I love a good haunted house trope and old creepy farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere is totally my jam. I thought the spooky atmosphere of this book was so good. I was really drawn in by what was happening with the movement of the farmhouse and the barn and the mystery that ends up evolving. The husband was infuriating but I ended up really liking this overall.

Thank you NetGalley and poisoned Poisoned Pen Press for the eARC!

With atmospheric settings, potential paranormal encounters and an unreliable narrator, The Farmhouse delivers a highly enjoyable twisted mystery. The slow burn story unravels the history of the farmhouse and barn. No one can be trusted. This made for great read and unpredictable ending.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this one! The vibes were eerie and creepy throughout and I really enjoyed the ghostly elements. As a Midwestern girly, I loved the rural farmhouse setting! Being out in the middle of nowhere truly can be as peaceful and unnerving as the author portrayed!

I loved following the twisty back and forth over whether or not we can trust the narrator, Emily, and all these spooky things that keep happening. She truly is braver than I because I would have noped out of there so fast! The ending was great as well. GOOD FOR HER!!

I can’t wait to read what Chelsea Conradt writes next!

This one was difficult for me to get through at times. I didn't like the characters - I found them to be a bore. Halfway through I was question what the end game of this book was. I will absolutely check this author out in the future, but this one unfortunately didn't capture my interest.

4 stars and my thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC!

When Emily Hauk's mother dies, it's time for her and her husband, Josh, to finally leave San Francisco. A farm in rural Nebraska is everything they want for a fresh start: clear skies, low costs, and distance from the grief back home.
They should have asked why the farm was for sale.

I'll give the book credit: the scariest part of the whole thing was the fact that a woman will always be told she's acting crazy, even by her own loved ones. It was so incredibly frustrating for Josh to constantly belittle Emily's worries and fears, even when he was claiming to believe her.

The biggest downside to the book was that it did not need to be as long as it was. It could have been condensed down another 50ish pages and still had the same gut punch plot. But I loved the spookies and I loved the mystery.

3.25 Stars.

I probably would have liked this one more if I were a less experienced reader. I certainly read a lot of this type of book in my teens and absolutely gobbled them up. The Farmhouse is part psychological suspense and part ghost story. But, the repetitive nature of the story and the shallowness of the characters, especially the husband, made this one fall a bit flat for me.

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Thank you, NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for allowing me to read/review this ARC.

I just finished The Farmhouse by Chelsea Conradt, and let me tell you, I could not put it down. I picked it up thinking it would be a typical small-town mystery with some spooky vibes, but it turned out to be way more intense and layered than I expected.

The story kicks off when a group of teens ends up at this abandoned farmhouse, and from the moment they get there, you just know something's off. I had that “don’t go in there!” feeling the whole time, which, to be honest, is exactly what I want from a thriller. The tension builds fast, and the atmosphere is so well written that I could basically hear the creaky floorboards and feel the chill in the air.

What surprised me most was how much I cared about the characters. They’re not just throwaway horror movie types. They felt like real people with real fears and secrets, and as everything starts to unravel, you get this sinking feeling that not everyone is going to make it out okay. And yeah, there are twists. Some I saw coming, some I definitely did not, and that just made it all the more fun.

This book gave me creepy, suspenseful, and surprisingly emotional all at once. If you like thrillers with a solid mystery, a bit of nostalgia, and characters who actually feel human, The Farmhouse is worth a read. Just maybe keep a light on while you do.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC!

I unfortunately had to DNF at 24 pages. I just...did we have to hear how hot her husband is every other sentence? It totally ruined the vibe the early chapter had set.

The Farmhouse had an eerie vibe that capitalizes on the farm being in the middle of nowhere. I found the story intriguing and wanted to see what would happen. The negatives for me was that things started to get a bit repetitive and it caused everything stalled out for a while in the middle, as well as the husband and wife dynamic which never felt right no matter how the story played out.

Note: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A haunting tale that slowly creeps up on you. The start was a little slow for me. Not much was happening. I did enjoy the creepy vibes.

i love the modern but just as eerie haunted house vibes this book gives. because there is so often more to it than that and this one covers all the bases.
it managed to give me those eerie feelings. and i wanted to find out more and more what was happening to this house or the people in it.
Emily and Josh have moved to a fresh start they desperately need. this farmhouse seems like the perfect place and answer to the grief Emily is suffering with due to the recent loss of her mother. but what was a lovely farmhouse dream turns into something much darker. because strange things start going on around her. what is this house trying to tell her? then she finds out that every female in this property has either died or gone missing. and now Penelope is getting sounds from her own mothers memory. but not even her own husband seems to be listening to what she thinks is going on. so what will Emily do next or what will the house do next?
is it the towns folk that dont want her to keeping investigating. is it even her husband? or as a reader can we actually trust what is going on actually is!? i mean a barn moving? is this Emily is such grief that she is getting all mixed up or do we too see something darker here?
love the keep me guessing way this book pulled me along. i wanted answers by the end too.

Emily and Josh decide to start over after a lifetime in the city by buying a farmhouse in rural Nebraska. They own the farmland, but lease it back to relatives of the former owners, to continue to work the land. While Josh is immediately at ease, Emily begins to feel strangely, such as noticing on her daily runs that the old barn on the property moves its distance from the house. And she begins hearing music and voices. When she finds out the previous owners experienced dual tragedies on the property, she is convinced their spirits are lingering on the property. But can he convince anyone else that what she’s experiencing is real?

I’ve read similar books with a similar trope: couple moves to an isolated cabin/farmhouse in hopes to start anew and the wife begins to experience paranormal events and her husband basically tells her she’s going insane, etc. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s used because it’s interesting and can be very creepy when done right. But this book, I think needed a little more pep for it to go from “OK” to “excellent.”

It starts off slowly and doesn’t pick up in intense creepiness until about 40-50 percent in. It’s a little too much. I also feel like we didn’t get a lot of closure with the ending. After we got everything ramped up and got to the point where we were invested, the book just kind of ended, but with some major changes. Like, we should’ve gotten more details, but we didn’t. It was disappointing.

The mystery turned out to be interesting, however, and the solution was pretty intense. It was worth hanging in there for, IMO. I just wish it was more fleshed out - maybe instead of the more elaborate B-Story with her dealing with her mom’s death, we could have gotten more about gentrification of farmland and farming legacy, etc.

Do this book is a little hit and miss. If it sounds good to you, pick it up!

Unfortunately, I found this book to be quite boring. The quality of writing itself was good and the premise had a lot of promise, but the pacing, themes, and focus were all a big miss for me. This didn't feel like a slow-burn, but rather a story being drawn out simply to read a word count; it felt as if nothing of any importance was happening, and what was important was so brief that I was underwhelmed. Conradt focuses less on the supposed mystery of the farm and instead on the honestly cringey relationship between the main character and her husband.

On the subject of the characters and relationships, I couldn't have cared less about them. Emily was fine enough and fit the type of character needs that suit horror/mystery, but she was also bland. Her husband, Josh, was incredibly cookie cutter and fulfilled a trope that I loathe - "husband doesn't believe his wife, and thinks she's being crazy" is a huge turn off in books for me. There were moments where their relationship was cute and realistic, but not too often. Although I generally dislike this term, the only way to describe their dynamic is truly cringeworthy.

The mystery and horror elements were pretty lacking. The first 100 - 200 pages felt like a contemporary story about a couple moving to the country, no hints of darker elements to be found. Once those elements were introduced, I simply wasn't interested. Admittedly, I didn't read this book all the way to the end simply because it dragged on so much that I lost all interest.

I think Conradt had an interest premise for a narrative and shows skill in writing, but unfortunately this book suffered from a dull narrative, bland characters, and some severe pacing issues.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a gifted copy of this novel!

If you are looking for eerie, in-the-middle-of-nowhere vibes, then this book is it. Although a bit of a slower burn, it works well with this plot as readers slowly slip into a state of constantly second-guessing along with the FMC. This book also touches on some important topics, such as grief, which I believe were done well. It did take me a bit to get into this book, but I was invested for the large majority of it. I did struggle at times with liking the MMC at all, but for the sake of a spoiler-free review I won’t go into any further detail. Overall, this is an eerie debut that would be great for an early spooky season read!

I really enjoyed this read! It gives suspenseful moments and made me feel like I was losing my mind.
This was solid!

This was fine!

I do love a haunted house story, but this one wasn't really for me. It did have something to say about women being ignored, overlooked, and abused, which I appreciated, but the story and characters needed some work.

I found Em grating at times, in a trying-to-hard-to-be-quirky kind of way. It was especially bad in the beginning of the book but became less a problem as things got crazier. Her husband Nick goes from sweet to the absolute worst really quick. The breakdown of their marriage seemed inevitable, but it came on really fast.

The plot was decent, nothing super original, but still fun. The first half of the book was quite slow and probably could have been cut down on, and there were a few loose ends I was curious about that never got addressed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Thank you Poisoned Pen Press for the gifted digital ARC!

I unfortunately decided to DNF this one about 50% in. I felt like the plot was super repetitive and the story didn't seem to be advancing. I knew I'd have a hard time reading a whole other half of the book as it was.

It's a weird thing to fixate on but I also couldn't get past the constant references to the female MC making a pot of coffee. It really irked me for some reason!

I didn’t love the pacing, and there are a lot of jarring sentence fragments, but the mystery was gripping enough to make up for it. The description of grief is real and accurate.

I think this will be a big hit with fans of Simone St. James.

DNF 13%

I was so excited to read this book based on the blurb and the cover, so I'm so bummed that this one isn't working out for me. The writing style feels very clunky and sentences can be difficult to follow. Also, the narrator keeps saying his great her husband is, but he seems like a real tosser.

The Farmhouse gives off very creepy vibes. Emily and Josh move to a farm in Nebraska after Emily's mother passes away. What was meant to be their new sanctuary quickly turns into a nightmare.

This one is a littler slower paced than I would have liked, but it did not skimp on being creepy. At times I was frustrated with Josh for how he responded to his wife. I will not say more to avoid any spoilers.

The setting is what really makes this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.