2 stars
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After the tragic death of his wife, Joe Hadfield decides to pack everything up and backpack around the world. During his latest stop in Barcelona, he overhears two backpackers talking about the ultimate haunted house challenge - a large gothic mansion, featuring nine rooms to escape, puzzles to solve, and a cash prize for anyone who makes it out. The catch? No one has ever completed the challenge. Joe is torn about participating, but he won't be alone. He'll be joined by Helen, a UNICEF worker whom he has befriended while in Barcelona. Helen's character was baffling; she's written to be in her 40s but acts like she's 20, and even goes as far as bullying Joe to join the challenge.

I went into this one pretty blind, and based a lot of my original opinions on the cover alone. While the story does start fairly eerie, it takes a turn when Dinosaurs and Jason Voorhies get intertwined into the plot...after that, I felt like I couldn't take the book as seriously as I had hoped. As the book went on, I found myself laughing more and more, while I had hoped to be on the edge of my seat. I haven't read anything else from this author, so I'm unsure if this is the typical writing style.

If you're looking for a slow-burning, psychological thriller that will leave you questioning the entire ending, I would recommend this. Unfortunately, this one just didn't meet my expectations!
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I want to thank Kensington Publishing | Kensington, Jeremy Bates, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy of The No-End House in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions formulated are my own. The No-End House is scheduled to publish on June 24, 2025, You can pre-order your copy today.

[3.5/5] Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for an early copy of The No-End House! The premise of this book immediately caught my interest. I was obsessed with season 2 of the ScyFy anthology series (Channel Zero) that went by the same name, so I admittedly went in with preconceived ideas of what this book may be like. BOY, WAS I WRONG. I tore through this in a day. I had no clue where No-End House would take Joe and Helen next, and with increasingly bizarre interactions and consequences, I could hardly put it down. I had a lot of thoughts (and even more questions) flitting through my head, and by the final chapter, they all flew the roost. It felt like Bates was dipping his toes into tackling identity, reality itself, and it felt increasingly, frustratingly shallow (as did our main character, Joe) for most of the book. However, I feel there's redemption in this by the conclusion. It's hard to encapsulate all of my feelings without spoiling; I found it a solid read that will stick with me for a while, for better or worse!

#TheNoEndHouse #NetGalley

The blub for this book is seriously misleading. I went into it thinking I was getting an escape-room style horror novel. You know high-stakes puzzles, a heavy dash of psychological tension, and clever twists much like the SAW movies the book claimed to emulate . Instead, what I got was... a surreal look into how grief affects people, maybe? Although it came with a very healthy side of what the heck did I just read?

I mean right off the bat we are told that Joe's wife died because she walked into the still moving propeller of a Cessna airplane, that she had just landed on her last supervised flight towards her pilot's license. You mean to tell me all of the other times she has flown, she wouldn't have known the propeller takes time to stop moving? She wouldn't have known to avoid it? She couldn't HEAR it still moving? I almost just DNF'ed the book then because that's not horrific, that's death by stupidity.

To be fair, the book does offer some creative horror within its pages. The individual rooms are imaginative, ranging from eerie mind games to straight up survival scenarios, and there are moments that get under your skin. But sadly, even when things ramped up, the pacing felt off to me with the transitions from room to room feeling disjointed, leaving me more confused than invested. And while the overall atmosphere had flashes of potential, with a few scenes being genuinely unsettling, the often silly, awkward and just out of place dialogue would immediately yank me right back out of the story. This was in part because I struggled to connect with the characters as Helen came off as unnecessarily bossy and rude, while the Joe seemed oddly passive about it. Like even when his gut was screaming at him not to sign the contract, not to do the haunted house, he still was browbeat into doing it by her. This made their dynamic feel forced and unconvincing.

And that ending? Man did that leave me with questions than answers. I’m not against ambiguity, but this felt like a puzzle I was still missing pieces to. Did Joe actually make it out? Was he ever actually IN the maze to being with or was this some kind of grief induced psychosis?

All things considered, this book was giving me heavy internet creepypasta vibes, and honestly? This book should have stayed in the vault.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

A fun and mostly unpredictable supernatural thriller that brought a new twist to an inescapable labyrinth style story. This was an easy read that had really great story pacing and kept me engaged and wanting to read more! I will say the characters really were making some stupid insufferable choices at the beginning of this one but I’ll let that slide given that the story was written well the rest of the way. I liked the relationship that built between Helen and Joe and enjoyed their creative problem solving throughout. The weak point of this novel for me was the ending, that was the most predictable part. It wasn’t explicitly a bad ending, it was just exactly what I thought would happen. Overall I really enjoyed this one and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a mind bending supernatural adventure!

Thank you Netgalley and Kensington Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. “The No-End House” will be published June 24, 2025.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for this free copy of "The No-End House."

Author Bates has the wildest imagination to come up with these 9 rooms of horrors and tests in the ultimate haunted house contest.

And the ending - OMG! I'm trying not to spoil anything by saying that I felt like I needed a prequel and/or sequel that would explain the ending.

So Joe left a very successful real estate career to literally walk around the world after the trauma of his wife's gruesome accidental death. He's in Barcelona, hears kids talking about a haunted house challenge, meets Helen at a bar, and they decide to find the house.

Crazy and morbid! Oh, and pay close attention to the chapter headings from the "Book of Nine."

I would thank Kensington Press and Netgalley for the ARC, but honestly, I can't. Ignoring the fact the book promised SAW and delivered Jurassic Park, but the real problem with this book is there was a slur about 25% in, the one used against the dwarfism community. It's 2025, horror writers don't need to use slurs to make us scared, the scene read wrong and cringe and weird, and the author doesn't belong to that community. It wasn't cool, isn't okay, and I wish I had my time back from reading this book.

Kensington Press, do better.

I didn’t really have any motivation to continue after the uncomfortable scene with the little person. I don’t expect all characters to be morally outstanding or anything, but it just felt like an awkward attempt at cheap humor, and I already wasn’t enjoying myself much.

An unnerving plunge into the psyche, survival, and the surreal.

The No-End House is a brilliantly harrowing descent into a nightmare realm where reality fractures, time distorts, and the deepest fears of the human mind are given cruel, vivid form.

Joe and Helen, two strangers in their mid-forties, meet by chance in the romantic haze of Barcelona. What begins as a breezy, low-stakes companionship quickly morphs into something darker and more revealing once they step into the No-End House. Joe is the kind of man who drifts through life, collecting stories and sunsets, while Helen is sharp, self-assured to the point of narcissism, and unapologetically domineering. They are opposites, and they don't know much about each other - at least not at first. But inside the house, what binds them is not affection but grief, trauma, and the raw will to survive the increasingly impossible rooms that test the very fabric of their minds.

Each room of the No-End House presents a surreal, often stomach-churning scenario that challenges not only their physical endurance but their grasp on what is real. The horror is cerebral as much as it is visceral. One moment you're questioning the physics of time and space; the next, you're blindsided by a gruesome revelation dropped with such casual cruelty it forces a reread - just to confirm it said what you think it did. Shock is wielded like a scalpel here, cutting through the reader’s comfort without mercy. The house doesn’t play fair. Its rules are elastic, punishments deeply personal, and manipulations masterful.

What makes it truly stand out is how the terror becomes a lens for emotional truth. Joe and Helen are both running from pasts they haven’t fully faced, and the house doesn’t allow escape without confrontation. Their dynamic grows increasingly strained and revealing, giving the story emotional weight amid the grotesque.

This book is not for the faint of heart. The gore is graphic and unapologetic, with several scenes that are genuinely stomach-turning. But for readers who enjoy psychological horror with philosophical undertones - and can stomach the macabre - The No-End House is a masterpiece of modern horror fiction.

I love all of Jeremy bates books but this one is the best. Kept me up all night as I couldn't wait to read what happened ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved this book! The slow discovery of the reason for the rooms to be as they are and the fact that they become more complexe as they get through them was so beautifully written. It takes you on a wild ride of discovery through the subconscious of the main characters. Because of the nature of the story there's no way to know what twist will come up in the next room (chapter).
For a horror book, it was not gruesome which I enjoyed. It was written to keep you guessing and keep you on the edge of your seat guessing what comes next!
I highly recommend this book to anyone that can usually easily figure out where books are going because this one will keep you guessing until the end.

This book is a victim of being mislabeled. I’m a hororor movie addict and was really excited when I saw the comparison to Saw and Hostel. This had more of a fantasy vibe to it that I wasn’t expecting. On the plus side, it’s nonstop action, the author is a gifted writer, and I do believe, if labeled correctly, this book will have an audience.

Thanks for the opportunity to read!

Oh boy, this was a BAD trip. I loved the sound of the premise of The No-End House with its haunted house challenge and escape room vibe, so I fully expected to have a great time reading this book. Add the Barcelona setting, and I was even more excited to dive into this horror story... Sure, I was a bit worried about the negative reviews, but since I don't mind things going a little crazy I still hoped for the best. I was wrong. There is crazy, and there is whatever The No-End House ended up being. I don't like DNFing a book, but since there was no way I was going to give the story more than one star anyway, I decided to just throw in the towel and save me an even bigger headache.

Somehow I don't think The No- End House ended up being the story that was promised in the blurb. Sure, there is the challenge and the story is set in Barcelona. But instead of going creepy and dark, this mostly felt like someone drugged my water which resulted in a VERY bad trip. Like I said, I don't mind things going a little crazy and supernatural, but this crossed the line so much that it wasn't even visible anymore. If the story would have at least been scary, I might have been able to forgive some of it, but the plot felt mainly completely ridiculous.

I also struggled considerably with the two main characters, who were basically one-dimensional cardboard cutouts with only one or two defining traits. Joe is basically pathetic, with him letting Helen walk all over him and the constant mention of his wife who died three years ago (but he is also disrespectful towards her memory at the same time?). Seriously, doesn't he have a backbone at all?! Some of his comments were also extremely offensive to be honest. Basically the only two things you know about Helen is that she is black and has a spicy personality, and this is repeated a LOT. She is both unmemorable and very easy to dislike, and her behavior only made things worse.

I was very underwhelmed with the challenges themselves as well. Not only were they not creepy at all, but they were stretched out too long and there just wasn't any tension at all. This also had to do with the writing style and tone, which often included offensive and crude remarks that really put me off reading any further. The Book Of Nine quotes at the beginning of the chapters didn't hit home for me either... Sometimes less is more, and this book was so fantastical that it lost me even before they made it out of the first challenge room.

I'm honestly regretting ever requesting a copy now, because The No-End House clearly wasn't the book for me. I hardly ever DNF and it pains me to have to resort to a second DNF within the same week, but since I couldn't care less if any of the characters made it out alive and the sheer stupidity of the plot was giving me a headache, I opted for the easy way out. Especially since there was no way that I was going to be able to give this book more than one star in the first place... And life is too short to waste it on something that is clearly not ment to be.

The No End House
By: Jeremy Bates

4 Stars

What can I say about this book? It was captivating for one thing. It kept me hooked from page one.

After the death of his wife, Joe decides to walk the world. While in Barcelona, he meets a girl, it always starts with a girl, and she leads him on a journey or challenge to The No End House. This, or is it she, will be the death of him if he doesn't succeed.

This was a crazy, twisted book that kept me captivated. The way it was written sucked me in from the beginning. I felt like the No End House had me, too. This book had a great set of characters and descriptions that kept me so enamored, wanting more. I wouldn't call this book scary, but it was very psychological. It touched on some hard subjects and did it well. It was a book I'd say was wonderfully macabre. It was definitely a book worth the ride. Or read.



*I want to thank Netgalley and the author for this book in return for my honest review*

Stormi Ellis
Boundless Book Reviews

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for the eARC of "The No-One House".

A thoroughly average novel. It really felt like a short story that just got bloated. The main characters were quite cookie cutter and were treated quite shallowly. The breakneck pace of the book offered little development of the characters or the situation. Every "revelation " just brought more questions and mostly random/nonsensical results.

If you start it, you can whip through in a few hours, but you will keep expecting there to be more than there ends up being. The end maybe the only redeeming quality of the book, even though it is fairly predictable.

I didn’t love this as much as I thought I would. The line between real and surreal is blurred, and it’s never really clarified what is happening.

⭐️2.5 stars
With the synopsis referencing Saw and Hostel I was very interested to read this. In my opinion it was nothing like those 2 things. It started off good, I loved the vibe, then it all went downhill. There were no tags about this being fantasy/magical so some of the challenges really threw me off guard. It just fell a bit flat for me in the horror/mystery aspect.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for this ARC.

No End House took me three weeks to finish, not because it was a slow burn, but because it was a slog. This book desperately needs tighter editing and, more importantly, an honest rebranding. The promotional blurb promising something “in the tradition of Saw and Hostel, with supernatural twists akin to Stephen King and Alma Katsu,” is wildly misleading. What I got instead was a disjointed, fever dream of a story with a distinctly YA tone, completely at odds with the gritty, terrifying experience that was promised.

The plot meanders, the horror is inconsistent, and the narrative often feels unsure of what it wants to be. If you’re expecting a psychologically brutal, body horror thrill ride with adult themes, look elsewhere. This isn’t it.

Disappointed doesn’t quite cover it. Misled is more accurate.

The No End House the title says it all. I have read other books by this author so I am no stranger to his work. This book about a man name Joe decides to pick up and leave after experiencing a traumatic loss. He decides to travel the world mostly walking and going from country to country. His travels lead him to the beautiful country of Spain. Joe has a fated meeting with a woman by the name of Helen. She is described as being vibrant, quick temper and very intelligent. There is talk about a haunted house called the no end house, and if a Lucky person is to survive, all the challenges presented in his house they will become a winner and receive a prize. This is where the story begins.
I will say this the book does have the feel of the movie Hostel with a sprinkle of Saw. I did enjoy the chemistry between the two main characters and I also love the storytelling in the book. The author does touch on several different elements in the book that gives it a raw and gritty feel .I was expecting a little bit more gore with the book.
Describe this book in three words: Adventurous, Creepy and Intense.
Overall, this book is a good read definitely an entertaining read.
Thank you NetGalley, Jeremy Bates and Kensington Publishing for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily and all opinions are my own.

2.5⭐️s I was enjoying this book it was giving horror escape room vibes then all the sudden the characters are transported back in time ,dinosaurs showed up , balloons and giant bugs it got kinda strange. I felt like things could have been scarier. Maybe I was just expecting something different from the story.

The No-End House is about individuals who enter a supposedly haunted house challenge, where they face a series of increasingly disturbing tests. The challenge, located in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter, involves nine rooms and nine tests, with the promise of a reward for those who succeed. However, the premise is that no one makes it to the end alive. One book tells of a man named Joe Hadfield, who is walking the world to heal from the loss of his wife, and a woman named Helen who convinces him to enter the challenge. Another version details a young woman returning home after visiting the house, only to find that everything has changed.

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for the ARC for my honest review

Publication date : June 24, 2025

When I requested The No-End House I really did think I was going to love it as the concept sounded right up my alley. An eerie, psychological escape room-style horror? Sign me up! Unfortunately, this one didn’t really meet my expectations. The synopsis promised Saw-meets-Stephen King and what I got instead was what felt more like a surreal fever dream that gradually lost me as a reader.

To its credit, the backstories behind the two main characters and how they somehow tied with the house were fun and intriguing. I actually found myself more invested in how the house was targeting their personal lives and bringing aspects of it to the different rooms and challenges both Joe and Helen had to surpass. And then… the dinosaurs and Jason Voorhees happened. It was a pretty bizarre shift and it honestly killed the eerie, claustrophobic atmosphere for me.

The ending felt muddled and unsatisfying. I see what the author was trying to do and I do think it was an interesting twist to the final part of the story, but it didn’t really hit the mark for me. Maybe it would have worked better if the ending got a little bit more room to breathe. Overall, the book might’ve benefited from being shorter and tighter since there’s definitely potential here.