The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer follows Macy who is struggling to make ends meet, when a too good to be true offer lands in her lap. For only three days she has to be a caretaker… and follow the Rites that have been left for her.

Let me start by saying I made the mistake of reading this at night and was absolutely terrified. I almost had to sleep with the lights on. My poor partner had to endure me hitting him every time something happened. That being said, this book is amazing. The story keeps you on edge the entire time, it feels like you are on a roller coaster slowly going up knowing that at some point you are gonna take a long fall down.

While some points of the book were repetitive it worked well for the plot, especially at the end with Macy when she is repeatedly thinking the same thing over and over again. It helps understand her mental state at different points of the book. While the plot takes place in a select few places, it didn’t feel claustrophobic, we could see the house easily, it was fleshed out very well.

The ending was so well done. The last ten percent had me pacing, I was on edge. I am very grateful I read the ending in the day and not at 3 am (I learned my lesson). I will be recommending this book to anyone who wants a horror that will keep them up at night.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria books for the ARC.

Reliquary by Hannah Whitten follows Claire in the immediate aftermath of her fiancé’s death. She is invited by his family to attend the funeral, however she knows next to nothing about them and has never met them. But Claire wants a family and who else would understand her pain if not Elias’ family? However not everything is as it seems…

The overall idea of this book was decent however the execution left me a little bit underwhelmed. I was able to mostly figure out the main plot points and I think that played a part in my lack of enjoyment. I was screaming at Claire at some points during the book because it was just very obvious that something was wrong. The strongest part of the book in my opinion is the ending, I was surprised at how Whitten tied everything off while still technically being an open end ending. Usually I am not the biggest fan of open ending books but this fit very well and set a trajectory if she ever decided to write a sequel for the book.

I think I will be in the minority of how much I enjoyed this book, I think if I wasn’t able to figure out almost everything I would have enjoyed it much more. I think the average reader is really going to enjoy this.