Something Bad Happened Here by Zoe Rosi

March 30, 2026

They say a narrator can make or break or a book . . .

Released October 2025

Source: Netgalley
See more @ Goodreads

I want to thank Netgalley, the author and the publisher for sharing this audiobook with me but I have to be honest in all of my reviews or what’s the point?

Something Bad Happened Here but it wasn’t a haunted house, or a demon or any of those supernatural things. It was a thin plot and an absolutely terrible choice when it came to the narration. Not that he was a bad narrator. He wasn’t. He may be a fine dapper fellow for all I know. This is nothing personal against him, but he was such a poor choice for this book. The main character and most of the secondary characters are women and he reads their parts in a falsetto that made me cringe and he narrates the other parts as if the book were a cozy mystery which it isn’t, well, at least in its last ¼ it isn’t. This choice bewilders me.

Carmen is drowning in grief. Since her beloved mother passed away, she’s been lost. Trying to find her footing, she’s been renting an Airbnb and spending her days reading books and drinking wine. I mean, sounds good to me if you can pull it off, lol. Then one day she decides to start looking for a home near her childhood town and pays cash for the cheapest house that looks nice in pictures but, as she’s told by the realtor, is the site of a gruesome murder scene. She doesn’t bother to look up the murder because why tempt fate? A house is a house is a house, right?

Personally, I am far too nosy to stop myself from Googling things like a murder house when I'm thinking of buying a murder house where I will live all by my lonesome, but she resists the temptation even when vaguely creepy things start to occur. She orders furniture, she interviews for a freelance job, she drinks some drinks, she ponders her garden and frets over her introverted nature and invites an old friend over. Sooo, maybe it IS a cozy mystery after all? Have I been tricked by a blurb again? But then, oh but then, the 80% or so mark hits and things go absolutely off the rails. Next to nothing but a whole lot of dull telling and rarely showing happens for ¾ of the book and then I felt brutalized by the rapid tone shift but yet strangely felt nothing for the boring main character. It was wild. There are a few other issues I had, a lack of atmosphere, a second POV that is dropped like a hot potato and a lack of emotion and connection in a grief book, but I feel like I need to stop nitpicking.

This book may please people dipping a little toe into the horror genre (but look out for that ending!) who enjoy true crime turned fiction stories. Turns out, this book was inspired by a horrendous true crime and I’m not sure how I feel about any of this except that I know I don’t feel great about that final ending.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐1/2

Publisher Plot Synopsis

Lost and unmoored after her mother’s death, Carmen drifts from place to place. Moving from one Airbnb to the next, she is a ghost in the towns she passes through—an outsider, never quite belonging.

With her inheritance dwindling away, and determined to stop drifting, Carmen decides it’s time to settle. Time to buy a little house, close the door, and try to rebuild her life.

When she finds a surprisingly cheap property on a nice street, Carmen thinks she’s struck gold, until the estate agent hesitates. The house has a history, she warns. Something unspeakable happened there. A murder so brutal she can barely bring herself to describe it.

But Carmen isn’t easily spooked. The house wasn’t to blame. And a bargain is a bargain. Ghosts aren’t real. Hauntings are just superstition.

Yet, as Carmen turns her key in the lock, a thought haunts her:

What if she’s wrong?

What if walls really do remember?

Something Bad Happened Here is a chilling haunted house story which deals with themes of ghosts and possession. It will appeal to fans of Come Closer by Sara Gran and A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay.

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