Mina is a newer child psychologist who is thinking about her upcoming marriage. Her brother died years ago and she is still mourning his death. She attends a grief group to help her with her brother’s death. That is where she meets Sam, a journalist. Alice is 13 and the town thinks she is possessed. Sam wants Mina to help Alice and in exchange he will get a great story. Mina agrees thinking she will be able to help Alice, but instead she gets worse.

This book was creepy. A good creepy. If you like the abnormal, witches, creepy/scary, then this book is for you. I can definitely see this being turned into a movie.

I enjoyed the narrator and thought she did a great job, but I had to listen to it at 2x speed.

I was very excited when I read the description for this book. I listened to the audiobook and I liked the narrator. This story felt like something that would build into something exciting and creepy and great and it just never got there. The book was ok, but it was highly predictable. The only really firmly met horror trope was that I wanted to yell at the heroine for missing every clue. There is some interesting folklore and the characters had potential. Mina has just graduated as a child psychologist and she has her first “job” going with a person she met in a grief group to try to help a girl that seems to be haunted. She and Sam go to this small town to try to help Alice and her family, but the town is strange and while she doesn’t believe Alice is a witch some strange things are happening. The story was ok, it was creepy and definitely disturbing, but I found it to move slowly and be very predictable.

Something in the Walls is about a teen girl being haunted in a small Cornish town, and I was absolutely enthralled by it. Try this book out if you love small English towns, superstitious townsfolk, witches, and hauntings.

Child psychologist Mina travels to a small town in Cornwall with a journalist to investigate the haunting of a teen girl named Alice. Mina is right away thrown into a world where superstition reigns over science and she's not sure how to deal with it.

The beginning of this book really reminded me of the Conjuring 2 about the haunting in Enfield, which makes sense since that haunting is actually mentioned several times in the book. Maybe that's why I loved this book so much too, since I really love that movie, but I think there is just something about outsiders coming in to help with a haunting that I really love.

The setting of this book really shined, and both the town and townsfolk added a lot to the plot with a deep history of witch-hunting guiding the town with how they want to deal with Alice and Mina.

There is a mystery aspect that I figured out quite early on in the book, but that did not take away from my enjoyment of the story as a whole.

HUGE TRIGGER WARNING FOR CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE AND DEAD ANIMALS

Dnf at 87%

This book started out so creepy! I couldn't read at night scary, and then it fell flat and switched directions a bit. I'm a big believer in adding trigger warnings to the audio format, and It's totally my fault I didn't look at the authors website, but this book to a turn that I personally had no interest in reading.

However, besides that, this is a witchy, creepy book with an mfc that feels more detective than a psychologist. I didn't read until the end, so I don't know the wrap-up, but I'm sure this would be a big hit for Halloween reading!

I had a good time with this one! The vibes were immaculate and I LOVED the concept of a witch vs a demon or ghost. I truly love books that make you wonder if it's psychological or the ghoulies and I honestly thought it was truly a witch up until the end. Thank you so much for this!!

2.5 stars!
Mina is a new child psychologist struggling to get her feet underneath her. She is grieving the loss of her brother and attending a support group where she meets Sam, a journalist. Sam invites Mina to join him in investigating a young girl named Alice, who claims she is being haunted by a witch.

I liked the premise of this story, but I didn’t like how it was executed. Right from the start, the story pretty much lost me. Mina is not likeable, and her subplot of her upcoming marriage just didn’t seem important to me. While there were some creepy scenes, it was drawn out and repetitive.

Something in the Walls
Daisy Pearce
4 star
Mina Ellisis was recently certified as a child psychologist. It is difficult to pick up clients because of lack of experience. A friend she met at a grief support group, Sam, is a journalist. He is working on an unusual case that he believes will help Mina gain experience. He suggests she go with him to Babathel to interview Alice Webber. Thirteen-year-old Alice hears voices she believes there is a witch in the chimney. The town believes she is a witch.
The town of Babathel is small and has a reputation for being superstitious and believing in ancient myths. The reader will be looking over their shoulder for the boogey man. The atmosphere is one of alarm and danger. Some of the scenes in this book terrified me to the point I wasn’t sure I could read any more. The suspense and terror build until suddenly the plot takes an unexpected turn. Not all of the questions are tied up with a pretty bow, several are left unanswered. They are left for the reader to contemplate. Author Daisy Pearce allows the tension to slowly build. She knows how to build the atmosphere. The author is extremely talented. She has created a plot that is disturbing, intelligent, and filled with slow building terror.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I'll be honest i wasn't sold on this book right away. Things were confusing and a bit slow but then after about a quarter of the way through things really got going. The mystery started to peel away and I really got interested. I will say though that I didn't care for the audiobook. I would stick with just reading the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this arc! Our main character, a newly graduated child psychologist, joins a journalist to assess a young girl who is showing signs of “possession.” There are a lot of dark and ominous vibes as you continue through the story with a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming. I enjoyed the suspense the author built during intense scenes that left me very creeped out and a little spooked. I am giving this a 4 star because I’m left with a question about the ending still. Was Alice actually possessed? Was there a “witch?” Still creeped out!!!

The audiobook for this novel was one I kept coming back to. In stolen moments, in the middle of the night. The story and performance sucked me in from very early on, and I stayed locked in through the end. The ending itself caught me off guard and left me puzzling over it—and checking behind my back a bit as I slept.

There’s something about a small town that I always find a little unsettling. What’s more unsettling? A small town with witch lore. Something in the Walls brings a creepy and claustrophobic atmosphere with Midsommar vibes.

Mina, a new psychologist, takes on a case brought to her by a journalist. The case is a young girl in a small town who believes she is being haunted by a witch. Mina believes she can help Alice, but the girl’s actions become more and more inexplicable. The town has their own beliefs on witchcraft, and their own ways of dealing with it.

I enjoyed Something in the Walls! There are scenes that gave me the chills (I’m glad I don’t have a chimney). I found myself invested in Mina’s story and her desire to help Alice. I could definitely see this on as a movie! The pace slows down a bit in the middle, but keep going, the end will blow you away.

I recommend the audiobook. The narrator does a great job of bringing life to the characters.

Thrillers can be so hit and miss, and I'm happy to say I enjoyed this one more than I expected to! There were some parts that genuinely creeped me out, and because of the paranormal aspect of the story maybe, I didn't try so hard to predict or solve the mystery and therefore was surprised by the end.

Paranormal and thrillers readers will enjoy this one!

The audio is good! She is clear and easy to understand at a fast speed.

Thanks to Netgalley and MacMillan Audio for an arc to read and review voluntarily.

Thank you so much @macmillan_audio for this audio book as a part of your influencer program!⁠ 🖤⁠ Pub Date: February 25th, 2025⁠
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This book intrigued me from the very beginning.⁠
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Imagine being a new child psychologist that goes to a home with a journalist that has a family that includes a 13 year old girl named Alice, that believes she is being haunted by a witch.⁠ 👀
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The more you dig & try to make sense of Alice's behavior & what she's told you-- the more you start to question what's really going on. Is there really a witch making noises in the walls watching Alice's every move? Or is something else happening?⁠
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The whole idea of this book freaked me out but as the time went on it was just very repetitive & I lost interest. The same things keep happening without any new information. The ending still left me with questions & it just didn't work out for me.⁠

2.5 rounded up!

I love the title and the cover.

I think it is a common misconception that horror as a genre is nothing but scary stories and there is no heart in them. But I think horror is often the genre that speaks on emotions more than any other. No genre comes close to describing grief like a horror book. In this book, so many characters are weighed down by their losses and it impacts their every day life. Mina is definitely struggling to live even years after her brother's passing. She seems stunted in her growth as an adult.

I would check out more from the author too. The story was not what I expected and it went to dark places that I really enjoyed. Another reminder that the only true evil in this world is humanity.

The narrator's voice was nice but sounded a bit older than I pictured Mina to be. The accent is amazing and I'm sure accurate to the region but it took me out of the story a little and I think I would've preferred doing the e-book version.

If you enjoy this and want something similar, I recommend checking out I'll Be Waiting by Kelley Armstrong. Thank you to NetGalley, Daisy Pearce, and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read Something in the Walls. I have written this review voluntarily and honestly.

I was, unfortunately, not a fan of the narration of this novel. The novel itself was not particularly compelling, but the narration put it over the edge for me.

This was such a good book. I loved the story and the writing so much. The characters were great and the story flowed smoothly. Will definitely read more books by this author in the future.

The moods of this book are suspenseful and somewhat dark. Mina is not an especially likable main character, as she seems ignorant in both her personal love life and professional life as a child psychologist. The mystery she and Sam uncover is not the most predictable, and I think readers will be satisfied by the reveal. That being said, this book meanders, to the point that I might describe it as slow. I would recommend this for fans of a slow burn thriller with few suspects and a closed circle of characters.

Audiobook narrated by Ana Clements

Mina is in her early twenties and newly engaged to sensible but stolid Oscar (the type of mate who would descale a kettle instead indulging in risky, romantic adventures). She is also a newly graduated child psychologist, specializing in adolescent mental health, who needs more experience to get a decent work placement. She meets Sam, a journalist, at a bereavement support network meeting. Mina is still grieving over the death of her 14 year old brother, Eddie, 6 years ago, and Sam has lost a 7 year old daughter, Maggie. Both are still dealing with personal ghosts.

After just briefly meeting, Sam contacts Mina about a story he’s working on: a teenaged girl named Alice in a small village in Cornwall is definitely sick, perhaps psychosomatically, but there are rumors of “witchcraft.” The village is decorated with hagstones and rife with rumors. Definitely “Midsommar” and “The Exorcist” vibes. Alice has been speaking in gibberish and fainting at school. Mina tries to evaluate Alice, bedeviled by the suspicion that the parents want to make money (ala the Enfield Haunting, 10 years earlier) and the congregating neighbors (the 1980s version of a social media conspiracy theory comment section) want supernatural miracles from “the witch.”

Set in 1989 — before Google, the internet, DNA testing, infrared photography, wireless hidden cameras, and cell phones — you know that this will obviously be a tech-free thriller, one that local folklore, superstition, buried emotions and weird phenomena will create suspense that can’t be dismissed as easily as it might be in the 21st century. What little tech they have (a Dictaphone tape recording with a whispered “Good Riddance” at the end) fails them, so it's up to Mina and Sam to use their own wits and plain ol’ detective work to figure out what’s happening with Alice. Mina and Sam also eventually recognize that their unresolved grief is coloring their perceptions of the supernatural. As a result, they’re both suggestible even though they claim to be looking for the truth.

The book is “medium scary” for the most part — but the tale of possible possession that gets ratcheted up after a few deaths occur, leading up to a graphic ending. The meme “it’s odd that we were taught to fear the witches and not the men who burned them” definitely needs discussion.

In the audiobook, Ana Clements brings Mina’s fears, insecurities, reflectiveness, and curiosity to life without diminishing the character (who feels she has a lot of flaws). Her voicing of the other characters (including the despicable person at the end) is great, too. She’s hampered, as are most audio narrators, however, by the author’s use of unattributed phrases (no “he/she said/thought” that are italicized in the print edition) that seem random when read aloud. I read the written work first, so those were less jarring and expected. Ms. Clements does a great job in the climatic final part when the devil gets his due. 4.5 stars for narration.

“Something in the Walls” is one of those books that you won’t want to put down! 4.5 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO Scary black eyes looking out of the cracks of the fireplace, but no green ones. But look closely at the cover art.👀
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO There’s a heat wave and a hosepipe ban (new British term for me) means lawns and flowers are dying without irrigation.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for advanced reader and listener copies!

The title and cover made me think this wouldn’t be as good as it was. A unique witchy possession story that was perfectly paced. The audiobook narrator gave the main character a believable voice that fit very well with how she was written.
Thank you to NetGallery and the publisher for allowing me to listen.

4.5 stars!!!

Inexperienced child psychologist Mina struggles to make a name for herself in her field. Stuck in a heat wave in Britain, she spends her days contemplating her upcoming marriage to researcher Oscar and attending a bereavement group. When she meets journalist Sam Hunter, he proposes a job involving a thirteen-year-old girl named Alice who claims to be haunted by a witch. As Mina, Sam, and Alice delve into the mysterious occurrences in the remote village of Banathel, they uncover a history of superstition and witchcraft that puts them in danger.

I am new to this author, but the writing style is unique and captivating from the very beginning. Despite the mixed reviews, I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to review both the eBook and audiobook versions of this book. I consistently recommend trying the audiobook if the written version didn't resonate with you, as it can truly change your entire reading experience.

I found myself engrossed in both the written and spoken words of this book. It exudes a subtle supernatural vibe with a touch of witchcraft woven throughout. If these elements don't appeal to you, you may not connect with this particular read. The choice of narrator was excellent! I was completely captivated and engaged throughout the entire listen.

One aspect I appreciated was the characters' hidden secrets slowly being revealed. The author masterfully keeps everything open to interpretation until the truth is unveiled. The mystery surrounding each character kept me eagerly turning the pages, craving more information. While I was constantly questioning what was truly happening, the author provided subtle hints along the way. The final reveal was impactful, leaving room for personal interpretation while still providing clarity.

Although not a fast-paced read, the steady pace created a suspenseful atmosphere that lingered long after I finished the book. If you enjoy a chilling, thought-provoking, and slightly disturbing read that stays with you, this book is a perfect fit. I look forward to revisiting it during Halloween, as it would be incredibly fitting for the season. I eagerly anticipate reading more from this author and experiencing that heart-pounding thrill once again. Well, done!

Thank you, St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio, for the digital ARC copies. I am leaving this review voluntarily.