My Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

@sarahpekkanen 💝
@netgalley
@stmartinspress

Summary:
Rose Barclay is a young girl that witnesses the murder of her nanny and is caught in the middle of her parents divorce. Immediately after her nanny dies she stops speaking. Stella, who is a best interest attorney is assigned to this case. She discovers the Barclays are more troubled than she thought. The house has an overall eerie feeling, there is no glass whatsoever in the home. As she comes closer to uncovering the family’s secrets, everyone is a suspect in the nanny’s murder!

If you are looking for a thriller that keeps you guessing you will love this!! The plot, characters, pacing of the entire story are really well done. The twists kept coming, and I was shocked at the ending! This is my first book I’ve read of Sarah’s. I will definitely read more books of hers! I highly recommend this book! It’s available 8/24!

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Sarah Pekkanen for the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!

#netgalley #houseofglass #sarahpekkanen #thriller #booklover #book #read #stmartinspress #bookworm #tbr

“EVIL ISN’T MERELY A WORD-IT’S A TANGIBLE, DIMENSIONAL THING”

Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who suffers from “traumatic mutism”-she literally can no longer speak.

It all started after she witnessed the “possible murder” of her nanny Tina, in the midst of her parent's imminent divorce.

Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She usually refuses to accept clients under the age of thirteen due to a her own traumatic childhood.

But since she also suffered from “traumatic mutism” she seems best suited to find a way to reach Rose. Her job will be to determine which parent is better suited to be awarded full custody.

But that won’t be the only challenge.

Certain details surrounding Tina’s fall, lead the Police to have doubts about it being an accident, and although they have been unable to build a case against ANYONE -EVERYONE remains a suspect:

Beth Barclay-Rose’s mom
Ian Barclay-Rose’s dad
Harriett-Rose’s grandmother
and even Rose herself…

The Barclays have removed all of the GLASS in the home, after Rose started collecting sharp objects. And, Stella has discovered that this strangely formal, extremely intelligent little girl is hiding “The Stranger Beside Me” a book about the serial killer, Ted Bundy, within the covers of “Anne of Green Gables” …

Why are the Barclays so HESITANT to allow Stella to spend time alone with Rose?

“FEAR TAKES MANY FORMS. IT’S A GREAT MOTIVATOR and a POWERFUL DETERRENT “

I really enjoyed this book from the very first pages! The author created a sinister, disturbing atmosphere and a child you will feel leary of…

It’s a more linear mystery which DOESN’T rely on crazy twists, instead revealing its surprises as we become further invested. I prefer more plausible stories, and a chance to get to know the characters so it worked well for my tastes. I am always THRILLED when I find a book with an ORIGINAL PLOT in a genre filled with tired, repeated tropes.

I was satisfied with MOST of the resolution, and even got teary eyed at one point, but felt that one small aspect felt forced and contrived (-.5 for that!) That brings me to 4.5 rounded up.

It seems that Sarah Pekkanen will make my “favorites list” two years in a row! I have also enjoyed her collaborations with Greer Hendricks.

THANK YOU to St. Martin’s Press for the gifted ARC provided through NetGalley. It was my pleasure to offer a candid review!

A nanny plunges to her death. It could be an accident or murder. After the gruesome death of her nanny, 9-year-old Rose stops speaking or using other means to communicate. Rose is in many ways older than her biological age. She’s smart but unpredictably moody.

Stella Hudson is the best interest attorney who also had trauma-induced mutism after two horrific things happened to her as a child. It’s up to Stella to figure out who the custody of Rose should go to. But either of the parents might be a murderer.

It’s an interesting mystery because the father, Ian, who cheated with the nanny might be the killer, or the cheated-on-wife, Beth. Maybe even the little girl who Stella finds sneaking sharp objects into her pockets when Rose gets a chance. Somehow even the crippled grandmother is suspect. Ian is her son, but she thinks Beth should retain custody.

Parts of this dragged and parts were super suspenseful.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of the novel, which RELEASES AUGUST 6, 2024.

I really enjoyed House of Glass! I enjoyed Pekkanen’s last book, so I was so excited to get to read this one! Major creepy kid alert in this one. I loved how it all came together! I think this will be a popular one when it comes out in August!

Thanks to St Martins Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

Bravo. Loved it. Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

House of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen

Attorney Stella Hudson's job is to determine the best interests of children caught in custody disputes. Because she had an extremely tragic childhood, Stella doesn't usually do this work when it deals with children under thirteen years of age but her old friend and mentor, Charles, has asked Stella to take the case of nine year old, Rose. For a time, Stella was mute after a tragic death and the little girl in the custody dispute, Rose, has been mute since she watched her nanny fall to her death.

This is why Stella is spending time in the Barclay's historic home, interviewing Rose, her parents, grandmother, and other people who have been in contact with Rose. Right away, even the first time Stella saw Rose from a distance, it was obvious that Rose was a very troubled child. It doesn't take long before I'm wondering if Rose is going to be spewing pea soup vomit and spinning her head 360 degrees. Rose is one creepy kid and she doesn't mind Stella knowing that fact. But it seems that the people closest to Rose are also weird, or at least extremely secretive. Maybe the nanny's death wasn't an accident?

Too bad for them because Stella has no qualms about invading everyone's space. She's continually getting people to leave a room so she can search nooks and crannies. She doesn't mind telling whoppers to anyone. This woman takes going into a person's bathroom and snooping in the medicine cabinet to new heights. Stella seems as deceptive as everyone else to me and that added to the sense of unease in the story.

The action scenes took me by surprise in a good way. There is so much going on and I was fooled more than once which made for a great buddy read with DeAnn, Jayme, and Mary Beth. Lots to discuss and now I know I'm never letting anyone into my house again. What if they are a snoopy Stella?

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

4.5 sharp stars

Stella Hudson has an interesting job where she is assigned to represent a child and tasked with determining custody situations. Some trauma in her childhood made her want to work only with older children. In this case, though, the judge has paired Stella with Rose.

Rose Barclay is 9 and isn’t speaking (traumatic mutism), she witnessed a very traumatic event, the death of her nanny, and has withdrawn. The questions swirl around the nanny's death, did she jump, was she pushed, or was it an accident?

This one was written so cleverly that I suspected everyone—the wealthy mom, her estranged husband, the grandmother, and maybe even Rose herself. And don’t forget about the nanny’s boyfriend. There are so many possibilities!

The family house is gorgeous, but strangely, all the glass has been removed, the windows replaced by plexiglass, and the picture frames have no glass, and only plastic glasses. What is going on here? In order to make her decision and write a report, Stella has to spend time with both parents, Rose herself, caregivers, and anyone who can tell her more about Rose.

Stella has some interesting things going on with reconciling with her past and this case forces her to face some of those things. One personal turn she took at the end of the book didn’t ring true to me based on an earlier storyline with Marco.

This one kept me guessing and that ending was tense!

A great book club book!

House of Glass - such a perfect title. Things are certainly never as perfect as they seem from the outside. This book has lots of twists and turns so hold on tight!

Sarah Pekkanen does it again. I have been a fan ever since she was co-writing with Greer Hendricks. I was so excited about this book and it did not disappoint. The main character, Stella, is a lawyer with a personal tie to what her new client, Rose, is experiencing as a result of a traumatic experience. Stella witnessed the death of her mother when she was a young girl and developed traumatic mutism. Rose has developed this too after witnessing the death of her once beloved nanny.

Stella is hired to determine which parent is best to care for Rose after their divorce is finalized. However, Stella finds herself investigating what she believes to be a crime. The nanny fell, right? Stella doesn't think this is the case and for the safety of Rose and her parents she feels obligated to find out what truly happened.

Just when I thought I knew who was responsible there was another twist that had me questioning myself. I love a book that has me guessing until the very end and this book did just that. No matter what you thought of Pekkanen's previous books, give this one a shot.

Thank you to NetGally, Sarah Pekkanen, and the publisher for allowing me the pleasure of reading this book ahead of the pub date. I enjoyed it very much.

What a wild ride - a murder mystery with everyone from a small child to an elderly woman as a suspect!

This was one of those stories where you keep changing your mind...she did it, no he did, no they both did. I was definitely hooked from the beginning but the one thing that kept me from giving 5 stars was that I didn't like any of the characters, not even the little girl at the center of the custody battle. Maybe I wasn't supposed to? Personally, I want to have someone to root for, a character who I can be hoping didn't do it or won't be the next to be murdered.

Still, I read every last page and I will read anything Sarah Pekkanen puts her name on. She is truly a terrific writer.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review.

Stella Hudson, a special interest attorney, has been appointed to Rose Barclay to help decide who should gain custody of her, her mother or father. While Stella doesn’t normally take on cases with children under 13, she makes an exception for Rose’s unique situation. After having seen her nanny fall to her death, Rose has refused to speak making it even harder to Stella and the investigators to know what really happened to her nanny. As Stella begins getting to know the family, Stella’s concerns for Rose grow as everyone in the Barclay is hiding secrets, even Rose.

This whodunit mystery had me at the edge of my seat and I flew through it. While Stella’s self-work to resolve her own childhood didn’t derail the plot, I don’t know that it helped it as much as I would have liked. Instead, it made the book feel a bit longer than necessary, which is really my only comment. Otherwise, I loved the creepy atmosphere of the house, Stella’s determination to do right by her clients, and the suspense of the overall story.

With plenty of twists and red herrings, House of Glass is a page turner. I feel myself still thinking about the characters, which is huge for me. Even with guessing the ending, I still think this is a stellar psychological thriller!


House of Glass comes out June 11, 2024. Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for my advanced copies in exchange for my review. If you liked this review, please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof.books.

House of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen

Absolutely love this author, she writes the stories that grab you and you can't stop reading till you reach the end and this book was no exception! Fabulous story and turns that keep you wondering! Thank you to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for this book.

Suspenseful, intriguing, and unsettling at times. Sarah Pekkanen hits it out of the park with this beautifully written story. HOUSE OF GLASS kept me happily reading for hours on end. Such a great book, and I can't wait for her next thriller.

I have such mixed feelings on this book. I was intrigued by the story and the writing and got sucked in for the first 70% or so. I liked that there were many layers to the story and the characters at the center of the mystery, without it feeling too full of plot twists. The ending really lost me. I thought the author had set it up for a finale that felt interesting and shocking, but she took a turn that kind of came out of nowhere and made the ending feel more "safe", but ultimately unsatisfying. She also threw in a completely random romance in the last 10 or so chapters that served no purpose for the plot, and the conclusion felt rushed and haphazard. I don't think I'd necessarily recommend this book, but I did enjoy the first 50-70%. I've read some of the author's other books and like those much more.

One more note, the last line of the first 15 or 20 chapters always seemed to end in "... and it was made of glass". It felt like a lazy and overused call-back to the title and honestly distracted me. It was used so many times I had to laugh at some points.

I was so looking forward to this book and just feel so bummed about the outcome. I saw the ending coming, The book was just to slow for my liking! The parts where there was a lot of action and a lot going on, were fantastic and i loved the writing, but there was a lot of unnecessary parts in the book i thought that really slowed the story down.,

"I thought this was really well written and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I think it will find readers at our library, so we will definitely be purchasing for the collection.

I received a copy of House of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen from Netgalley!

I absolutely LOVED this book. The premise was so intriguing from the very beginning. How can Stella really know the truth when everyone around her lies? This book embarks you on a journey where you will feel all of the emotions for Stella ranging from early childhood to the present day, including anger, fear, love, sadness, redemption, excitement, proud, etc.

I normally do not like to read about a backstory that may tend to take away from the main storyline, but Stella's backstory had me hooked, and I feel like it all came full circle when she came to the Barclays' home to investigate the well-being of Rose.

.. and who doesn't love a book with a creepy kid surrounded by mystery?

I would 100% recommend this book to anyone I know. I knew from the very beginning that this had the potential to be a 5 start read for me. I was hoping that would remain true through the book's entirety, and it did not disappoint! There were a bunch of jaw-dropping twists that made me not want to put the book down.

Sarah Pekkanen did a phenomenal job with House of Glass, and I cannot wait to read more of her books in the future!

House of Glass featured the most original plot I’ve come across in a thriller in a while! While perhaps a tad predictable, it was still a very engrossing and enjoyable read. Thanks to Net Galley for an advanced copy to review!

This thriller has a really interesting premise: a little girl witnesses the possible murder of her nanny and stops speaking. I enjoyed the mystery and the slow burn storytelling that kept me interested in what comes next. This isn’t a book filled with lots of plot twists, but it is a solid mystery and psychological thriller. It would make a great book club read and I’ll definitely be recommending it. Thanks so much for the opportunity to read in advance!

This was a struggle for me to get through. I was kind of waiting a while for something to happen and it was just meh for me. This read like a legal thriller, which I’m not the biggest fan of, so maybe that’s why? It was just veeerrrryyyy slow. It was missing the thrill for me.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for my ARC.