Incidents Around the House is a brilliantly chilling read. I haven’t read a book this haunting in a long time and I definitely recommend. The book has those classic horror elements as well as being fresh in the genre. A delightful take on a monster in the closet that would make a great film.
I liked the point of view being a young girl, her naivety came through well. As the horror progressed we could see her slow realisation and terror. I also loved seeing the adult and human reactions through another’s eyes, this made it feel very real. I did dislike the fact the Dad is called Daddo and sometimes this pulled me out of the story, but this is a personal thing for me I think.
The ending was ok, I wanted a more jump scares at that point as it felt we built and built and built for it to end without us seeing a lot of the drama. There still is plenty going on, don’t get me wrong. It is a highly satisfying horror. I didn’t want to put this down and doubt you will too.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

After diving into some eerie books, I came across one that sparked quite a reaction in me. The phrase, “Can I get inside your heart?” is something I would never want to hear after finishing this particular book. I found myself thoroughly enjoying the creepy horror it presented, featuring a ghostly presence, a troubled family, and a small infant. The atmosphere was so dark and frightening that I found myself double-checking the room whenever the lights were off in my child's bedroom after I finished reading. Yes read it if you like horror,
Yes is well written with a good pace. 4.5 stars for me

To 8 year old Bela, her family is everything - Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there’s also ‘Other Mommy’, a malevolent entity who asks her repeatedly, “Can I go inside your heart?” WTaF?!

As eerie events escalate and cracks begin to show in her parents’ marriage, Bela realises that if she doesn’t say yes soon, her family will pay the price.

At its core, Incidents Around the House is both a ghost story and a harrowing look at childhood vulnerability. Bela’s mother, Ursula, is one of the most infuriating characters I’ve come across in a long time - so self-absorbed and emotionally detached that it borders on cruelty.

Frankly, she doesn’t deserve Bela or her endlessly patient husband, who, for reasons I still can’t comprehend, sticks by her. He’s about the only decent adult in the book, though my appreciation of his character was somewhat dampened by the repeated use of ‘Daddo’ - a word that, for reasons I can’t fully explain, made me irrationally angry and yanked me out of the story every time I read it.

The creeping horror works best when it leans into the unknown, particularly the way the hired dogs react to things unseen. Their instinctive fear adds a primal tension, reinforcing the unsettling idea that something is lurking in the house, even if we can’t always perceive it.

Then there’s Other Mommy. Is she real? A metaphor? A manifestation of something darker? Other people saw her, so she must be real, right? I spent hours spiraling down a Reddit rabbit hole trying to untangle it, only to emerge just as confused as when I started. The ending left me questioning everything.

Rather than outright terrifying, the novel is deeply unsettling. Maybe I’m desensitised, but the most horrifying part wasn’t the supernatural - it was how utterly and repeatedly Bela was failed by the people meant to protect her.

Overall, Incidents Around the House is a dark, thought-provoking read that stays with you long after the final page. Maybe not the scariest book, but undeniably haunting.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to read this - out 27/3

Wow what a book!! This book was so good and I loved every minute of it, I got through this within just over a day I couldn’t put it down! Highly recommend

wow, this definitely delivered on the creepy, suspenseful and straight-up scary vibes it promised to!! i've seen comparisons being made to coraline, and i did think of that when starting out with this book, although it definitely got darker as the story went on, and clearly became more adult horror than what coraline's target audience is. i did find the formatting took a bit of time to get used to, but i can appreciate the whole story was being told through the eyes of an (eight-year old??) child. i thought some of the dialogue from the parents and the way they would talk to bela like one of their friends, or a colleague, a bit strange but for the creepy vibes, and a read slightly more outside of my comfort zone, this was okay.

thank you to netgalley and pan macmillan for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my goodness. I'm still reeling from finishing this book. It feels the story of Bela, a little girl who sees someone in the closet. She doesn't know it's not normal, but she knows she's started to feel uncomfortable about it.

The story creeps along getting more and more freaky. I couldn't put it down, there were plenty of 'no Bela no' moments.

While it is horror fiction I found myself pondering about the nature of family dynamics, how families are seen from the outside of that unit. And what would I do in that situation.... I have a 4yr old girl so really resonated.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC!

4 stars!

I have to say the way this was written was smart in the sense it's from the POV of a child and it really did just give a whole new twist to the reading experience.

ALSO! If Mike Flanagan ever makes an adaptation of this in some sort, I think my brain manifested it while reading this.

There were scenes within this that were genuinely creepy and unsettling. I loved the start of this and just the whole idea of the story.

Other Mommy is such a dark and unsettling character with the way she moves, looks, speaks, the subtle descriptions of Bela saying something ominous along the lines of, 'I didn't look because I knew she would be pulling that face' leaves the reader to create their own version of this Other Mommy to fit into the story.

I did feel like there were parts that just felt like they, well not dragged on but repeated in some ways. I think reading the words Mommy and Daddo multiple times did it in a way which sounds odd but also I had to remember this is a child. Also at some point everyone is just talking and repeating things to Bela and to each other and that got me frustrated but then it also made sense because of the confusion, tension, and utter weirdness of what was happening. But also it felt a bit jarring to work out who was saying what at some points. And I feel like quite important moment that happens to someone is just kinda there. Not explained, or anything like oh okay we move on.

I feel like the ending didn't have the same impact as the first half of the book did. That was stunning. The imagery and just the way it was written was fantastic. Amazing read though, really enjoyed it and would love to read more from Josh Malerman.

What if your child had an imaginary other Mummy, that wasn’t so imaginary?

Bela has a friend who lives in her closet who calls herself ‘Other Mummy’. She is slowly losing her patience with Bela’s reluctance to let her into her heart, becoming more sinister and aggressive the more Bela says no.

The story is written in such a unique way, causing confusion to the reader akin to the uncertainty Bela feels when trying to navigate the true intentions of her best friend.

This was such an incredible book, I had goosebumps the entire way through and read it all in a day.

First of all, I would just like to thank Josh Malerman, Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for an ARC of “Incidents Around The House” in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this was a bit of a let-down for me. Whilst the horrific imagery and heart-dropping moments around “Other Mommy” worked very well, and despite how much I enjoyed the unusual approach of having eight-year-old Bela narrate the book- that’s about all I can say that I liked about it.

The choice to not have quotation marks to signal the beginning and end of speech didn’t work for me- as a dyslexic reader. It made it very hard to determine what was inner monologue and what wasn’t.

As well as that, there were random points of the book where the parents (who aren’t going to win any parent of the year awards) just broke out into random soliloquies to their clueless eight-year-old child. I felt this was very out of place in a horror novel, not to mention, dull.

That leads me on to my last point. Virtually nothing happened. The family go from one place to another, trying to outrun a monster than cannot be outrun. The encounters with “Other Mommy” are all very repetitive, and slow down an already unmoving plot. Unfortunately, because of this, I lost interest about half way through, and found the rest of the book to be exceedingly dull.

Overall, the premise sounded brilliant, but the execution was severely lacking in my opinion.

this book was a great portrayal of how a child thinks when things go wrong. how such a young brain cant comprehend or take on board certain things in life. or cant work them through. and who they usually go to would be their caregivers. so what then happens if part of the hurt ic coming from her parents!? and their very open to the child breakdown of marriage.
i felt so much for this little girl. straight away i wonder whether this other mommy character was something more than a horror plot point. but the way its written, the way its jumping and squirming as if you really are seeing it from the childs pov, meant you felt that fear. you felt that erry presence all the way through. your both learning of the child, from the child and through the child. its a brilliant concept and it played out brilliantly. the whole thing was so well thought out to make it work in such a well formed way. even the childlike words,sentencing and thoughts just added to how you read this and took it on. you almost felt like a child yourself and felt overwhelmed with that same fear when they just "dont understand".
its a horror but in so many deeper ways than you could imagine. i stayed thinking about this book long after i finished. and couldnt get that unsettled feeling away from me for a while. and still get it even reviewing it. has it finished? was it real? did i get it enough to do it or the child justice!?

A unique spin on a haunted house story, where we focus on the point of view of the child being haunted. Manages to capture the underlying real life drama at the heart of any ghost story worth its salt, but at times lapses into trite therapy-isms that felt preachy/unnatural. Overall really compelling and engaging, with some genuinely creepy tension and atmosphere. Pays homage to the tropes, while also keeping you guessing.

(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)
This horror novel is written from the perspective -and the voice- of a child and thus, it has a very particular structure, because the reader only sees what she sees and some vocabulary can get tricky and commas and full phrases may not always be there.
What is always there, staring from the shadows, asking the same question again and again, is Other Mommy. And Mommy and Daddo may not believe our little narrator at first, but they will, oh yes they definitely will, once Other Mommy shows herself and the house stops being the safe heaven they thought it was.
And is there anything more terrifying than being unable to do anything about it, even when Other Mommy feels like something able to creep to the edge of the book and make herself a burrow in the shadows of your wardrove?

thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review! <3

’We tried to leave the haunted house. But we’re haunted. It’s us’

Incidents Around the House is an incredibly unique horror from the perspective of 8-year-old Bela as she and her family are stalked by a malicious entity known as ‘Other Mommy’.

I think what is so brilliant about this book is that its horror is both in the realm of the supernatural, and the real world. Bela does not only find herself plagued by the cruel and horrifying ‘Other Mommy’ that lives in her closet, but by the anxieties and shame that come along with her parents broken marriage. A consistent theme throughout the story is Bela’s desire to fix what is broken between her parents, a desire ‘Other Mommy’ claims to be the solution for, and what is so devastating is that Bela blames herself for the issues within her family. I think it’s such a realistic portrayal of how young children feel about divorce, and I think ‘Other Mommy’ as an allegory for this is all the more brilliant.

This is the first book I’ve had the pleasure of reading by Malerman, and I can confidently say it won’t be the last. Writing from the perspective of such a young child is something I see many authors attempt and fail at, but Malerman’s Bela is such a success. I really believed this was from the perspective of a child, and it led itself so well to the short and snappy chapters. I read half of this book in one sitting, and the rest in another, and that’s a credit to how engaging this book is. The ending was brutal, but I will always appreciate horror authors who aren’t afraid to go down that controversial route.

Overall, Incidents Around the House gets 4/5 stars.

DISCLAIMER: I received an e-arc in celebration of the paperback release of the book on 27th March 2025. It was originally published as a hardback and on Kindle on 25th June 2024.

I've read a ton of horror books, and I can attest that this book is a masterpiece.

Does me saying it matter all that much? TBH, not really. This is my second read of the book, as the review comes on the occasion of the publication of the paperback edition in the UK, after an invitation from the publisher. "Incidents Around The House" has already established itself as one of the best horror novels of the decade, if not ever.

This is no exaggeration.

The first time I read it, I was going "Holy...!" and "Wow" and "Woah!" The dread simply didn't let up. Thirty pages in, I'd fallen in love with the story, the writing, and, most of all, Bela's voice. Half the book done, I was missing nights with friends to keep reading it. A hundred pages before the end, I was rescheduling work to make it to the end. I simply couldn't let go.

And it's not simply because of the plot: no doubt, the story of eight-year-old Bela being haunted by an entity, an otherworldy presence bent on asking her to "go into her heart," a boogeyman-kind of creature naming itself "Other Mummy," is intriguing enough; but the insights on family, friendship, love, and the idea of home - now those were so incredibly precious, such little tidbits of wisdom, they were simply invaluable as such. Sprinkling them all over the terrifying situations Bela's family is forced to undergo was genius.

Many people will ask for more out of this book as they read it. It's so good, it whets the appetite with its brilliance, and it's a matter of time till you want definite explanations about every little detail, assuming such a great writer must have answers to everything: what is Other Mummy? where does she come from? what should Bela do? And you keep reading. Some answers you get, others you don't. For me, however, the book is just right as it is. It's ironic that I feel I know a book is 100% good when I don't want any answers from it, that I want to put it away and never come back to it for some time.

Coming back to "Incidents" after a whole year was a boon I didn't expect, and I thank the publisher for it. I envy people who're going to read it for the very first time, but it's also satisfying to discover that this amazing horror novel holds up fine even on a second reading. I eagerly recommend it.

I don’t know what to say about this book other than it is creepy. I’m not sure about the ending though. Bela is the narrator and at 8 years old other mommy keeps coming out of her closet asking Bela if she can go inside her heart. Bela keeps refusing and then some incidents start to happen which appears to be other mommy getting fed up at keep being told no. This causes her family to unravel and mommy and daddo have to make decisions which in turn causes the family life that Bela once knew to shatter.

(3.5/5⭐️) 📚 Thank you to The Pan Macmillan Team for providing me a copy of this book via NetGalley! I was really thinking this would be a 5 star read half way through this book, but I’ve had to knock it down to a 3.5 as it didn’t meet my expectations unfortunately. I felt like Other Mommy wasn’t as terrifying as she ought to be. Her description was disturbing but for a demon, she seemed rather tame. She killed Bela’s mother’s supposed lover and lurked for majority of the book, screamed a bit too. But she didn’t do much (purpose she didn’t have to, her existence was enough to terrify) so I didn’t feel the suspense amp up. I assume that the parents and grandma are supposedly dead or knocked out at the end but it’s left ambiguous.

I will say I really enjoyed the idea of it written in Bela’s POV, it made it more scary and realistic. It adds a new perspective that I like! And I liked Bela as the protagonist, trying to understand mature situations and make sense of everything in her child brain. The let down was mainly Other Mommy. Sometimes I also felt like the dialogue from the parents weren’t necessary. Personally, I’m not sure of the importance of knowing Bela’s mother’s adulting, especially since we don’t know if it’s true or just Other Mommy’s pretending to speak at Bela’s mother. If anything, Bela knowing this information would have already compromised her innocence, so telling her Russ isn’t her father wouldn’t have changed much. Which it didn’t.

The ending was predictable but not anticlimactic! I’m sad she did say yes in the end but based on her thoughts throughout the book, it was clear was she’s at that stage of life to make sense of much and wanted everyone to be happy. I wish she felt less of a burden on others with this demon situation. She needed more reassurance so she doesn’t think saying yes would solve all their problems. She didn’t know or think to know that swapping with Other Mommy would not make her parents happy. I am curious to know where Bela’s gone and what happens now that the demon is in Bela’s body pretending to be her.

Still, I enjoyed this short read! I heard the audiobook is in a child’s voice which would definitely have bumped my rating if I had listened to it!

Thank you to the publisher,Pan Macmillan, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Incidents Around The House.

Upon finishing Incidents Around The House, I briefly contemplated reading the entire book again to ensure I'd read it correctly. Not just because of its non-traditional format in which there was no quotation marks but also as a result of the ending which genuinely left me shocked to the point I needed time to process it for a few hours before writing this review.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself talking about the ending before anything else.
Incidents Around The House is an interesting take on the haunted house genre, by having the events of the book take place from the perspective of the child at the focus of the haunting a whole new layer of horror is added to the story by experiencing it through not only Belas eyes but also her thoughts and feelings. Watching Bela as she experiences the events of the book, the exploration of her relationship with Other Mommy and her parents, their relationship and how they fall apart in more ways than one it envoked so many feelings and was truly heartbreaking to read at times.

Truthfully, I initially struggled to get into this book and found it hard to enjoy it, but the more I kept reading the more i found myself thinking just one more page one more chapter to the point i struggled to put the book down and was fully invested. I truly think this is a horror book worth reading, especially if you’re looking for a fresh take on the haunted house genre.

Oh I ate this up! It was so creepy! Telling this story through the eyes of the child was such a good idea. Kids are creepy at the best of times but experiencing all this through her eyes *shudders*. Although I will say it was heart breaking watching her slowly lose her innocence. Back to the creepiness, there were so many times i found myself trying to hide from what was happening, reading it through one eye as if Other Mammy would go away. The way things unfold and are revealed is just so well done in this. Bravo Josh Malerman! Already got this on the book club list!

Thank you for the opportunity to read the book.

However it just wasn’t for me.

I thought the "child" POV would be interesting,. it was going somewhat okay if you exclude when the grown ups were talking to her as if she was an adult as well, but her perception of the world seems to be like a 4yo or even less.

Turns out she’s actually 8 😦

Also the whole start with the other mom reminded me too much of Coraline and since I saw it when I was very young and it scared me. I did not enjoy the parts where she was in.

I am open to picking up other books from the same author just not this one.

I chose to read a free eARC of Incidents Around the House but that has in no way influenced my review.

I've read several of Josh Malerman's books over the years and I always, always enjoy his writing. He is definitely one of my go-to 'must-read' horror writers, without a doubt. And this latest book, Incidents Around the House, has been on my wish list since it was first published digitally last year. It made such a splash last year that it was one of the nominees for the Goodreads Readers' Choice Awards (I've actually read several of the nominees and what a STRONG year for horror fiction 2024 was!). It's safe say to say, I was very keen to read this book.

Bela is eight years old and lives with her Mommy and Daddo. There's also Other Mommy, a malevolent being who lives in Bela's wardrobe. Other Mommy started out as Bela's friend but now Bela's not so sure how she feels about Other Mommy. She's started to get closer to Bela's bed and she's started talking. She doesn't say much. But there's one question she asks Bela over and over again. 'Can I go inside your heart?' Bela has managed to avoid answering the question up until this point. No one else knows about Other Mommy. It's Bela's secret. But Other Mommy seems to be getting stronger. The love and protection of her family, the emotional security blanket Bela has always known is there is starting to fray. Cracks have appeared in her parent's once solid marriage. Things are changing. And Other Mommy really needs an answer...

WTF have I just read?! Incidents Around the House is full of creeping, palpable unease, only heightened by its young, impressionable narrator in the form of Bela. The entire story is told from Bela's point of view which is a very brave direction to take for any author. Everything the reader sees is through Bela's eyes and oh my gosh, you can't help but feel for the character. Because she's so young and because she isn't aware that a monster in the closet is NOT a normal thing, she doesn't react the way an adult would. She just seems to accept that this creature, this terrifying apparition (and I've read the descriptions of Other Mommy, terrifying is actually an understatement!) is now living in her bedroom cupboard. She doesn't seem at all alarmed or panicked that Other Mommy wants to possess her, most probably because she doesn't understand what that means. That naivety in itself is scary. Her parents slowly (OMG hurry the f*** up and realise what is happening to your daughter!!) begin to see and smell things that don't make sense. But Other Mommy has powers beyond those of a normal ghost and this haunted house is heading out on the road!

Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. Incidents Around the House is a unique story told in a fascinating way. The adult characters are difficult to like. Bela's parents aren't going to win any awards for parenting BUT the relationship Bela has with her Daddo was something quite special. Her mother, meh! What a cow. The actual story is presented in a different way. Not only is it single POV of a child but the formatting of the text is unusual. My advice, have a quick look at the 'read a sample' option which is available on a certain book retail site or pick up a physical copy. Personally, I'm still not sure how I feel about how the story was presented to the reader. So much so, that I would LOVE to listen to this book on audio. From what I've heard, it's a pretty intense, haunting experience! All in all, I enjoyed Incidents Around the House and would read another book by this author in a heartbeat (which is great news as I have several of his earlier books on the TBR still!). A creeping, multifaceted, hypnotic read. Intriguing, heart breaking and with a building sense of unease. Recommended.

I chose to read and review a free eARC of Incidents Around the House. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.

[Review will be published on 25th March]