*insert string of curse words*

Another five star book and I continue to stan.

Ya'll I only have one word to describe how I feel after reading this book: SHOOKETH.

From the moment The Chain starts, you're drawn in. This puts you in parallel with the characters of the story because they are also drawn into The Chain's clutches unwillingly, but feeling as though they have no choice but to comply. A child is taken, a ransom demand placed. This isn't your typical ransom demand though. In addition to having to pay money, each victim must satisfy another demand as well: kidnap someone else's child and then force that person to do the same thing you've just done: pay the ransom demand and take another child. It's what keeps The Chain going. Fear and scare tactics keep each member of the Chain in line. It's fairly clear who is in charge here and it isn't the victims. Rachel quickly learns that when her daughter Kylie is taken and she receives the phone call. Everything inside of Rachel screams at her that she isn't right for this, that she can't handle it and what be able to do what needs to be done. Rachel's wrong.

This was honestly a wild ride. I highly recommend the audiobook simply because it made my reading experience even more suspenseful than it already would have been. The narrative switches between the creators of the Chain, Rachel, Kylie, Uncle Pete and a few other members of the Chain and side characters down the road. I think this was a great way to present the story because everyone's experiences and motivations are different and it allows you to get a glimpse of what is going on with the other characters simultaneously as the events unfold. During the last 1/4 of the book, I think that most readers will know who is behind all of this and what their "secret identity" is. The author didn't try to hide it, especially because backstory is introduced during the beginning of Part II and the formatting sets itself up for the past and the present to collide. Once that happens, you're just waiting for the other characters to figure out and do something about it!!

Like I said, this is definitely worth the read/listen.

I have so many thoughts and feelings about this book. It wasn't what I expected it at all. For most of the novel there's an extreme build up as Rowan tells her story of how she DID NOT commit a murder that she is in prison for and what really happened while she was Heatherbrae House. In theory, this book had all the makings of a perfectly creepy tale. The possibility of ghosts, disappearing nannies, a poison garden, children who drive their nanny absolutely mad, a slew of characters who could all be suspects, and parents who are incredibly absent for majority of the time. I listened in anticipation, dying to know where this was headed, what really happened, who had been murdered or died, and the theories of what had happened. All of that, unfortunately, got overshadowed for me by a big secret the Rowan eventually reveals. Her secret was....anticlimactic. You know she's hiding something, but you can't imagine what and how, exactly, it relates to the events that unfolded. Her reveal literally took the wind out of my sail and I was left sitting here like W....T....F. Not soon after this, we get the reveal we've been waiting for for the entire story, but for me, Rowan's first major reveal sort of stole the shine and glory and not in a good way. The final bit did bump this up for me because I was close to giving it 2 stars after hearing Rowan's major secret (not the initial secret, but the one that's connected to the initial secret. Confusing, I know), but once I finally learned what I came here to learn the juiciness of it melted my heart a bit and so here we are with a 3 star review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I thought that Open House was an extremely cute and steamy read. I straddled the fence on how I felt about it overall though. The meet cute between the two characters was just as cute as you would hope and the steamy bits were....whew. Yes! They were just as hot as I had hoped (and been promised) without them feeling too trashy or degrading, which can happen sometimes with novellas and sex scenes. This had both enemy to lovers and slightly slow burn feels. You could tell immediately that both characters were attracted to one another, but considering they were on opposite sides of the fence here (or garden I suppose) they refused to act on it until about halfway through the book. I wouldn't classify this as instalove since the good amount of time passes through the novel, even if we don't realize it at first. Their interactions were cute and I loved the old ladies in the garden. I also enjoyed the fact that gentrification was a big discussion within this book.

On the flip side, there seemed like there was too much going on here for a novella. There were a lot of sideplots: the selling of the house and the garden and all the background surround that, Magda's "failed" careers and issues with her sisters and mom, Magda's crotchety widowed uncle, Tyson's sister and family issues. All of these plots on there own were fine, but for a book that's less than 200 pages, it just seemed like a lot to fit in. By the time we reached the end I just wasn't invested in any of the side plots or the relationship. I think that the other sideplots would have worked out fine if there had been room to explore them in a large time frame. Also, Magda's sisters never seemed to understand what she was saying, even by the end of the story and that was the one side plot that I was actually interested in seeing resolved. There was also a really weird kitchen phone sex scene that was awkward and Magda's conversation with Tyson towards the end when he was going to move was...weird. It was instalove-esque in a story that hadn't seemed all that insta to begin with.

Overall, this was cute and I enjoyed it for the most part, I'd still recommend it, but I just think some things could've been a little better. In fact, if things had been explored a bit more, I may have loved it.

I liked this one, but I admit that I didn't enjoy this installment as much as the previous two. I enjoyed getting to know Daniel and his life as a switch after meeting him in Tamed. It was great to see a self proclaimed nerd like Keira as a front and center character and dipping into the world of kink, but what I didn't enjoy was her judgement once she entered the world. I feel like she sort of made up in her mind what Daniel was like and what he did as far as kink and anything that contradicted that wasn't welcome. I thought this was ironic since she often felt like people judged her for her nerdiness. It made me a bit sad that Daniel felt like he could only have one or the other and that he felt like he had that side of himself from Keira, though I don't think I can blame all of that on Keira. Armando definitely played a role in that. Yes, Daniel should've been honest and upfront, but I also didn't necessarily agree with the line of thinking that he had lied to Keira about who he was. I think he was honestly just scared.

Anyway, in the end I did still enjoy it and obviously I'm glad it all worked out in the end. Finding out Keira's kinks though...that was interesting as hell.