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A Novel
by Lisa M. Matlin
Most people wouldn't buy an infamous murder house to renovate for fun ... but Sarah Slade is not most people.
A therapist and self-help writer with all the answers, Sarah has just bought a gorgeous Victorian in the community of her dreams. Turns out you can get a killer deal on a house where someone was murdered. Plus, renovating Black Wood House makes for great blog content and a potent distraction from her failing marriage. Good thing nobody knows that her past is as tainted as the bloodstain on her bedroom floor.
But the renovations are fast becoming a nightmare. Sarah imagined custom avocado wallpaper, massive profits, and an appreciative husband who would want to share her bed again. Instead, the neighbors hate her guts and her husband still sleeps on the couch. And though the builders attempt to cover up Black Wood's horrifying past, a series of bizarre accidents, threatening notes, and unexplained footsteps in the attic only confirm for Sarah what the rest of the town already knows: Something is very wrong in that house.
With every passing moment, Sarah's life spirals further out of control—and with it her sense of reality. But as she peels back the curling wallpaper and discovers the house's secrets, she realizes that the deadly legacy of Black Wood House has only just begun.
"A fast, fun, gasp-inducing read." —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye
"Creepy, crafty, and packing some deliciously dark surprises, The Stranger Upstairs is a dizzying spiral into madness that kept me guessing to its final pages." —Taylor Adams, author of The Last Word
"The ultimate spooky-season read! Lisa M. Matlin skillfully infuses every page of The Stranger Upstairs with eerie, evocative imagery, and her (anti)heroine, Sarah Slade, is just as disturbing and compelling as the murder-house setting." —Layne Fargo, author of They Never Learn
This information about The Stranger Upstairs was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lisa M. Matlin was a guitarist in a rock band before switching from songwriting to story writing. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband, pug, and golden retriever. She's probably rewatching The Walking Dead right now and trying not to laugh at her own jokes. Matlin is a passionate mental health advocate and your dog's number one fan.
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