Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this book!

Enjoyed the haunting and creepy feel of this read. Unique plot line of the FMC trying to get her husband to leave.

Excited to make How To Fake A Haunting my first ARC. ♡
Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

₊˚⊹⋆ first thoughts: it's really hard to read about the choices callum makes and how it affects lainey and their daughter's life. previously being in a relationship with a charismatic alcoholic, i am very much connected to lainey's character in that degree. looking at that kind of a situation from the outside it's so easy to scream "leave!!!" but when it's you in that situation, you definitely want to listen to your hope for change rather than the evidence they will not. love lainey's bestie adelaide already and her silly desire to help by quite literally scaring the hell out of callum purely for lainey's sake.

₊˚⊹⋆ final thoughts: omg!!!! this books has such a good balance of comedy, drama and horror. this would be my ideal ratio of the three. while the biggest plot twist is part of the part in itself, the way christina carmen is able to tell callum and lainey's story - all past, present and future - through potential real life haunting is great. the message of battling yourself, a reality you aren't happy with life's circumstances can really hit you when you least expect it.

I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the book. I would buy this as a physical copy in the future for my books shelf display. The storyline was well done, I absolutely loved the wife and the best friend. I’m watching you girl. She made me hate her so much that I LOVED her. I couldn’t stop reading the story. I wanted to know more. Why the best friend even had the idea of a haunting in the first place and her dedication to the actions had me amused beyond years. As soon as I got it, I knew the husband was going to just ruin my mood. And did. You can’t have a good book without a few characters that get under your skin and the author did just that. The humor, the horror the mystery, give me more !

Thank you for this opportunity to read and review this book.
3.6 is what I am rating and pushing it up to 4 starts because towards the end of the book it really started to get creepy. Perfect for an October read ! When I think of mystery and thriller this wasn’t a book I was expecting., which is a good thing. The twist in this book to me, are all unexpected! I have this habit of guessing before the end and I guess wrong every time in this one. Some chapters were hard to get through to be honest because they seem a little outlandish. I mean we are faking a haunting most people couldn’t do this. I think it was a lot of the beginning that was a slow read. It’s hard to love the main character, but I think that is the point. She’s not one to show her emotions and seems unappreciative. Yet, when I got to the last few chapters I needed to know what was happening. I loved the concept the “ghosts” and what it represented when they “teamed up” as the book summary states. At the end of the book I really enjoyed how everything wrapped up.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would! It did fall into the trap of the main character repeating their thought process and questions more than I felt was necessary, but the general tone and plot was well done and kept the pace throughout. All in all an interesting take!

Oh, how much fun I had with this read. Lately I've been consuming a lot of horror books and especially the ones about haunted houses, even if they get a bit predictable with time. Read one and you know all of them, right? Wrong. How To Fake A Haunting is such an unique little story, one that kept me awake at ungodly hours because I couldn't stop reading. I liked how it made me question every scene and every character, how it confused me and made me wonder what was real and what was fake.
That being said, I still felt like something was missing. I'm afraid that Lainey and Adelaide's friendship simply felt shallow to me - whenever they interacted it felt forced, like they were two actors playing the roles of best friends, if that makes sense. I don't know, I just wish there was some more backstory there.
But other than that I enjoyed it and I'm immediately going to look at other books by this author!

Let me start by saying: supernatural thrillers usually aren’t my go-to. But “How to Fake a Haunting” absolutely hooked me from the very first page—and never let go.

Christa Carmen has crafted a chilling, clever, and compulsively readable story that brilliantly blurs the line between performance and possession. The premise alone is genius: a woman who decides to stage a haunting of her own house in an attempt to convince her alcoholic husband that he’s going crazy. What truly makes it stand out is how Christa Carmen plays with perception and illusion, building dread not just from spectral encounters, but from the deeply human motives behind them.

The main character is sharp, layered, and darkly witty—a perfect lens through which to explore themes of grief, exploitation, control and the stories we choose to believe. The atmosphere is saturated with creeping unease, and yet there’s a biting modernity to it all that makes it feel fresh and current. Think The Haunting of Hill House meets Only Murders in the Building, but darker, smarter, and far more emotionally resonant.

This book surprised me in all the best ways. It made me question what was real until the very end, and it reminded me why I love horror that isn’t just about ghosts—but about the things that haunt us.

If you love psychological tension with a supernatural twist, morally gray characters, and a plot that keeps peeling back layers, How to Fake a Haunting is a must-read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the DRC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

"How To Fake A Haunting" by Christa Carmen is a riveting horror story. The story follows our main character Lainey who goes through lengths to fake a haunting in order to drive her alcoholic husband out of her life.

As a fan of the horror genre, I haven't had the opportunity to read contemporary horror stories, so I wasn't sure what to expect when starting this book. I could feel myself getting stressed as I was reading. I thought the story was great and it does a great job at misleading the reader. I spent the first half of the story really thinking Adelaide was going to be guilty somehow. I could tell that an aspect of the haunting was real, but I definitely believed Adelaide was a part of it in some way.

The ghost analogies were really interesting. Manifesting hauntings in figurative ways really helped in building characters and plot. I was really a fan of the Macbeth references as well, immediately understanding the iconic Lady Macbeth washing her hands as soon as it was implied. The plot also progressed very well for me. I thought the build-up and resolve were done very well. The pacing made it so I never felt bored or rushed.

What took me out of it sometimes was the writing. While majority of it is great, I felt myself getting confused in the beginning. I had to reread some parts to try to understand what they were doing like when they first enter the attic. Some of the dialogue also felt very repetitive at times. When Lainey would get mad at Callum, it was often the same speech that was repeated from both of them.

The characters were great in what they represented, but Lainey's really the only one that felt real to me. Adelaide was very exentric in a way that felt very unrealistic. There's something to be said about a best friend of years never telling Lainey about something so integral to her character. Callum as well felt a bit cartoonish. While I get why it was done, it didn't always make sense to me.

Overall, it was a great experience. A quick, but powerful read! I will be looking out for more of Carmen's stories.

I think my biggest takeaway from this book was that I had fun reading it, there were a lot of elements in the beginning I really enjoyed. The storyline was enjoyable and the characters, though unlikable, I was interested in them and convinced to continue reading.

Where this story really fell for me was the ending. However, I think if you're a fan of fun supernatural thrillers with a dash of female rash, you could really enjoy this!

Thank you to Netgalley, Christa Carmen and Thomas & Mercer for an early copy of this!

This was an amazing project for this generation I loved it so much and will recommend for sure thank you for this awesome book it had some very funny parts !! the way this book took a turn and a twist and a jab baby this was the one for me I loved it will say that one again the main character and her friend was crazy to even come up with that idea!!! To say the least !!!!

I sadly did DNF this book. I just could not get into the writing style, nor plot line. Callum was also making me so angry, that I could not get past some of his actions. That is definitely just a personal feeling with the character Callum, and not in any way a dig towards how the author wrote Callum's character.I made it to page 70. I did go ahead and read the epilogue, and the way it seems to have wrapped up was nice to see. Just was not the book for me.

When your alcoholic husband pushes you too far, why not fake a haunting in your house? This is the basic premise of the book, although it ends up going much deeper than that.

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I liked the idea of them having a real haunting happening at the same time as the fake one. I liked it even more that the ghosts they saw were actually impressions of themselves. I wasn’t too sure where the author was going to take the abortion thing, and I was relieved when the act of having an abortion wasn’t deemed at fault for what happened.

What I wasn’t so sure about, though, was the future timeline that saw the wife becoming an alcoholic herself. With how angry she was at her husband’s alcoholism, it just didn’t ring true that she’d go down the same path.

It was interesting to see ghosts that represented their past and future. It was definitely a nod to A Christmas Carol, and it also brought up questions about parallel timelines.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

lainey taylor, in a desperate attempt to get herself and her daughter beatrix away from her husband callum and his drinking problem, agrees to indulge her best friend adelaide and let her stage a haunting in the family house. while driving callum mad, secrets begin to be revealed and lainey witnesses things that no fake haunting could explain. somewhere between paranormal activity and confronting your own past and future, can lainey save her daughter, and most importantly herself?

i really enjoyed this! i liked the characters and their development, the over the top haunted house tropes mixed with the mystery of figuring out wth is happening.

How To Fake A Haunting follows main character, Lainey, and her best friend staging a haunting in order to get rid of her alcoholic husband; I love this concept though I can't say they planned it out very well. She said she wanted to make sure that the daughter wasn't involved at all but there were so many times where the daughter was super close to finding out about the hauntings (ex. what if Callum had thrown the container with the rabbit head rather than just screaming?).

I guess what I'm saying is that it was hard to root for any of the characters, as it felt like all of them were making dumb decisions. At one point, the daughter said she saw a figure in the mirror and when the ghost hunters later bring up the fact that there is suspicious energy surrounding the mirrors in the house, she doesn't believe them. I thought it was somewhat understandable, as it's pretty common for those types of people to be scammers, but she didn't even note the connection or anything.

I did like the ending, though, and thought it was pretty reasonable!

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for an ARC of this book! All opinions are my own.

I've only read a few supernatural horrors before but I have quickly learned that love a book with supernatural components so this definitely piqued my interest! Where this book succeeds is it's quick pacing, unique take on the supernatural, and strong characters. I flew through this book and was pleasantly surprised by the revelations at the end. Some of the characters in this story were incredibly unlikeable but in the way that makes you want to read what happens even more. However, if I were Lainey, I would probably be looking for a new best friend.

There were two areas where I struggled with this book. The first was Lainey's "secret" that I felt was dropped kind of randomly into the book and did not really add to the story. The second was the ending which felt very rushed compared to the pace of events happening throughout the book. I would have liked to see this play out for a little bit longer with expanded explanations.

Overall, this was an enjoyable, fast paced supernatural horror perfect for spooky season when it releases in October! Definitely check your trigger warnings before reading though!

The plot was well done, and the story was entertaining. The atmosphere of this book was exhilarating. It’s creepy, and it’s a haunted house full of paranoia for the characters. The pacing was really good and satisfying, keeping me interested and engage. The end did feel a little rushed and I wish it would have been written out more.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this one. I liked the New England setting with the old houses and history and the twist on what/who the haunting actually was.

Thank you Net Galley for the ARC of this book!! I had a blast with this one! I have not seen this take on a haunted house story before. The characters were well flashed out for the most part. The plot was interesting and well paced.

I did feel that Callum, the main male character, was portrayed as such a bad guy the he was almost cartoonish. I understand why the author wrote him that way, however, for me it distracted from the story.

Overall this would be perfect for haunted stories, horror in general and thrillers as well!!! I feel this is a perfect prescription for those of you who are in a reading slump, it will get you out of that slump!

I cant wait to read it again !!

4 and 1/2 stars !

How to Fake a Haunting by Christa Carmen is straight-up creepy perfection! I loved the whole concept of staging a haunting - it's genius and so well-executed. The atmosphere is masterfully crafted, giving me all the chills and vibes I crave in a thriller.

The characters are complex and intriguing, especially the main duo who concoct this wild plan. Their dynamic is captivating, and I loved watching them navigate the blurred lines between reality and their staged haunting. The twists and turns are expertly woven, keeping me on the edge of my seat until the very end. And that final reveal? Mind blown.

If you're into dark, atmospheric thrillers with clever plotting, this one's a must-read. Huge thanks to NetGalley for the ARC - I'm so glad I got to dive into this one early!

This was an incredibly interesting book. It was a mix of thriller, haunting, feminine rage, family drama, and healing journey and somehow it all tied up in a very cool and neat bow. I found all of the characters to be interesting, complex, flawed, and likable even in their most frustrating moments.

There were some truly stunning and scary moments that made me gasp, some utterly incredible prose, and some twists I didn’t see coming.

Very enjoyable even with the darker elements. A total must read is moody is your vibe! .