Thank you to Netgalley for the preview of this book.  It was my first time reading this particular writer & I thought it was great. The plot can be a little hard to get into but it still made for a great read

Immi is sofa surfing after her breakup with Alistair. She is a teacher but, on her salary, and the rents are so high in London she is finding somewhere is to live slim and she is out staying her welcome at friends Sofia’s house. Until she sees an advert for interviews to live in a high-rise luxurious block of apartments called The Factory. Where their free organic groceries, Yoga, a roof top terrace and a housekeeper called Hannah. There is also another person having an interview hoping to get a flat is Dex.
When Immi’s application to live at The Factory is agreed she thinks that her life is going in the right direction and she surprised that Dex’s application was successful too. Each resident is very different to each other at first look like they are happy in life but, like herself, they all seem to be hiding things from each other. Even more so, when weird things start to happen. Who is playing sinister games to what end?
Thank you NetGalley and Bonnier Books for a copy of The House Share. I really enjoyed this. I like the Uniqueness of the story line and had well developed characters and found it quite spooky in parts. It reminded me of an episode of Black Mirror. It gave me that kind of vibe and kept me guessing who the culprit was throughout. Four stars from me

I enjoyed this book but struggled to relate or like any of the characters. It was an interesting idea and I loved the whole storyline concept. Would read more by this author

The story begins with a young woman, Immi, who is a young teacher living on a friends sofa in central London. She comes across a house share which seems too good to be true. 

Luckily, she is selected to live in the amazing house with 6 others and a house keeper. However, Immi has insecurities and fears over past events and it’s soon discovered the other house mates have their own insecurities and unshared secrets.  And so the strange happenings begin, but... who is responsible? 

I love reading, and would usually read a book in a week or less. Unfortunately, with this book, I just couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t the page turner I expected or wanted it to be.  Three months later, I have forced myself to finish reading this book because I love the author so much. I really wanted it to get better. It did get more interesting just after the halfway point when the stories of each house mate  began to unravel. I will look forward to other Kate Helm titles as her first book, ‘The Secrets You Hide’ was amazing. A real page turner. 

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

First off thank you to Net Galley for the ARC of this book and Kate Helm, the author in return for an honest review

Secondly, so the tale of a “house share” and the strange goings on in The Factory, with a host of very different characters to get to know. I did really enjoy this book right from the first page. Intriguing and well written. My only gripe if I had one was to have to remind myself who was “talking” as I find these books that switch from perspective to perspective difficult to follow sometimes. But that’s just me!!  I’d definitely recommend this book and would like to read more from this author!

The house share - an experiment, a community of people all living in a warehouse adapted into small rooms - where to get in you must undertake interviews and be approved by the current residents. Immi saw the advert for this room in this house and couldn't believe her luck when she got picked to live there - 7 people all under one roof - all with secrets and hidden lies - we get to know all the characters - many aren't very likeable and become suspicious to being too good to be true. They all appear to be your friend and want the best for you but do they? Secrets start to be revealed and Immi soon realises all is not as good as it seems - but what can she do about it now? Read to find out.
I read this over a couple of nights. addictive reading.

I really enjoyed this book!  A great story line that kept me hooked and excellent main characters.  I would highly recommend this book.

I just wasn't sure about the theme of this book, it all seemed a little plastic and unreal like most of the characters. It also replicated another recent book with a similar theme where guests lived in abject luxury not realising that they were there to have their organs harvested by order. Unfortunately a lot of this novel irritated me as it was just far too unbelievable, even for Immi who desperately needed somewhere to live that was cheap. Sorry, it was a disappointing read for me.

This book has such an interesting premise, and I could picture the characters well, and was enjoying the dynamic. I just found it too slow. Bu halfway through I still hadn't become enthralled by it, and I couldn't believe how long it had taken me to get that far, when I usually read a book in a few days. Writing style was fine, I think I'd have liked a bigger twice much earlier though.

The House Share focuses on the narrative of two characters: Immi and Dexter, the newest additions to The Factory. Personally, I didn't really find Dexter's character that interesting, but I really enjoyed Immi's narrative perspective.

I liked the juxtaposition between the seemingly perfect house and the manipulative, creepy behaviour of the other housemates.

I also thought Helm's decision to include messages from The Factory app within the narrative was a good one; the app informs the housemates about The Factory, the behaviour that is expected, and the rules they must follow - all in a passive aggressive, unsettling way. These sections of the book almost made me feel like was part of this house share too - something I would not be keen on! 

However, my main criticism is this: I can't see why anyone would choose to live this life, when they are so aware that something is not right! Immi questions time and time again whether she has joined a cult, if she is in danger, or if her housemates are trustworthy. Yet, she chooses to stay regardless! 

Immi chooses to stay at The Factory when everything else - her friends, her natural instincts, the evidence she uncovers - tells her to get out as quickly as she can.  Whilst she may have felt she had "no other choice" because of her circumstances (which are explained later in the book), I simply don't accept this. I don't believe Immi was forced into this situation and I don't believe she was forced to stay. Consequently, this made so many of Immi's decisions completely frustrating to read. It also made it harder to feel sympathetic towards her when she faced real danger.

Overall, The House Share was fine, but it disappointed me in a few places.

The House Share is a fast-paced, unputdownable thriller with plenty of twists and a solid premise.

The Dye Factory is a house share, a communal living space in a luxury warehouse with a very affordable price tag. When Immi finds the Dye Factory, it just might be too good to be true. A series of pranks begin and eventually escalate to be quite menacing leaving everyone wondering who is behind them and Immi wondering if she can even trust her housemates.

There is a great deal of suspense and very well-written characters. The ending is completely unpredictable. Highly recommended to readers who enjoy strong thrillers. Be sure to check out The House Share today.

The House Share by Kate Helm left me completely hooked from the first chapter. 
The concept was fantastic and the tension was so palpable! 

Although I didn’t really connect with the characters I still found it really fantastic and gripping. The ending was slightly disappointing and felt a bit rushed but I still enjoyed the book overall.  

The characters are really well written and some of them can be really creepy but it just makes the story so more intriguing with lots of secrets and twists! 

The house share background is also a really interesting premise and it worked so well that made the book incredibly interesting. 

The last chapter was a bit disappointing but it actually gave the book a bit of closure which I kind of needed! 

I highly recommend this book and I can’t wait to read further books by this author. 

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Bonnier Books UK for the opportunity  to read this book prior to its publishing date.

A fast paced thriller full of thrills, twists and suspense. Great characterisation and a decent plot. Not the best I’ve ever read but still a good story.

Very good read. It was an interesting concept and I do think it would be huge on screen. Lots of mystery surrounding the different characters sharing the same building. Each one comes with there own secrets. It was well written. Interesting to read.

I loved the first half of the book and then not so much after. I struggled to keep my attention.  Felt this could have been a lot shorter and better

The House Share from Kate Helm is a really intriguing concept and I had big hopes for this book. A perfect, modern, affordable, technological, hipster home in London with potential new house mates chosen via an interview and vote system held by the current house mates. I felt like The House Share had a lot of promise, keeping me guessing and trying to figure out exactly what was going on. But ultimately, I was a little disappointed. I couldn't warm to any of the characters really and I felt like the ending was a bit rushed and confusing. 3 stars for a good concept making it mildly enjoyable and intriguing despite my disappointment.

Thank you to NetGalley, Kate Helm and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a well-written, enjoyable book that pulls you in from the get-go and doesn't let go until you get to find out what the hell is going on. It kept me intrigued all throughout, had me speculating about all the things we did know and wondering about the things we were still to find out, and by the end everything was wrapped up nicely.

The House Share is about a building that was once an animal slaughter house where leather was treated and dyed, which unsettled me from the start as someone who despises all forms of animal abuse, and also is why the building, once re-purposed for a second time, is referred to as the Factory and the residents within called the Dyers. No one actually knows who owns the building or why the rent is so cheap, but upon signing up for the house share, there's an intense and questionable interview process. However, seemingly too good to be true, and coming along at the exact moment in the lives of those applying when it's needed the most, it's too much to turn away. The rent is cheap, food and drink is always made available, the space is large and open, and there's a sense of community. But as the main characters are accepted into the house, we learn that not only are they not quite what they seem, but neither are the housemates they've moved in with, the house itself, or the people behind it. 

The whole thing is surrounded by mystery, but the idea of the community amongst them is enough to keep them distracted, to stop them from thinking too deeply on it and questioning this good thing that they have compelling reasons to hold onto. One by one a new secret is discovered by the main character, although it seems quite odd that she - Immi - would seek advice and help from each and every member of the house at one point or another, it somehow all adds up to her figuring out the bigger picture. She discovers that the room she's occupying once belonged to someone who harassed and raped another member of the household, but it also seems that the survivor of that attack isn't what she seems, either, harbouring her own secrets of harmful actions. All of them are hiding something or other, something that the bizarre housekeeper is aware of and isn't afraid to use against them if they threaten to leave the Factory behind them. There's also a three month notice before anyone can leave, which is long enough for their minds to be manipulated via one direction or another. 

Bit by bit by bit we learn more about the true people living in the Factory, and as we learn more about one, something else is uncovered about another, and around and around it goes. None of them have the privacy that they need to hide things for too long, and with each of them turning on the other, it's difficult to contain one incident from the rest of the house, especially when one after the other two members of the Factory are found dead, thought to be innocent enough at first, but clearly obvious to be murder once properly looked into. It takes Immi to put all of the pieces together by the end of it all, but she can't achieve that without the help of her fellow housemates, dead and alive, the same people she fears and believes could have played harmful pranks, tortured and killed the Factory's pet rabbit and guinea pig, tormented those with addictions and mental health problems by making their private rooms smell like the things that are problematic for them. All throughout, the characters are encouraged to hold onto this sense of community, maintain their connections to one another, and regardless of what's happened use that to survive it. But one by one it becomes obvious that this community that was supposedly intended to save its members just when they needed saving the most is the thing that's breaking them in the end. No one escapes the Factory in tact, even if they do leave still breathing. 

As a reader, I found it easy and enjoyable to pick apart the evidence we were presented with throughout the story, deciding who could and couldn't have done this or was and wasn't capable of that, which was helped a little as the numbers dwindled down. But even then, despite having my suspicions about one housemate, near the end I was almost convinced it was another one, and it's not all that often I read a mystery thriller where the victims and villains are obvious from the start to the point where the ending is boring and unpredictable, so in that sense this book made a refreshing change. The almost Big Brother feeling to it (the telly show, not the government itself, but same difference) made the whole thing interesting, especially as it took on its own unique form, and where previous books I've read where this has been attempted failed this managed to pull it off in a believable way. Jokes amongst the community about it possibly being a cult weren't far from the truth, though not in the literal sense of the meaning, but a form of it all the same.

The writing itself was good, not quite amazing, but good enough that nothing of the way it was written interrupted the flow of the story in any way. I did question the fact that it was done in first person, but it turned out to work really well, and, unlike a lot of author's, this one knows how to use this perspective and do it well. There is one aspect I still think the book could have done without, but that didn't actually take away from it, and that's the second POV of Dex, Immi's fellow housemate who interviewed and got accepted at the same time as she did. His perspective, although unique to him with a different sound and feel to show two distinct personalities between them, came and went as it pleased, no real pattern to it, and seeing as though it's not a romance novel or written in third person, I found this odd and a little unnecessary. But, at the end of it, it didn't take from the story, it gave us information we could have got through Immi, as we do eventually, anyway, and the only reason I can think this decision was made at all is to fulfil a little scene at the end of the story where Dex goes and does something Immi doesn't feel safe doing knowing she's being watched, so I suppose in that sense it served its purpose, even if there could have been ways around that, too.

There's a character I loved from the start that I feel the need to mention, which is Zoum, who is an Afghanistan immigrant that self-identifies as gay, and there was something about him that I loved from the start. He plays a vital part in piecing everything together towards the end of the story, but I wish we could have seen more of him throughout. He was used as a scapegoat a lot of the time, blamed for some of the harmful 'pranks' done due to the fact that he once used to play little pranks on the housemates, and when he denied having played a part in the toxic actions of someone within the community, I believed him. I feel like he got the least page time out of everyone, sadly, and I hate that I've found myself questioning whether that's because he's the one and only shown and declared LGBTQ+ character (although Lucus could be considered questionable, but it was never declared or shown, so, I don't count him), and/or because of his origins - I despise the 'token' queer and/or POC character for the sake of having one, but I want to believe that wasn't the case at all here. Perhaps having him on the sidelines helped to put a question mark hanging over him as to whether or not it was him who was being awful, but I've come to learn that if we're told repeated that someone gone done it, then they most likely didn't, anyway, as a red erring type scenario. Still, there was representation, albeit limited, and he was a lovely character, it's just a shame he didn't get more time on the page.

Overall, the story was well-written with the right choices made to portray it effectively, the characters were all shown to be different to one another rather than blurring into one, which I've seen a lot with stories where there's a lot of characters involved, and the plot kept me engrossed and guessing all the way from start to finish. It might not be up there on my favourite of all the favourites list, but it was one I really liked and loved reading, might possibly read again one day, and that I would definitely recommend to others. The only negative thing that I could possibly think to say about this book is that it might not age too well in terms of references to types of people, situations and scenarios to our time, cultural references, etc., but there's a good chance it will, too. I appreciate the chance to read this, and I hope others are able to enjoy it as much as I did.

Immi is sofa-surfing after the breakup of her relationship, and desperate to find accommodation of her own. but in central London, on a teacher's salary, it looks like her options are limited. That is, until she finds the ad for The Dye Factory. 

An experiment in communal living, The Dye Factory is a luxurious warehouse with a rooftop terrace, yoga classes, complimentary groceries and - best of all - subsidised rent. 

When Immi's application is successful, it seems all her problems have been solved. But it's not long before she realises the The Dye Factory isn't quite the idyllic haven it appears. When pranks take a sinister turn, the residents are shaken. Someone, it seems, is out to scare them, or worse - and every resident seems to have a motive. Immi needs to figure out who it is before it's too late...

Really enjoyed this original and well written thriller with a unique premise and well-rounded characters. I read a lot of psychological/domestic thrillers so it was nice to read one with a new twist on an old format. The final twist was a little bit on the telenovela side of high drama for me, but I liked how everything was revealed, and I felt satisfied with the ending. 

Will definitely read more from this author - 4 out of 5 stars from me. 

NB: I was provided with a free ARC copy of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is quite an interesting book - seven housemates, seven secrets, all living in a utopian community hub. Our two main characters, Immi and Dex, are the newest residents in a community co-living arrangement, where the situation seems almost too good to be true. But as time rolls on and Immi and Dex get to know their new housemates, it turns out that all is not what it seems.
I quite enjoyed this book. I read a large part of it on a plane home, and was certainly engrossed in it. I don't think it quite hit the spot for me, though, and there were a number of reasons why. I think the first was that there's actually a surprisingly large cast of characters, and it was difficult at times to keep track. On top of that, nobody in the house is actually all that likeable, which made me less keen to find out what was actually going on. Hanna, the mysterious housekeeper who lives in the basement, was underused, I felt, as she added a real degree of sinister undertones to the whole urban experiment.
Overall, while I enjoyed the book, something about it was just a little off. The pacing wasn't quite right, things weren't revealed with enough frequency to keep me entertained, and certainly the ending felt terribly rushed. I was disappointed by the escalation in the final pages, as it felt out of step with what had preceded it. 
Certainly enjoyable, weird, and creepy, I don't think this one will be particularly memorable, but there was nothing really wrong with it either.

This book would make a good movie... Seven people in a large building, each with their own secrets. There is death, betrayal and a little love. I personally could never ever live in a community like that, where other people decide what you can and can't do or eat or drink or whatever. I could relate to Immi when she was trying so hard the first weeks to fit in, so she could stay because she really needed a place. The other characters were all a bit one-dimensional to me but the tension builds up nicely and there are a few surprises. The last chapter could have been left out, if you asked me.

Thanks to Netgally for this digital review copy.