“A Man Down Stairs” is such a slow burn and a psychological family drama/thriller that pays off with each page. I was leery of every single character, honestly, and that’s one of the things I loved about it. You didn’t know who to believe. I really enjoyed the 3 POVs with the 2 different time lines. The POV of “Him” chilled me to the bone. And this was one of the most clever “return to your hometown” tropes I’ve ever read. Unlike most thrillers, this one was not far-fetched at all, and that’s what made the story frightening and incredibly dark. Kudos to the author for repping mental health in a very respectful manner, and being a nurse myself, the medical aspects of the book were very intriguing. I do feel like the book could’ve been about 60 pages shorter, but the more I think about it, it all was building up to those twists at the end that left me more than satisfied.
4.5 ⭐️

I felt like this book had potential, but ultimately I felt let down.

I was engaged by the characters, but the way the climax come to be didn’t feel believable to me, and I found myself disappointed. The twist at end did bring me back around, but I was still so annoyed at the climax that it lost the impact for me.

There were so many moments throughout this book I was so confused in all of the best ways while listening to a thriller. I was thrown through so many loops, it shocked me and spun me back around. Lundrigan is a master of twisting and turning POV's to confuse you and keep you on the edge of your seat.

A tantalizing read with great characters and well-executed plotting. The story is told in dual timelines from the multiple POVs of a father named Gil, his daughter Molly, and a mystery POV that keeps you wondering until the very end. Each character is deep, distinctive, and flawed. Their storylines weave together masterfully as the mystery unravels and the truth of what's happening in both the past and the present is revealed.

I really liked this one. it was a little bit of a slow burn, but once up it picked up it was fast and twisty. I loved Molly as a character. She is a strong female main character with strong convictions. She is passionate about motherhood. 1 liked that she never backed down from the mystery caller. I felt that she handled herself well in the end. I liked the differing timelines. It gave some insight to Gil prior to his stroke. I saw a lot of similarities between Gil and Molly. I didn't see the twist in the epilogue coming AT ALL. I loved it!

This was a fantastic book and one that actually suprised me some! I love a good surprise ending and that was exactly what this was. It kept me wanting more each chapter and I couldn't put it down. It was a perfect twisty, thriller mystery.

I loved this book. It was so nice to be surprised by the ending. I loved learning about the characters and how we don't get to know every bit of the story. Usually I would want to, but it worked in this one.

The main character Molly Wynters lost her mother and upon coming home years later to care for her father learns more truths. I don't want to spoil anything so that's all I'll say.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for giving me the Arc. It was definitely a good surprise read. It gets 4.5/5 for me.

What a crazy, twisty, slow burn thriller!!!
My mind changed so many times on how I thought this story was going to go.
After her father has a life changing stroke, Molly and her teenage son move to her hometown to be closer to him. He cannot communicate so all she has of him is her memories.
Molly has avoided her hometown as it holds a tragic past. When she was four years old, she witnessed the murder of her mother. Her testimony sent a teenage boy to jail as the murderer.
Between visiting her father, working online for counseling and doing a volunteer local help hotline, Molly is super busy. Until she starts receiving ominous phone calls just for her on that local hotline. One that has Molly second guessing what she remembers about that night.
There are so many characters that are suspicious and just act strange.
The story also goes in the past with her father and mother, an anonymous Him and the Now.
A dark drama with lots of suspense and twists you will not see coming!

Thank you to Thriller Book Lovers Promotions and the author for having me on this tour.

Although this book is out at the time of this review, thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for this ARC!
Decades after her mother's murder, Molly Wynters returns to her hometown of Aymes with her teenaged son, Alex, to help look after her dying father. Molly has never questioned the story she remembers so well of her mother's passing, through the eyes of her three-year old self. But a series of cryptic phone calls and messages, combined with Alex's newfound interest in researching his grandmother's death, lead Molly to believe there may have been something more to the past. And it might just be coming back to haunt her.

This was a really well-done thriller that gave me genuine heebie jeebies. A Man Downstairs is a very character-driven book, focusing heavily on characters' flaws. There was hardly a single character who I did not take issue with, whether because of moral quandaries or because they were just kind of annoying. However, they were so well written that I didn't mind at all. I would recommend searching your content warnings before starting this one, I had to put it down a few times, particularly during the chapters from "His" point of view (you'll know what I'm talking about, they all start with "Him").

I was so sure I had guessed the ending, but one of the best parts of this book was that there were several twists. I did see one of these twists coming, but I was super off-base with my other theories. I've anticipated the twists in a lot of thrillers recently, so the genuine surprise had me super excited.

My biggest problem with this book was that the ending did feel a bit abrupt. There were really only two scenes that felt super high stakes, and they took place late in the book and ended abruptly. The rest was a fairly slow burn. The chapters that take place in the past, before Molly's parents were married were a bit drawn out, and probably could have been shorter. Make no mistake, this did not really compromise the quality of the book, I just had a bit of a harder time staying focused.

Overall, this is a great psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the end!

Not one of my favorite books but it was good. I thought it was original, it kept me guessing, however I just really didn't like any of the characters. I know I wasn't supposed to like some of them but I didn't even like the main. Its tough for me to enjoy books that I don't enjoy the characters.

When Molly was a small child, her testimony in court put a man away for the death of her mother. Now decades older and recently divorced, Molly Wynters has returned to her hometown to care for her father. With her teenage son along for the ride, Molly has to come to terms with the fact that her father's recent stroke has left him unable to communicate or clear up her suspicions that something was wrong with what she saw so long ago.  Molly, now a trained therapist, volunteers for a local helpline. The calls start off normal, but soon become a series of threats. Is she being sought out for a mistake she made as a child?

Nicole Lundrigan's A Man Downstairs questions what it means to come to terms with being wrong when those around you spent so long telling you that you'd done the right thing. In this book, there are very few characters that don't leave you with an ick feeling, and that's by design. Almost everyone Molly comes into contact with, makes the reader want desperately for her to flee the town and never come back. Molly is far from perfect, but it is her desire to find the true that keeps one reading until the very end.

A Man Downstairs is now available from Penguin Books.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I read Nicole Lundrigan’s An Unthinkable Thing and absolutely loved it! When I saw she had a new book coming out, of course I jumped at the chance to read it!!
A Man Downstairs had everything I’ve ever wanted in a book: the MC is a trained therapist, childhood memories, dual timelines, multiple POVs, mental illness, motherhood, and murder mystery! Nicole Lundrigan’s writing is clever and holds my attention instantly with the way she weaves her stories and gives the reader adequate background information on the characters. An amazing 5 star read!!

A really twisty, interesting thriller that kept me on my toes while listening. It wasn’t the best thriller I read all year but I didn’t hate it

Molly returns to her small town to care for her ailing father. When she was four years old, she witnessed her mother's murder and testified against him. After receiving a call on the hotline, Molly begins to wonder if she made a mistake all those years ago. This is a well written story with characters that are relatable and believable. I immediately connected with the small town vibe. I would definitely recommend it. I received a free copy of this book and this is my honest review.

The story alternates between NOW, focusing on Molly returning to her hometown with her sons to live with Russell, and then detailing Gil and Edie’s past leading to Edie's murder, witnessed by a young Molly. It explores Molly's struggle with her past, including her mother Edie's murder, her complex family dynamics, and the mystery of "him" - a figure tied to their past conflicts and secrets. Molly, recently divorced and dealing with her father's illness, tries to unravel the truth about her mother's death and the identity of "him," while reconnecting with her childhood crush, Brad.

Molly comes back to her hometown to care for her father, Gil, due to his declining health and newly, his inability to speak due to a stroke. Molly’s mother was killed when she was a child and it was her testimony who put Terry, a teenage boy, away. But could the memory of a three year old really be reliable? While back in town, Molly starts volunteering for a crisis hotline, where she begins receiving calls from someone targeting her. Who’s calling the help line and freaking out Molly? Is there someone out there who knows what really happened to Molly’s mom, and if so, how?

This is an unpredictable and twisty psychological thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat! With dual timelines (then and now chapters) and multiple points of view, my attention was held throughout this story! The “then” chapters from Gil’s POV were intriguing because this was the main way the reader got to know Gil’s character, since he is nonverbal in present day. The “now” chapters from Molly’s POV, had me wondering who is hiding secrets about Molly’s past and her mother’s death. And then the mystery “him” chapters had me nonstop guessing about who “him” was! The different POVs were easy to distinguish between because they even had such different tones to the writing for each different character. There’s a lot of really dark and twisty subject matter throughout this book and there were multiple times my jaw dropped and I was shocked by the actions of some of these bizarre characters.

What if the childhood you remember isn’t really what happened at all?

After Molly’s father has a stroke she returns to her hometown to take care of him. Being back home brings up bad memories of her mother’s murder. All Molly remembers from that day is “there was a man downstairs”, but now that she’s back, she’s wondering if the wrong person was charged.

This psychological thriller was unpredictable and kept me guessing straight up until the end. I enjoyed the dual timelines and multiple POVs. Molly’s perspective in the present was done really well especially with her trying to remember exactly what happened to her mother. I really enjoyed her father, Gil’s point of view which is set “then” and tells the story of his courtship and marriage to Edie, Molly’s mom. The third perspective was the creepiest and is told by someone only know as “Him”.

The prologue of this book drew me right in and honestly I had no idea who did it right until the end. The plot worked really well especially with the dual timelines, and I always enjoy a thriller where I fail to figure out the ending. I did get confused with who was who some of the time, and I thought the ending dragged a bit, but overall I’d recommend reading this thriller.

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

A digital copy of this book was provided to me by Thriller Book Lovers Promotions. The opinions are my own and freely given.

This story alternates between NOW and THEN.

Now is Molly's story who moves back to her hometown with her teenage son, Alex. Her father Gil has had a stroke and she has hired a full time, live-in nurse, Glenn to take care of him. Molly and Alex move into the house of Russell, who lives in the basement. Brad, the boy next door that Molly had a childhood crush on moves back in with his mom, next door to Gil. Glenn, Russel and Brad were all friends in their teenage years, along with Terry. Terry was the boy accused and convicted of murdering Edie, Molly's mother.

THEN tells the story of Gil and Edie meeting and takes us up to the murder, witnessed by then 3-year-old Molly. Also, in this section is "Him". I spent the majority of the book wondering who "him" was. All of the boys were friends but now as adults, they don't have anything to do with each other.

I wasn't a huge fan of Gil's story. Edie, I didn't like much at all. I couldn't tell if she had some undiagnosed mental health issues, or she was just a young woman thrown into a relationship. She didn't want children to begin with and didn't seem to connect with Molly once she was born. I like Molly as she was recently divorced and managing her father's illness and her son, along with being back in the town that took her mother away from her at such a young age.

For me, this book started off slow and stayed slow most of the way through, but it finally hit that spot where everything just came together. Trying to figure out who "him" was, what happened to Edie, if Molly got it wrong or not and who was trying to contact Molly kept me intrigued.
Thank you, @thrillerbookloverspromotions, @nicolejlundrigan and @penguinrandomca

Thank you Netgalley and Viking for the chance to read A man downstairs by Nicole Lundrigan. This is a fabulous psychological thriller, told in two timelines, with multiple POV's. The suspense is slow-burning, with plenty of twists, and a creepy vibe. I did find the beginning a little slow, but the story kept me interested to find out what happened.

A Man Downstairs provides that more indepth thriller, the type that has you caring for the characters and providing a real background to them.
Molly witnessed her mother's murder when she was a child and her statement is what put a man away for the crime.
But now she has returned to the small town it happened in and is finding new information about her parents and the other people in town.
The caregiver of her ailing father, the neighbour who seems to know more, the landlord of her new rental that pops up randomly and gives off questionable vibes.
When Molly volunteers to answer a help line she gets calls from someone who gets her thinking about what she remembers about her mother's murder.
A Man Downstairs is slower but provides intense moments with questionable characters and twisted motivations.
An excellent thriller to keep you up all night reading.