Just Like Home

No spoilers here. I liked the premise - serial killer father, family secrets, house haunted, daughter returns home. Lots of twists and turns. Didn't like much of the middle. Thought the pacing was slow and didn't find characters believable or relatable. Ending a surprise. Expected more than it delivered.

I picked this one up because it was the the January 2023 pick for the Wine & Crime Book Club - it found its way onto the voting poll because the club previously read THE ECHO WIFE and we had a big bag of mixed reactions, but we really enjoyed discussing the book.

Audiobookers - this book is narrated by Xe Sands, whom I *love* but I do think her musical voice alone doesn't do the fear that builds throughout the story. I would recommend immersion reading if at all possible or just sticking to the physical book.

JUST LIKE HOMEis a legitimate thriller - there was a chapter that had me breaking out into a cold sweat reading it and resulted in bad dreams that night. I freaking love it when a book does that! THIS is what I look for in thrillers!!

I enjoyed the mystery of what happened in our main character's past, as well as the mystery of what (or who) is pulling shenanigans now that Vera is back to go through her old childhood home in preparation to sell it after her mother dies. Sarah Gailey nailed this one as far as atmosphere and setting the story in what readers come to believe is a haunted house. I had so many different theories and one was even kind of right in the end!

What kept this one from a higher rating was the ending. It just didn't quite land with me. It pulled the plug on the fear factor and made it...cozy? Is that the right word? I would have preferred something a bit more violent - I think this narrative would have excelled as one where it just ends, readers are left using their imagination as to what really happened.

This story had a very slow start. Not uninteresting, just s-l-o-w. The feeling of dread and oppression are very well conveyed and in true horror fashion you don't if the events are really happening or if the characters are just going insane. a bit over the halfway mark the story does pick up and the payoff is well worth it. Creepy with a smothering dread and things that really do go bump in the night. This was a very good horror read.

This book started off interestingly enough. It’s about a woman who goes back to her childhood home where her mother is very sickly, and she’s come to take care of her and the house after she passes. But the backstory plot twist is that her dad was a serial killer during her childhood. The book takes place years later when the main character is in her 20s, but has a lot of flashbacks to her childhood throughout the book. It’s fairly slow paced book, and that’s why I give it 6 stars. The plot was really good, but took forever for me get really interested. Also, the ending confused me a lot.

Do not recommend