Wow! What a debut novel. I loved it! This had me hooked from start to finish. I would not change a thing about this story and would definitely recommend to anybody who will listen. If you think you have this figured out, I promise you, you don't.
Sarah, a social media influencer/therapist/ best-selling author, buys Blackwood House with her husband. 40 years prior, Bill Campell brutally murdered his wife in this house, then ended his own life as well. Sarah's goal was to renovate the murder house and sell it for profit. Once they are moved into the house nothing goes as planned. Sarah starts receiving threatening notes, thinks her cat is being poisoned, thinks her neighbors are out to scare her out of the house and her clients start leaving her. Has some discovered Sarah's darkest secrets or is Blackwood House slowly making her lose her mind?
Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine for the ARC.

Would you renovate a famous murder house and document all the changes online? This is what Sarah Slade and her husband has decided to do. However, Sarah is all in, her husband, not so much. As the renovations start, odd things in the house begin. Sarah's life begins to unravel and she tries to find out what exactly happened in the house to find out how to start all the odd things.
A very disturbing book that has so many twists and turns, you will be hooked until the end.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars out of 5!

The Stranger Upstairs was a real page turner and I ended up finishing this book in 1 day! This book was filled with a lot of twists and turns and really was unpredictable. I really liked the ending of the book and it really fit with the style of the book. You know this is going to be a great story when a haunted murder house is being renovated!

Sarah and Joe are married and recently bought a haunted house to renovate, The Black Wood House. Sarah is a best selling author/ instagram star who will be documenting her renovations. She also is working as a therapist. As they start the renovation process, weird things start to happen in the house. We also find out Sarah is hiding a lot of secrets. What could go wrong? Turns out, a lot!

This is an excellent debut book for Lisa M Matlin. If you are looking for a psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of the seat this book is for you!

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Yes yes yes! This book is absolutely brilliant! I devoured it in a day.

I loved the main character, Sarah. She clearly struggled with undiagnosed mental health issues and disorders as a child leading her to think she was weird and, with the exception of her sister, have no friends. With no support, she found her own coping mechanisms, but they weren't ideal. And voila, we have a messed up adult, doing her best, that you can't help but root for, even though she exhibits toxic behavior. She's not the most reliable narrator which I also adore.

This book was unpredictable. I read a lot of thrillers and can often see "twists" coming a mile away. Everything I suspected here was wrong! I was delightfully surprised by the ending. Twice.

Also, I don't do spoilers, but the one thing I have to say is that her cat, the a-hole that he is, lives happily ever after. I cannot stomach animal abuse/ death not even in fiction and I was really nervous for Reaper a couple times. I was so thoroughly enjoying the book, but thought about quitting because I've had unpleasant images put in my head by authors before and have no interest in it. For those that share that sentiment, you can read on, Reaper is fine.

This is one of those books that draws you in and takes you for a wild ride. What a phenomenal debut. 👏

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Lisa Matlin and Bantam/Penguin Random House for the ARC.

Review to be posted closer to pub date on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Bookstagram. Already on Goodreads.

There’s a house in Australia that doesn’t want to be fixed…

Sarah Slade, former social media superstar & therapist, has recently purchased a murder house & has plans to revamp her image by posting play-by-plays of the renovations in the hopes of flipping it for an enormous profit. But real life isn’t as rosy as she’s making it seem online: the neighbors aren’t happy about the fact that Black Wood House is still standing, Sarah’s husband isn’t sleeping in the same room with her anymore, her cat keeps acting like he hears someone in the attic, someone’s dropping cryptic hints about knowing her secret past, & strange things have been happening all over the house…

This is one amazing debut! The snarky comments & well-placed swear words in the running monologue of Sarah’s thoughts (I enjoyed sharing a name with the main character) were fantastic, and the news articles spaced throughout the book foreshadowing bits & pieces of what’s to come were eerily perfect. I loved that this was set in Australia, the descriptions of all the wildlife made you feel like you were there. Definitely going to keep an eye out for this author’s next book!

Thank you to NetGalley & Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Sarah is a therapist who buys a house in a picture-perfect neighborhood. The house is known as The Black Wood House, and it contains a very ugly past. Sarah is a lifestyle blogger and she feels the mysterious house will encourage more followers. Crazy things begin to happen during construction. The house becomes a character in itself. This novel is dark and twisty and will not let you rest until you finish it!

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free ARC of this title in exchange for my review.

Overall, I was disappointed in this one. I thought it might be enjoyable, but the author didn't flesh out the characters enough and the main character was just too much. I really can't think of anything good to say, and can't think of anyone to recommend this title to.

2 stars for 'it was ok' (really should be 1 star, though.)

This book is full of twists and turns. Of course we knew there would be a good story because Sarah Slade the main character decides to renovate a murder house. She is a therapist and self-help writer who believes that she knows everything. Her life quickly becomes a mess. Is it her own doing or is the murder house hiding secrets? Read to find out you will not be disappointed.

Sarah Slade, a therapist, author and influencer, and her husband Joe have purchased Black Wood House and plan to restore it. The house was the scene of a murder many years earlier and has been abandoned since. All is not as simple as it appears and things begin deteriorating almost from the onset. Workers won’t do anything with the house because of its history. Sarah’s mental health has also deteriorated and Joe has, for all practical purposes, stepped out of the picture. Sarah also has many secrets she is protecting and hiding. She is drinking excessively and beginning to lose time. Interestingly, the author did go through a mental breakdown during the period she was writing the novel. It is a psychological thriller and a remarkably well done one. Thanks to Net Galley and Bantam for an ARC for an honest review.

Woah. This book takes you for a RIDE! You’ll feel like you’re being gaslit the whole way through. It’s intense and such a quick read!

Yes, I did like this debut, "The Stranger Upstairs", about Sarah, a pop therapist/blogger who buys a murder house, "Black Wood" to renovate with her husband & help boost her fading influencer status, but gets a bit more than she reckoned with. The MC was totally unlikeable, but I think that was the point, but the gothic creepy house setting was very well written! Recommend for the atmosphere & I appreciate that it was quick and on the shorter side. My thanks to Net Galley & the publisher for the complimentary DRC - my please to review :)

I really wanted to like The Stranger Upstairs but there was something that I just didn’t vibe with. I’m not sure if it was the writing or the characters, but this was not for me. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review.

The Stranger Upstairs is truly a psychological thriller. I was questioning the reliability of the main characters many times throughout this thriller! There were definitely parts during the middle where I started to get a little bit scared of the house myself, but I found the twists and turns to keep me engaged!

I will admit, the ending was very underwhelming. I like the psychological aspect, but I was hoping for a bang of an ending and this one made me think, “really???? This whole book just for that….” For that reason, I give this book 4 stars and I would recommend to my friends!

Thanks to Netgalley, Random House, and Lisa Matlin for this ARC!

A twisty slow burn that left me wanting a little bit more…. It was definitely hard to watch Sarah unravel and I was SO worried about the cat at pretty much all times, but there were moments when I really had to suspend disbelief (would she really act that way? Would no one really step in at that point?). However, the end was kind of a shocker, and the author did a great job getting you there with Sarah’s increasingly bizarre incidents and actions along the way.

Oh my word, this book was so fun! Lisa A. Matlin’s debut The Stranger Upstairs is a twisty, spooky thriller, showing the lengths people will go to for online attention.

Sarah Slade is a successful social media influencer, therapist and writer, with a seemingly perfect life. But as interest in Sarah starts to wane, she takes a drastic step to quench her desire for attention - she buys a murder house. What could possibly go wrong? Well, so, so much.

Sarah’s neighbors are openly hostile and secretive, her husband is evasive, and there are strange noises in the house. And then when Sarah begins to find notes containing information she thought she had buried long ago, things get very messy indeed.

The Stranger Upstairs was an absolute blast. This is Lisa A. Matlin’s debut, but she has such an immensely readable and concise style. Sarah’s voice is so clear; with the right narrator, this will be a very entertaining audiobook (my vote goes to Sarah Snook!).

There are so many twists in this story, but it always stays within the realms of “entertaining” rather than “absurd”. Matlin plants tantalizing seeds throughout; I especially loved the newspaper articles that are interspersed between chapters.

I have such high standards when it comes to thrillers; Gone Girl is the pinnacle for me. But I absolutely loved The Stranger Upstairs. It’s entertaining, funny, exciting, and easy to read. Matlin is a writer to watch!

Deliciously creepy! I loved the suspense leading up to who or what is upstairs of this house. The paranoia begins to set in along with the possibility that something is truly terrorizing her-- but what?

Really enjoyed this book. It was quick read, but it was so engaging that I really can't complain. I can't wait to tell everyone about this book and get them all to buy it.

Okay, this book was a lot better than I expected it to be! I was thinking this was going to be a normal ol’ popcorn thriller, and it kind of is, but it’s also just a plain old good novel.

This is a super quick and gripping novel from debut author, Lisa M. Matlin. I read this in one sitting and did not anticipate that at all. From page one, Matlin sets a breakneck pace that doesn’t let up.

Sarah Slade is a therapist, she’s an influencer, she’s an author, and she’s completely untrustworthy. I love a good unreliable narrator! But also, you can’t trust anyone…

Sarah buys an old mansion that has a history of a gruesome murder 40 years ago. Ever since, no one has wanted to live there and the neighbors really don’t want anyone encroaching on their space and elite status. Sarah unsteadily deals with her immoral past, creepy sounds, hidden notes only for her to see, and a graveyard in her backyard. Meanwhile, her neighbors are trying to eradicate her from the neighborhood and plot heavily against her. Interspersed throughout the book, readers are allowed glimpses into what’s to come in the form of news articles. I thought this was a great way to get the reader thinking and also to throw us off the path of figuring out the plot’s twists and turns.

This all sounds familiar like you’ve read it before right? But, Matlin puts a spin on it with astounding prose and a dashing pace that won’t let you put this book down. I was so creeped out while reading that my skin was crawling and I found myself examining the shadows in the corners of my room. I also loved the ending, and that’s what really makes a book memorable to me.

Overall, I gave this a hard 4 out of 5. I liked it, I would recommend it, and I will read more by this author. The only thing I didn’t like was that there was a part of this book that I felt could have been left out, as it’s only task was to create suspicion of one of the characters and didn’t make sense in the end.

Trigger warnings- mental health disorders and suicide.

A great thank you goes out to Lisa M. Matlin, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A great thriller! I was impressed with this debut novel by Lisa Matlin. I look forward to further books from her.

A spooky, murder house that everyone thinks is haunted is the focus of this novel. The new owners come in with the great plans of making the house a showplace again but soon find that their efforts are stalled by forces beyond their control. It is difficult to discuss any further points in the book without giving away some of the special events.

I will just say that it was an exciting, creepy ride with a very surprising ending.

As soon as I read the description for The Stranger Upstairs I was so excited to read it, “A social media influencer with a secret past buys a murder house.” I’m in! There were moments when I was reading part one late at night and was a bit creeped out. I feel beyond the initial book description it is best to go into reading this with no other information as to not risk getting any spoilers. There is a lot that happens and unfolds in part two. I definitely wasn’t expecting the outcome.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam for ARC!