I really enjoyed this book. It’s something I really enjoyed. The question about is ghost real. Can people talk to them like this is 100% what I love to read if you enjoy that you’re gonna enjoy this book.

This book goes to show what happens when girls aren’t quiet and obedient. It’s been happening for centuries. I loved all of it. The characters, the plot, the evocative writing. This was marvelously done!

“I walk into the pharmacy on Union Street for two things: my photographs and a pregnancy test. ”
Here are reasons to read the Horror book:

Child psychologist - Mina is a child psychologist ready to jump into her life
Witch - when she meets a journalist named Sam with an interesting request - come with him to meet a girl who everyone thinks is haunted by a witch
Fact or Fiction? - The more Mina digs into this town, the more she wonders if there is some truth to what the town is saying

I read this book through Audio as well as an ebook, so I will say that maybe some of the nuances of the writing may have been missed. The first 75% of the book was very creepy and fast paced. They are investigating not just what is happening in the town, but both Sam and Mina are dealing with family deaths that cause them to also want to discover if ghosts are involved. The ending, while very understandable, as mostly everything points to it, left me unsatisfied with quite a bit left unexplained. If you like open ended books, this one may be one to pick up.

I heard great things about this book, but I was not impressed. I pushed through to see how it turned out and the ending did get better. Just not good enough.

I guess I didn’t pay close enough attention to the description for this one, because it was much more of a horror novel than I was expecting, and horror is just not for me. I do think that the story will probably have great appeal to those who enjoy the horror/supernatural genre. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Mina is a child psychologist with little experience. She attends a grief group to help her deal with her brother’s death. There she meets journalist Sam Hunter. Sam Hunter knows a girl named Alice who claims a witch is haunting her. Mina can gain some experience by working with Alice and Alice will hopefully get better. Unfortunately, instead of getting better Alice’s behavior becomes even more inexplicable and intense.

I really wish I had liked this book more. The author did a great job building the suspense and creating a chilling atmosphere at the beginning of the book. However, as the book continued the pace became uneven. It was also a bit confusing to follow at times and I did not enjoy the ending. I really expected more horror. Something more haunting and exciting. I give it 3/5 stars.

The Sisters’ Spellbinding Take on Something in the Walls

Hey there, witches, horror fiends, and supernatural seekers—gather ‘round, because we’ve got a book that’ll cast a spell on your shelves. Today, The Sisters are rambling about Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce, a chilling story that’s equally witchy, scary convincing, and utterly gripping.

Brenda’s Take: A Brew of Superstition and Suspense

Strange things are bubbling in the remote, shadow-drenched village of Banathel, and at the heart of it all is thirteen-year-old Alice. This town is steeped in witchcraft and superstition, a cauldron simmering with fear, secrets, and the ever-present threat of something sinister lurking just out of sight. Some villagers swear by the existence of evil forces, while others harbor agendas even more blistering than the heat wave surrounding them.

Enter Mina, a novice psychologist with her own haunted past, stepping into this web of tension and whispers. Tasked with untangling the mystery of behavior, her family, the watchful villagers, and those drawn to Alice for help, Mina quickly finds herself out of her depth.

Oh, and just when you think the situation can’t get any stranger? Mina starts to suspect something—or someone—in the walls is trying to get her attention.

And let’s not forget: Mina isn’t as innocent as she seems. Secrets trail her like shadows, and you can’t help but wonder if her hidden motives might just fuel the fire in Banathel’s cursed cauldron.

The tension in Something in the Walls builds like a spell gone awry—thick, bubbling, and on the verge of spilling over. It’s steeped in witchy vibes and layered mysteries, the kind that hooked me so completely I found myself peeking over my shoulder while reading.

Daisy Pearce’s writing? Pure potion perfection. Steeped in witchy vibes and eerie folklore, The themes are richly layered, unsettling, and brimming with a witchy depth that invites you to linger in their thought-provoking shadows. The tension crackles like static in the air, the atmosphere feels almost tangible, and the folklore is seamlessly woven into every chilling moment, casting a spell that keeps you entranced from start to finish.

The Sister’s Final Thoughts

Something in the Walls is one of those books that doesn’t just get under your skin—it burrows deep and stays there. If you love your horror tinged with folklore and dripping with witchy vibes, this one’s for you!

Trust us—you’ll be enchanted.

Just remember to listen for something in the walls!!

I received a digital and audiobook copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. While I thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook and thought the narrator did an excellent job bringing the story to life, I found the experience even more intense when reading it. There was something about diving into the words on the page that brought out more of that creepy feeling I wanted while increasing the tension.

A small town holding secrets, deeply held superstition, tales of witches and possession, and a dangerous heatwave made for a story that captured my attention on the first page.

The atmosphere was very well done. This small town had an air of menace and wrongness from the beginning, and I loved how the soaring temperature and curfew added to the building tension.

The back and forth about whether events were supernatural or the result of something explainable helped create a sense of creeping dread and evil lurking just out of sight. There were a few questions not fully answered, of which I'm not always a fan, but for this type of story I thought it worked well and enough resolution was offered to leave me satisfied with the ending.

I didn't fully love the direction taken toward the end, and I struggled with the main character, Mina, but overall I enjoyed this atmospheric slow burn horror story and will pick up the author's next book.

I’m giving this book 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5!

This story follows Mina, a new, inexperienced child psychologist who is unable to break into her field full of experts. Instead, she spends her days aimlessly, her time taken up planning her upcoming wedding to her researcher fiance, Oscar, and being consumed by grief after the previous loss of her younger brother Eric. That is, until she connects with a journalist, Sam, who convinces her to join him to the village of Banathel, where a thirteen year old girl named Alice claims she is being haunted by a witch. Taking this job will give Mina the experience she needs and she is convinced that she can help Alice recover from these delusions. However, Alice’s symptoms only become worse, and the surrounding village is not so convinced Alice is wrong. And they have ways to deal with witches…

The writing in this book was superb and kept me at the edge of my seat the entire time. Half a star off because I felt like some side characters were not fully explored and weren’t fully necessary, and felt like they were included as an afterthought. That being said, the rest of the book was so phenomenal. I have never really found witches scary, more campy or cartoony, but I was genuinely scared reading some of these scenes. The way that the supernatural was blended with psychological trauma was really interesting, and you aren’t sure which is the source of Alice’s behavior until the end. The main character, Mina, was highly relatable and was easy to like. The way her backstory was threaded into the present day was engaging and left me really understanding her character by the end. The ending of the book was really excellent, and wrapped up the story nicely. I will definitely be picking up a final copy when it releases on Feb 25, 2025 and any future releases from Daisy Pearce!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press / Minotaur Books for early access in exchange for an honest review.

Well written and undeniably creepy, I would absolutely recommend this book for autumn/spooky season. It has a plot filled with ghosts and haunted small towns; the writing, in certain instances, freaked me out so much, I had to take a break from reading. This still didn’t stop me from finishing this in three sittings. Only complaint in the ending. It was a little bit of a cop out for me and the only factor that stopped me from giving it 5 stars.

2 ⭐️

Thank you to netgalley & the publishers for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The description of this read was intriguing, however, I found myself having for force myself to finish the book. The overview was interesting enough..: a girl who is having psychological issues and a newly graduated psychotherapist runs to try to help her (while dealing with her own trauma of her brother passing). She quickly determines the entire town seems to be haunted by what seems to be a witch, but turns out to be a human who thinks he is a witch hunter who puts on riddances for girls who have issues.

It felt a bit drug out and without a clear thesis.

Wouldn’t recommend.

A spooky story of a teenage girl haunted by a witch in an equally unsettling village. It started out strong for me but as the story went on there were too many pieces that didn't really see resolution. There's a bit of a plot twist, but some of what drew me to the story -- such as the main character's deisre to contact her dead brother who shows up in a picture -- never really becomes a major plot point beyond a generic sense of guilt over his death.

It was readable and the writing was enjoyable, but overall it was just grim and lost my interest about halfway through.

Something in the Walls was a unique take on the thriller/horror genre. Mina was a likeable protagonist who was looking to answer questions to her own grief and I enjoyed the relationship that she formed with Sam. I found the mystery interesting and it left me wondering what could happen next. While I found the first few chapters slow and confusing the story picks up and sucks the reader in.

This was kinda exorcist-y. It was definitely giving me creepy horror movie vibes. It's haunting and witchy and would be a great spooky season read/listen. I did enjoy it, but I'm a big mood reader and I wasn't necessarily in the mood for this one at the moment! I went in blind though so 🤷🏻‍♀️😬 I would definitely re-listen in the Fall.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio for the ALC and NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you to Daisy Pearce, Minotaur Books, and Net Galley for this arc of Something in the Walls, out February 25, 2025!

📜Quick Summary: Mina is a child psychologist with little experience in the field. Even though her brother has passed away years ago, she still struggles with the grief. Her soon to be husband Oscar encourages her to go back to her group therapy, and while there she meets Sam, a father who is grieving the loss of his daughter. Sam is a journalist who hears about Alice, a disturbed child who got kicked out of school and claims she can speak to the dead. Mina’s brother Eddie, always said if there was a way to get through to Mina he would, so she jumps at the chance to see what is going on with Alice. This little town that Alice is from… is odd, to say the least. What is going on in this small town? What is going on with Alice? Will Mina be able to communicate with her deeply missed brother?

❣️Initial Feels: Grief runs so deep, and we all can connect to Mina in one way or another. This spooky, atmospheric story is going to be a ride, I can tell already!

👀Trigger Warnings: loss of sibling, abuse, witchery torture

🙋🏼‍♀️Moving Character: The whole cast of characters was quite odd, but in the end I have to give it up to Alice. Although she was exposed to so many awful things as a child, throughout the book she persevered and got through all the dark things that lurked around her.

📖Read if you want: mystery, light horror, touch of ghosts, supernatural vibes

🗨️Touching Words: “We don’t fool anyone harder than we fool ourselves.”

💡Final Sentiments: This atmospheric story grabs your attention from the start. I instantly felt for Mina, and felt the strings tugging in my heart for all the loss I’ve experienced as well. This novel was a solid read, if you push away any form of reality. This novel will get you thinking about ghosts and witches (although I wished they focused solely on one to truly develop the story deeper) and what happens when a small town believes in the darkest of things. While some of it will make you gasp, some of the twists or turns are easy to decipher. It didn’t take away from the story, although I felt like the first 70% grabbed me, and then it spiraled fast and ended. Overall, a solid gripping read!

🌟Overall Rating: 4 stars

This novel was provided by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

This book started out on a really strong foot for me. I've been in a weird horror mood lately as someone who normally detests the genre overall (both movies and books). I saw someone in their review describe this book as claustrophobic and I think that's such an accurate way to put it. I thought that this book was really going to explore the paranormal, connecting with those beyond the veil, and really take that route of truly sticking to it's guns there.

However, as the book went on, I felt we began straying away from some key plot lines that took root early in the book that ended up just being completely useless and non-existent to the end plot. Sam finding Maggie's shoe in the abandoned plot, no idea why Mina even had a fiance in the first place? The existence of Billy as a sibling to Alice served no purpose aside from giving Mina a room to sleep in?

In the end, the twist to me wasn't satisfying at all. I would have preferred this book to stick to a true paranormal thriller because it's unclear what was really going on in the house(but not in a way that is "up to interpretation" rather it felt that it didn't know how it wanted to end).

Would recommend this book to someone who is looking for something to maybe keep them up at night, but not if they're looking for a knock-out read.

Thank you to Minotaur Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Terrifying, immersive, and electrifying—Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce is one of those books that creeps into your mind and refuses to leave. It’s unsettling from the very first page—witchy, eerie, ghostly. There’s this thick atmosphere of dread hanging over everything, and you can feel it pressing down on you, like the heat wave Mina’s stuck in. I was completely hooked, from the first line to the very last. It felt like the story had me in its grip, and I wasn’t about to break free anytime soon.

Mina is such an interesting character. She’s not your usual confident protagonist—she’s hesitant, inexperienced, caught between her past grief and an uncertain future with her fiancé, Oscar. And then there’s Alice, the haunted thirteen-year-old girl at the center of it all. There’s something so raw and unnerving about her, like she’s walking this thin line between victim and something…else entirely. And Banathel! What a setting. This remote little village with its dark history of superstition and witchcraft—it feels alive, almost like it’s watching the characters, waiting for them to make a wrong move.

And let me just say: this book is scary. I know I’ve said that word before, but I mean it in a visceral, crawl-out-of-your-skin kind of way. Reading it felt like watching a horror movie, where you’re tempted to hide your face during the terrifying parts but can’t quite bring yourself to look away. There were moments where I genuinely had to pause and take a breath. The tension builds so expertly, and the story keeps getting darker and darker until I was gasping out loud.

Do I still have questions? Oh, absolutely. There are a few things I’m still turning over in my mind, wondering about. But isn’t that part of what makes a book like this so effective? It leaves these shadows behind, little mysteries that linger after you’ve turned the last page.

Daisy Pearce is such a talented writer. Her ability to pull you into this unnerving, ghostly world and keep you there, even when you’re scared out of your wits, is incredible. If you’re looking for a book that will make your heart race and give you chills—well, this is the one. I don’t think I’ll forget it anytime soon.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this haunting, chilling story. It was a ride I’m so glad I didn’t miss.

3.75 stars

What a sinister, creepy read!

Mina, the m.c., is a child psychologist who is light on experience but heavy on her own incoming childhood trauma and guilt and current conflicted feelings about her impending marriage. When she gets the opportunity to investigate a potential paranormal circumstance, a young girl, Alice, who has been infiltrated by a witch, she joins Sam, a journalist, in this effort.

No one expects a witch-related possession to be easily handled, but things really spiral for this entire crew, and this makes for an intriguing plot, for sure. Readers with any information at all about the way "witches" have been treated historically will come in with some accurate expectations about the patriarchy, and unfortunately, some of those features reveal, well, limited growth on the part of some men. This is a quirky, potentially supernatural circumstance, but it's grounded in the reality that some men will try to oppress all women at all costs.

This is my first novel by this author, and I really enjoyed the way the characters develop and plot unfolds, so I look forward to reading more (and recommend this to folks who are interested in the synopsis).

Incredibly atmospheric and super creepy.

The modern day version of The Salem Witch Trials.

Mina is a recent psychology graduate who is busy planning her wedding. Still struggling with the death of brother Eddie, she attends grief meetings where she meets Sam, a journalist. Sam is working on a story where Alice, a young girl in a small town, is displaying odd behaviors and claims a witch is haunting her. Sam asks Mina to accompany him to help evaluate Alice and disprove (or prove) her supernatural symptoms.

This was a slow burn horror. The pacing in the beginning of the book was slow as the author set the stage and allowed to reader to question where the story was going.
You are met with so many different possibilities that it had me constantly guessing at what was going on!

I found myself really enjoying that Pearce doesn’t always flat out tell you what you should be thinking. She lays out the details and lets you come to conclusions on your own.

My only issue with the book was even after finishing it you are STILL left with questions.

TW: death, child abuse, implied SA, self harm, bodily fluids, disturbing sequences

4.5 ⭐️

Ooo, I really enjoyed this one. Something In the Walls is a great, fast-paced book with some real spine-tingling elements. The descriptive writing is so lovely that I couldn't stop reading. This is culty, creepy, witchy, and downright chilling at times. Wonderful read, I definitely recommend!

This book gave me Midsommar vibes.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this ARC!