa, had passed away years ago and now her twin Julia, the girl’s aunt, comes and stays with the family when the girls start seeing a man in their bedroom. Julia is a psychologist and is trying to help the girls and Alfie as this imaginary friend, they call Black Mamba, starts to take over their life.
The story was captivating at times but also a little slow. There were also some elements that were a little confusing. It kinda had a gothic, cult-ish vibe as well that is not usually something I gravitate towards.
Overall, I would still recommend the read if you are into spooky, but not overly scary, stories with ambiguous endings. I know some people like stories where they have to draw their own conclusion but I personally like my stories to have an obvious ending. In this case I do think it would make a good book club book.

A house with a scary history, a sinister imaginary friend and too many sets of twins. This book was slow and repetitive. I considered abandoning it, but I kept reading to see if it would take an interesting turn, but it didn’t. I also thought that the widower seemed to get over his grief in a particularly tacky way. This wasn’t for me. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

For a debit novel this is an amazing twist of creepy, suspenseful and down right gut wrenching!!
Twin girls Cassia and Sylvie have lost their mother and they are greiving. Their father is trying his best to look after them while struggling himself. His sister in law Julia is a psychiatrist and is called to assess them after Alfie their father is told by the girls that they are seeing a strange man who transforms into different things, snake, teddy bear, fish and takes them out of the window at night and wants to stay with them. As the house has rumours of being evil, could this be the demon that their granny is always praying against, to stop them trying to hurt the girls or Alfie?.
This is perfect for a Halloween night!!.
Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for the chance to read this arc copy of the book via Netgalley.
#Netgalley, #poisonedpenpress, #williamfriend.

This book was WILD. A literary slow burn horror, this novel was a compelling read. Centering the story of Alfie, his twin daughters, and their aunt Julia, this story takes the reader on a creeping journey through grief that spawns monsters. The way the author took the imagination of children, psychological data, and grief and twined them into a story told by two unreliable narrators was inspired.

I really enjoyed this one.

Thank you, Netgalley and the publisher, for an early copy of this story. Opinions are my own.

A father and his girls live in the repurposed church that was sold to them by his deceased wife’s family before her death.
The children began seeing a snake that they refer to as Black Mambo. Over time they begin to insist the snake is real.
The deceased woman’s sister becomes involved when the children start hurting one another.
Ultimately…it comes down to the question of is Black Mambo real or imaginary. Is the church haunted.?
Okay book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunities to read this ARC.

I'm not sure how I felt about this one. On one hand, it was interesting and creepy. On the other, I felt like it could have been better. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm all in for creepy imaginary friends, but this went some weird directions that I felt either came out of left field or just wasn't entirely fleshed out to make it feel more cohesive.

There were more than a few things that were left open to interpretation, which could have been intentional, but I felt almost detracted from the story because of the direction the story took.

Maybe another 25 pages would have made room to expand a few of these parts and made me really love it. It's one of those books you'll either love or it will leave you questioning.

Let Him In is an impressive debut. William Friend’s writing speaks for itself; it’s creeping, laced with deliciously gothic imagery. Incongruous though it seems, the prose imbues our setting - Hart House - with a sense of both claustrophobia and cavernousness; its size, its history, come together to make our characters (and by extension, us) feel suffocated. Trapped.

However, as a debut, it is not without its issues. While Hart House itself is basically a character in its own right, and the adults in the story - particularly our dual narrators, Alfie and Julia - were well fleshed out, the twins felt flimsy to me. With so much of the plot hinging on their personalities, it would have made sense to spend more time properly establishing them.

Let Him In was at its strongest when it allowed its haunting atmosphere to speak for itself, rather than trying to explain away the horror. For the most part, it explores concepts with a broad brush, allowing their complexities - of religion, of family, of various relationship dynamics - to speak for themselves, rather than making any specific declarations. I felt like this approach was even more chilling, and made for a singular experience.

In the end, the narrative veered toward a more tangible explanation which didn’t quite work for me, though I’m sure some readers will appreciate the solidity of its conclusion. For the atmosphere alone, though, I’d happily pick up another Friend novel.

This debut novel gave me the chilled creeps from the first few pages all the way through the ending. You know that feeling when you’re reading at night and you don’t even want to take your eyes off the page because the stillness and dark rooms are just too ominous? I mean, children with cold blank glances? The simple bone chilling description of a man in their room at any time of the day? The possible descent of family member(s) into madness? A lot of grief is unpacked throughout the story. This book really packed in the creepiness and is a fabulous fall read if you’re looking for something in the spooky season. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give this a chance but I’m glad I did.
Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The premise of the story is intriguing. Somehow it just didn’t turn out to be the creepy story I expected. There are good parts but overall I was bored through a lot of it. I wish I had enjoyed it more. And the end was just confusing to me.

OK. So that was sufficiently creepy for the beginning of October. At times the story moved a little slowly and it wasn’t really in a tension building way. Some parts were even a little cringy, but no spoilers! Overall, this was just the right amount of creepy for an ease into the scary season. No blood and gore. Just old fashioned scares.

This is an exciting, spooky novel that I have been interested in reading since I read about it earlier this spring, so I am grateful for having the opportunity to read it through an Advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion!

I want to start by saying its a slower paced novel. The slower pace allowed me to make connections of the mystery, put together pieces of the story, and come up with my own theories about what's happening, something I really enjoy. Once I started learning about the history of the house, the history of every death in the family, the history of Black Mamba, I knew I would be hooked.

Black Mamba controls the family like a master puppeteer, and through the perspectives of a grieving husband and the sister in law who took a step back from the family, we learn about this "imaginary friend" that twin girls are obsessed with known as Black Mamba. This eerie tale had me hunched over my kindle until the very end.
I personally loved the ending of the book. It was a happy, not happy ever after.

Grief is incredibly complex, incredibly difficult to articulate. I feel as though William Friend was able to capture how grief can affect not only Alfie, but also the girls, the remaining twin sister Julia, and the grandmother. Grief affects everyone differently, and he was able to capture it with those characters.

I am also a fan of haunted house horror, so the more I learned about the cellar, the more excited I became. I truly think the house is what brough Black Mamba alive. I wonder if there will be a second book, that one going through the next generation, or even a prequel that goes over the death of the grandfather..

Let Him in was a really fast and engaging read that delivered well on creepy vibes and kept me curious throughout. The writing style manages to give so much and yet never feel slow or too detailed. Definitely a great spooky October read.

Note: arc provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for honest review

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of "Let Him In", by William Friend. I found this story to be creepy and intriguing all mixed into a haunted house wtih children at the center of the story. I found it to be a quick read yet very vivid it the writing style. A great October spooky-vibes read.

I know it’s shocking that I chose another gothic psychological thriller. This book was interesting and I desperately wanted to know why the strange behaviors and occurrences were happening. It was a quick and interesting read. Some was slightly predictable but that should not stop you from reading it. The book was released on 10/3. Thanks to netgalley and poisoned pen press for the copy.

As I was reading Let Him In, I kept thinking, what exactly is this book, what am I reading. I was so confused for much of it
....but you know what? That made it all the more terrifying and unputdownable! I read through this one so quickly.

Is something supernatural happening here, or is it something purely psychological? Are the kids' dad, Alfie, and the kids' aunt, Julia unreliable narrators? Who can you believe, what can you believe, and what is happening in this house. These were all the questions I was asking myself.

Let Him In left me guessing right until the very end. This was such a complex novel about a family coping with the death of a wife, mother, daughter, and sister under such odd and mysterious circumstances.

And that is all I'm going to say - this one is best going into it knowing very little about it.

I'd definitely recommend Let Him In if you like stories that are unpredictable and that leave you guessing at what is reality at every page.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

I went back and forth on whether to give this one three or four stars. I settled on four because even though it wasn’t what I expected, I did enjoy it quite a bit. I thought this was going to be a creepy house with a mind of its own kind of haunted house story, maybe along the lines of House of Leaves. It seemed like it was going to be that for a good portion of the book… however, I think it was less that and more psychological, but I wouldn’t call it a psychological thriller. It was more an exploration of the mental effects of grief among members of a family and losing someone in the family too soon, but among multiple generations. It was suspenseful in that I wasn’t sure quite where it was going but at the same time it was a slow burn. I would recommend it if that description makes sense and appeals to you.

This was like nothing I have ever read before. You won’t regret reading it! Thank you #NetGalley for the opportunity!