The House in the Pines: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller - a twisty thriller that will have you reading through the night

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Many thanks to NetGalley, Dutton, and Ana Reyes for an ARC of this book! Now available as of 1.3!** Ana Reyes' debut is chilling, atmospheric, and addictive—a perfect thriller. I didn't want it to end.”

Additionally, her mother, who has years of experience as an EMT, may be just the person to help Maya through the painful withdrawal process. A fun debut novel! I liked this one a lot. The House in the Pines contains solid storytelling and an intriguing premise. PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and Ana Reyes provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for January 03, 2023. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.

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This was an unusual thriller that does a truly impressive job of straddling that fine line between fantasy and believability. While utterly rooted in logic, the book is rich with supernatural tinges, really immersing the reader in Maya’s fanciful, and occasionally horrifying, reality. I personally wasn’t a fan of Dan, but I really enjoyed the exploration of Maya’s troubled relationships otherwise, particularly with Aubrey and with her mom. It was also great to see the contrast between the way Maya was treated by the cops in the present day versus just seven years ago, as policing continues to evolve.

I was able to listen to a final version as well. Although the narrator was fine there was not a heads up when we were in the past, I like a heads up. Salon - "House in the Pines" thriller author on the "dark side of nostalgia" with a narrator no one believes Can we just be DONE with the unreliable drunk woman in the window of the train across the street crap at this point? It is suuuuuuuuuuch a dead horse that has been beaten to a pulp. Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is dealing with the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for.

Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Never Here, The Herd, and The Lost Night the book) suffers from doing way too much at the same time […] I really struggled with following this narrative, and the drinking/pill popping trope is so overused at this point. However, I do think there’s a reader/audience for this book. The synopsis is calling it “utterly unique” and I can see that because as the story develops after the halfway mark, it is indeed very different than I expected. Readers will either love or hate the ending, which will make for great book club discussions.” At this point, the prescriptions have run out. She needs to stop. It's going about as well as would be expected, which is to say, not well at all. Then Maya makes a disturbing discovery. Overall, this was fine as a debut. I can't say I was overly invested with the story or with how unreliable Maya was, but I'm not mad I read it. I wouldn't put this in the thriller category either, a psychological something, not sure what. Professional Book Nerds - Talking The House in the Pines with Author Ana Reyes by Joe Skelley - audio – 40:00

Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the older man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer. After the tragedy, Maya drowns herself in alcohol and drugs to numb the pain. In the aftermath of this trauma, Maya flees her hometown for college in Boston, throwing herself into partying and barely scraping her way to a degree. Along the way, she meets Dan, a solid, dependable law student. She doesn’t expect to fall in love, but the two establish a strong connection that lasts far longer than she’d ever believed possible. Special thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Groping Dutton for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.So thanks to my mad girl crush on Reese that I’ve had since I was a child and she starred in The Man in the Moon, I can’t resist her siren’s song and her (nearly always) awful book choices. In all honesty, I live in perpetual fear that I will miss out on another Paper Palace which earned a rare 5 Star from me and was one of the best things I read that year. Buuuuuuuuut, most of the time they are pretty crappy and this was no exception. Maya has no idea the can of worms she opens will bring about more questions than answers and she must face that there were many things she can't remember about her relationship with Frank when she was a teenager and if she does confront him again it could be her life at stake this time and there won't be anyone there to save her. The House in the Pines is an excellent mystery/thriller that kept me intrigued from the beginning. What happened wasn’t what I’d expected, which is always a treat. The main character struggled with very real, relatable things in her life, which made her feel close the entire time. And her curiosity fed my curiosity. […] I also enjoyed the twist on present and past tense. In the present timeline the author wrote the book in past tense. In the past timeline the author wrote in the present. It was a very clever way to give an immediacy to the past (especially as the character began to recall events).” After many years mourning the death of her friend Aubrey during high school, Maya decides to return to her hometown in the Berkshires to find out. A YouTube video has surfaced of a young woman sitting across from a man named Frank...the SAME man who was with Aubrey the night she died. In the video, this new woman appears to drop dead while her gaze is firmly trained on Frank. The book isn’t compelling or believable as a thriller, but the author has potential in other directions.

During their last year of high school, Maya's best friend, Aubrey dropped dead while in the presence of Frank, a man they had been spending time with over the summer. Seven years have passed, and Maya has a secret addiction to klonopin which she has been keeping secret from her boyfriend, Ben. It had me guessing,” Witherspoon said in a video accompanying the post. “And like all amazing thrillers, it has a crazy twist that I can’t tell you, because it will give the whole thing away.” Things I didn’t like: last third of the book was vague and a little pointless. The big revelation was way too much far fetched for me. I didn’t buy it! And the conclusion is a little vague, semi satisfying. This story follows Maya. When Maya was a Senior in high school, her best friend Aubrey, died suddenly, mysteriously and with no identifiable cause, directly in front of Maya's eyes. The only other person around, a young man named Frank, fled the scene.Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review. Frank knows just what to say and it seems they have similar interests. Before too long though, Maya begins to notice certain things about their time together that make her greatly uncomfortable. In fact, she becomes so ill at ease around him, she actually begins to fear him. Isn’t it interesting two healthy young women dropped death after talking with the same guy? Is he death whisperer? Is he an evil magician? How did Maya’s addiction impact her credibility, if at all? As the novel went on, did Maya’s credibility change for you? If so, what was the turning point?