The beginning of the book was very promising with its storyline. I enjoyed the mysterious Leah's description and how Nolan and Emma was depicted. However, as the pages went on, I started to skip paragraphs and by chapter 7, I was skimming the pages. The book is wordy but the plot is good. I did like the ending (no spoilers from me).

Thank you NetGalley and A. M. Kherbash for giving me the opportunity to read this!

Thank you to Netgalley, and the publisher for a chance to review this book

This was a quick novella. I liked it, but at times it felt like the story was rushed. I wish it was a little longer. Husband and wife are on a vacation, and are discussing what's happened over the past year. At first arrival to the Bed and Breakfast that they stayed at last year. Things are a bit off. The wife starts bonding with the owner, and things get creepier as time goes by.

Lots of creepy dolls,plants, and everything in between. It's not for everyone, but if you're looking for a quick creepy read, this just might be the book for you.

Nolan and Emma visited a bed and breakfast a year ago. Since the loss of their baby Emma has retreated into herself. Nolan takes her back to the same bed and breakfast hoping to get her out of her funk. There is a new owner to the b & b and things have changed.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC and to the publisher the author of the book.

This novella was very unsettling and made me feel weird. BUT, it also made me really sad. It definitely needs trigger warnings for pregnancy loss and grief. I know it’s horror, but it’s also a really heavy topic.

Oh, sporror. I’ll always have a soft spot for anything with a fungi component. I watched that documentary with Paul Stamets a few years back and since then mushrooms have continued to fascinate me. Bed and Breakfast definitely scratches that itch for those who vibe with fungi horror.

Bed and Breakfast tells the story of Nolan and Emma. Following extreme difficulty in their quest to become parents,
Nolan surprises Emma with a trip to a bed and breakfast they visited the previous year. The lodge appears to be under strange new ownership, Leah, who reluctantly agrees to let them a room. The unease is there from the jump and Kherbash gradually dials the intensity up. I struggled a bit with the characters. Honestly none of them are particularly likable. I struggled to relate with either protagonist and could never really get a hold on Leah. I also could have used more plotting. The first half is fairly mundane with these eerie hints of what’s to come but once the book enters that fever dream territory it becomes harder to put down. The ending was a bit abrupt and I’m left with more questions than anything else.

Kherbash is definitely an author to watch and I enjoyed this one. I hope she continues to write in this vein and I look forward to seeing more from her.

I really enjoyed this! I loved the writing and the creepy atmosphere. The two main characters felt very real, and I was very curious to see what was going to happen. While I found the ending a little abrupt, I do enjoy an ambiguous ending.

This eerie little novella caught my attention right away with its moody cover and intriguing premise. I couldn’t resist picking it up, but I kept wishing it had been expanded into a full-length novel.

The story follows Emma and Nolan, a couple staying at a quiet bed and breakfast as they try to recover from infertility struggles and a painful event in their past. From the moment they arrive, there’s an odd, unsettling atmosphere. Leah, the owner, is creepy in a way that made me uneasy every time she was on the page, but her character stayed too mysterious for my taste. There was so much potential for her to become truly strange and terrifying, but in the end we’re left with more questions than answers.

The horror here isn’t in big scares, it’s that slow, lingering chill that sticks with you. There were a few moments that genuinely made me uncomfortable, and a couple of images I’ll probably remember longer than I’d like. Still, I found myself wanting more: more answers, more tension, and more development across the board.

If you’re in the mood for something quick that gives off a steady, eerie vibe and don’t mind a lot being left unsaid, this is worth checking out.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nolan and Emma revist the Bed and Breakfast they loved staying at last year hoping for an escape from reality
and relive those happy memories but what they find there is beyond their worst imagination.

This novella started off really strong and the plot certainly had a lot of potential. It made me deeply unsettled right from the get go as the author wastes no time in getting on with the action creating a tense atmosphere and a constant sense of dread.

I found some of the parts really dragged on while some felt confusing. As much as I am a fan of an abrupt and vague ending, I needed a little more from the story hoping the author would delve deeper into certain topics which would have made the payoff a little less lacklustre. It would have been better if it was a full length novel.

Thank you @netgalley and the author A.M.Kherbash for the digital ARC to read and review.

I really liked this novella. It was an easy, creepy, and well written horror book. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was more than impressed with this book. I also really liked the cover, it gave me creepy vibes and I needed to know what it was about.

Nolan plans a weekend getaway to the one place he remembers his wife, Emma, being truly happy. But when they arrive, the vibe is off. Things are strange… unsettling… and they only get worse from there.

This novella delivers some solid body and plant horror—creepy, gory, and unique. I liked the concept, but I did find the writing a little hard to follow at times. It also touches on some heavier themes, including miscarriage, so keep that in mind before diving in.

🌿🩸 Weird, sad, and disturbing in equal parts.

A.M. Kherbash’s Bed and Breakfast is a haunting, quietly devastating novella that examines the ache of grief, the fragility of memory, and the dangerous depths of romantic obsession. Told in sparse, lyrical prose, this is a story that lingers long after the final page—not because of any explosive twists, but because of how intimately it captures the quiet unraveling of a relationship bound by loss.

At its heart is Nolan, a man deeply in love with his wife, Emma, and desperate to reclaim the magic of a weekend they once shared at a charming bed and breakfast. A year later—and after a tragedy that neither can name aloud—Nolan brings Emma back, hoping to rewind time, to pretend the last eleven months never happened, to start over. But memory is a slippery thing, and love, when steeped in denial, can become suffocating.

Kherbash masterfully builds tension not through plot but through tone. The setting is serene—quaint, even—but the emotional undercurrent is thick with sorrow and unease. Nolan’s devotion to Emma is raw and real, but also unsettling. As the story progresses, it becomes clear this isn’t just a tale of mourning a lost moment—it’s about a man who cannot, or will not, let go, even as everything around him tells him it’s time to.

This novella works so well because it doesn’t over-explain. There’s a restraint in Kherbash’s writing that mirrors Nolan’s internal struggle—he’s trying to contain the flood of grief, to control it, and we feel that desperation in every quiet interaction, every forced smile, every unspoken truth. The real horror here isn’t supernatural; it’s emotional claustrophobia. It’s the slow realization that sometimes love isn’t enough—not to heal, not to hold .
Bed and Breakfast is a poignant and unsettling meditation on what happens when love becomes a cage and the past refuses to stay buried. A.M. Kherbash proves that you don’t need hundreds of pages to break a reader’s heart—you just need to know where to apply the pressure.

I hate to be that person, but there was a lot that didn’t work for me. First, our main character seemed a bit insensitive to his wife’s pain. Who thinks that returning to the place where you became pregnant (after multiple pregnancy losses) only to deliver your precious baby stillborn would be helpful? And then when the weird-ass new owner turns you away you beg just see that room for five minutes? Sorry but if my husband drug me there and then wanted me to just look at the room for a few minutes, I’d want to choke him. Moving on, the same weird owner now wants you to stay, and weird stuff keeps happening and she just keeps getting creepier… your wife is mentally shutting down, so let me take a walk through the woods. NOPE.

Aside from me basically hating this guy, the story didn’t have much to it. It’s weird, but it’s not all that I hoped it could be and I was mostly bored with it. I won’t go on because I don’t want to give anything away for those that may enjoy it and it does seem to have great reviews, it just wasn’t for me.

This was an entertaining read that I truly enjoyed reading.
A well written story that kept me hooked from the very beginning.
The characters draw you in and keeps you flipping the pages.
I really liked the writing style. I found myself hooked, turning the pages.

I think this is said a lot about novellas but I really think I'd have enjoyed this more if it was longer. I completely get that the point was to leave things up to the readers' imagination but I would have loved a little bit more detail. I did really love the themes of grief and loss and the difference in how this affects a father vs a mother.

Tense and unsettling vibes all around. I appreciated the author’s interpretation of grief and loss, but unfortunately, that’s about all that I enjoyed. For a whopping 160 pages, this story was incredibly slow paced and almost none of the storylines are tied up in the end. Not a bad read, per se, but the execution was lacking in my opinion.

This novella is as extremely unsettling as its cover. From the first page you feel the dread and grief dripping off the pages. Kherbash does a really great job of showing the dynamic between Nolan and Emma in a short number of pages.

I don’t want to give anything away, in case you choose to read, which you should. Just know it is a wild and cuckoo bananas story filled with witchery, mushrooms, dolls, plants and some sinister shadows. I wished it was a little longer because I wanted more! The ending is open ended but in the best way. Perfect for a cold night during the spooky season. I will read more of Kherbash as she knows how to scare!

Thank you @netgalley for my advance copy!

Emma and Nolan have been struggling with infertility and after a third miscarriage- Nolan decides they need a mini vacation away. Emma has been very depressed and could benefit from a few days away in a bed and breakfast. When they get there Nolan is immediately off put by the host of the B&B and as their stay progresses things keep getting weirder and weirder. This was a quick easy read that spent no time in getting into the good details.

An eerie novella that immediately lured me in with both the cover and the synopsis! However, I think it would have been better if it was a full-length novel.

We follow Emma and Nolan during their stay at a small bed and breakfast, trying to heal from experiencing infertility issues and a traumatic event from the past. Immediately upon their arrival, things start being weird. Leah, the owner, was incredibly creepy, but I must admit I wasn't satisfied with the ambiguity of her character. I constantly hoped we would get to know more about her. There was a lot of potential for her to become something grotesque, unique, and truly terrifying, but we're left with a lot of unanswered questions by the end. There were moments that made me shiver in uneasiness, and I didn't want to read the book at night. The horror parts weren't exactly loud, it was more of a constant chill that never quite leaves you. And while it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, the story definitely creeped me out and I wasn't left untouched. There are scenes that are burned in my memory that I definitely wish I could forget. Unfortunately, I simply wanted more of everything. More character development, more insight into certain events, more horror, and more creepy things happening.

If you want something short to give you the creeps, and are okay with not knowing a lot by the end, I'd recommend this one! I think you might like this if you enjoyed Nestlings by Nat Cassidy!

this is one of those books that has you on edge. there is a feeling it in, to it. its emotional and you can feel this through every part of the book. the tone, the words, the characters. its all done so well you can feel the heaviness of what our couple have been through and are going through. theres also that desperation there. of needing to fix something that really cant.
husband and wife go back to a B&B they went to a year before. they had such a lovely time... then. now though they have had a years since and its been horrible. everything has turned over on itself. Emma the wife has had a miscarriage and she is not ok. nor should she be of course. everything is fallen in and around them. and together they are not ok either. Nolan wants this weekend to take them back to a place they had something together, something good. he needs this to be something good. his obsession with this being the answer is vivid.
but what they find wen they arrive takes them deeper and darker and into a place and experience they never could have wanted to come their way. when the owner says you cant say take that answer and run my friends might have been something somewhere should have screamed at our couple. as a reader it took you to that turns alongside the characters and makes you equally as tense!
you are always wondering whats coming with this book. and it bring that eerie sense. that feeling of not quite knowing.
a good one this book. a really unsettlingly good one.

Lots of creepy vibes, for sure, and overall a dark and weird tale. But…it was just lacking something that made me really go for it. A witchy version of Misery should have been right up my street, but it just didn’t quite connect.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.