This book was so incredibly slow and honestly hard to follow. I couldn't tell what the main story was supposed to be - Marlowe being a closet alcoholic or family drama. This book majorly fell short to me.

The death of a mysterious man on your family's property delves up the mysterious disappearance of your best friend 20 years prior...how far will Marlowe go to protect herself and her family while also discovering the truth behind her best friend's disappearance?

I found the descriptive writing in this book to be absolutely fantastic and helped aid me greatly in creating a mental picture of the setting. This plot sounds like a fantastic plot for a thriller, however I found it not to be as much of a mystery/thriller book as a self discovery book for Marlowe, the main character. I found her to be somewhat of an insufferable character who fit into the stereotypes she spoke so negatively of regarding her and her family, which I found to be further proved by the ending of the book. I also found the setting to take too much of a role in the book itself to not even be relevant or circled back to and answered at the ending of the book.

Next year's holiday season delivers a promising debut from author, Julie Doar.

Set in a remote area of the Hudson Valley, this is a genre mix of thriller and family drama, perhaps leaning in the direction of family drama. When Marlowe's childhood friend goes missing, lots of questions go unanswered. Years later, another incident happens on the family property which reopens this missing persons case. This is a story set over two timelines revealing secrets, while highlighting family loyalty, misconceptions and cloudy memories. It truly is a story in which the sense of place is so strong that The Gallagher Place feels like a character in and of itself.

While there were many moments of surprise, it got off to a slow start and I found the characters rather unlikeable. The pace did pick up and grab my attention, but my desire for the characters remained rather low. I can't really put my finger on it, but I found Marlowe hard to connect with. In addition, ethics really come in to question in this story. Perhaps that is a good thing, because it has the ability to stimulate some interesting discussions.

Thank you to Zibby Publishing for the advanced digital copy via NetGalley. It's nice to see a thrilling reading option in the heart of winter, and this will impact your heart in one way or another.

The Gallagher place is about a family with secrets that they hope will never get out. But little do they know. Secrets never stay secrets. I enjoyed this novel but it had a very slow start.

Marlowe Fisher is an affluent young women from New York City, spending the majority of her time with her family in their upstate New York farmhouse called The Gray House. Across the street was the Gallagher family, a farm owned by three brothers who, after each passed on, left the property to a cousin which was eventually purchased by Marlowe's father, Frank. Spending the majority of her childhood and adult years here, Marlowe befriended a local girl named Nora, who spent every waking moment with the Fisher family any time they were at the house. In June of 1998, Nora vanished from their property without a trace, never to be seen again. The investigation into her disappearance turned up nothing, before eventually petering out.

Now, the Fisher children are adults and it is the day after Thanksgiving when their entire world gets turned upside down a second time. A member of the Gallagher family had been found dead, beaten to death in his tent, sometime within the last 24 hours. The police investigation is grueling, digging into Nora's disappearance and making Marlowe to relive that terrible time in her life when her best friend vanished. As the investigation unfolds, Marlowe questions everything she knows, including the sale of the Gallagher property to her own family, to what she knows about her brothers, Nate and Henry, and the relationships they had with Nora. In the end, the truth of her disappearance is discovered, and it is something that Marlowe may never forgive.

Unfortunately, this one fell short with me. I don't know if it was the formatting of the ARC that made it difficult to read or the story itself, but I felt the entirety of the Gallagher storyline was unnecessary. The death was looked into, and there is a curse mentioned but then...there was nothing. NO follow-up into the previous owners mysterious deaths...only questions surrounding Nora and what happened to her all those years ago. I think the story would have come full circle if the entire storyline regarding the Gallagher property was written out of it, as it really (in my opinion) had nothing to do with the end game of the story to begin with.

Marlowe's character was fine, but she became insufferable after learning that she was trying to justify her alcoholism as a means to coping with her life. Yes, I realize that this is something that true alcoholics do, as I come from a long line of them myself and even struggled with it in my early 20s, BUT I just felt like it was a bit out of character, considering she didn't really drink at all up until the point that the police questioning got to be too much. If she had, I must have missed it.

Overall, 1 star for me on this book. I can't justify giving it a higher rating when there was so much left unsaid in the end about the Gallagher's, whose storyline I actually enjoyed versus the one behind it all.

This is such a twisted tale! I would consider it a family drama rather than a thriller but despite that it was so good.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Combining an unsolved murder, town secrets, and complex sibling relationships makes for a great novel.
After a slow start, I devoured this book.
Trigger warnings do need to be added though, please consider

Thank you Netgalley and Zibby Publishing for the advance ebook.
When Marlowe, an illustrator living in New York City, returns to her family’s bewitching Hudson Valley estate for the holidays, she discovers a murder on the property that draws her back into the haunting case of her teenage best friend’s disappearance twenty years earlier. Marlowe soon finds herself unraveling the tangled dynamics of this small town and the legacy of a summer home that holds both secrets and scars. What follows is a gripping mystery that weaves between past and present as Marlowe confronts the fallibility of her own memory, the shocking truth about her lost friend, and an ultimatum that will change the course of her life.

In this chilling debut novel, Julie Doar parses themes of family loyalty, class tension, friendship, and identity, building toward a dramatic payoff that keeps readers guessing until its final moment.

Well written book. Had me interested from start to end. I likedthe characters as well. 3.75 out of 5 ⭐️

This started just a little slow for me, but got better as I read further into the book!
The family dynamics in this book.. goodness.. and what people will do for family/loved ones.
Disappearance of best friend in the teens. FMC returns home years later to murder. FMC gets pulled into figuring out everything once and for all.
Please check trigger warnings. Specifically related to animals. I had a tough time with that, had to skip some of it because of this.
I felt like I was there with the FMC because the writing is so well done.
The structure of the plot is great. The pace at the beginning of the book was a bit slow, but I toughed it out and it got better about a 1/4 of the way through.
The characters are well developed. I was able to connect to the characters and how they behaved in their environment.
I read this very quickly because I was invested in figuring this out with Marlowe (FMC).
Tropes: family dynamics, class, small time, cold cases.
**If the author sees this, my only criticism is that the book needs trigger warnings right up front before you begin.**
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity read and review this book.
Happy Reading!

4 🌟

What would you do if your best friend disappeared one day?

Ooh, this thriller was good. I loved that it dealt with some hard subjects, like class and how that can play into friendship dynamics. This book kept me engaged almost from the first chapter. Definitely go pick this book up!

The Gallagher Place is a beautifully layered novel that quietly unravels the complexities of memory, place, and the ties that bind people to both. Julie Doar has written a story that feels intimate and lived-in, like stepping into a house where every creak in the floorboards carries a secret.

What I found most compelling is how the book captures the emotional residue of a space—how the past never really leaves, and how people carry it with them whether they realize it or not. The characters are richly drawn, full of quiet longing, unresolved questions, and tender wounds. Their relationships are messy in a way that feels deeply real, shaped by history and circumstance, but still reaching for connection.

Doar’s prose is subtle and precise, never overdone, but always emotionally resonant. The story moves at a reflective pace, allowing space for the weight of small moments to settle. It’s not a book driven by big twists or drama—it’s one that trusts the reader to sit with the quiet revelations and to notice what’s happening beneath the surface.

The Gallagher Place is about home in all its forms: the comfort it offers, the pain it holds, and the people who give it meaning. It’s thoughtful, tender, and quietly powerful—the kind of novel that stays with you long after you finish the last page.

Combine an unsolved murder, family secrets, complicated sibling relationships and you get an epic thriller. Marlowe returns to her family’s beautiful home for the holidays and comes back to a murder. Years ago, her teenage best friend had disappeared and she gets pulled back in. She finds herself tangled up in complex dynamics and has to discover once and for all what happened to her friend.

Positive
This was so well done. This author did such a great job of blending drama and suspense. The setting is so vividly described you really feel like you’re there. You immediately are invested in this story and get locked in wanting to figure out what has happened.

Criticism
Consider putting a list of trigger warnings, such as animal ones at the beginning.

I have always loved to read books from Zibby Publishing, and this new one was no exception. I found the story's mystery entertaining, and while it was a bit slow at the start, it picks up and takes off until the end. Stay with it. The setting and characters are crafted well. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

✨ I absolutely devoured this haunting tale of a family’s hidden secrets that just won’t stay buried. The truth unravels piece by piece in a slow burn that is absolutely worth the wait.

✨The author expertly blends family drama with chilling suspense in this literary thriller that is written with such depth and emotion that I couldn’t put it down and was flipping the pages late into the night.

✨I love a book with a sense of place, and this one was so atmospheric that the Gallagher place – the home and surrounding woods – is almost a character in itself. The setting is the Hudson River Valley with all its legends and folklore – think Ichabod Crane and Rip Van Winkle – and the result is a perfectly eerie and unsettling backdrop for our story to unfold. You won’t want to wander around in the woods alone after this one.

✨Fans of Liz Moore’s GOD OF THE WOODS will love this one. I highly recommend.

🌿Read if you like:
✨Gothic vibes
✨Literary thrillers
✨Cold case narratives
✨Family dynamics
✨Dual timelines
✨Hudson River Valley settings
✨Folklore and legends
✨Debut authors
✨THE GOD OF THE WOODS by Liz Moore

My thanks to @zibbypublishing and @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book before its publication date.

Well written and a great main character. The first 50% was a slow read, but the second half was engaging and dynamic. There are some animal trigger warnings that I wish I knew about, but overall great story about family dynamics and what you’ll do to protect the ones you love.

Thank you for the opportunity to review an early copy of the Gallagher place. It was a slow burn in the beginning (which personally I enjoy). I enjoyed the characters and the story. The cover of this book is beautiful and I must say that’s what first drew me in!

The Gallagher Place is a slow-burn, atmospheric novel that quietly creeps under your skin before you realize how deeply it’s unsettled you. Julie Doar’s debut is a chilling exploration of family secrets, memory, and the ways the past refuses to stay buried.

Marlowe, a thirty-something book illustrator living in New York City, spends much of her time retreating to her family’s sprawling Hudson Valley estate—a place where the rhythms of her strong-willed mother, Glory, still define her world. She’s content, in a way, to drift through life as a bystander, especially in the shadow of her childhood best friend’s long-ago disappearance, a mystery the family has quietly learned to live with.

But everything changes when Marlowe and her brothers stumble upon a body deep in the woods. The police investigation that follows doesn't just focus on the present — it pulls the family back into the unresolved past.

Doar masterfully crafts a gothic, eerie atmosphere where the beauty of the Hudson Valley landscape is thick with menace. The novel is richly layered, blending family drama with psychological suspense. The pacing is gripping, rewarding readers who appreciate mysteries that grow darker with each page turn.

Mysterious, gothic, and unsettling, The Gallagher Place is an impressive debut — one that lingers long after the final chapter.

#TheGallagherPlace #JulieDoar #ZibbyBooks #DebutNovel #GothicMystery #FamilySecrets #HudsonValleyGothic

I really enjoyed this book and all of the characters and their development. I did not expect the conclusion of this story.