Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce | Horror Fiction Review

Maybe it'd be better for someone who doesn't read a steady diet of horror novels?

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Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce

Released February 2025

Source: ARC for review

See more @ Goodreads

This book purports to be one thing and then turns out to be something else which is fine, if ultimately a bit disappointing.

Mina has just finished her child psychology degree when she meets a journalist named Sam at a grief session. Sam mentions a story he’s working on where he can really use her kind of help and promises her it’ll be a great start to her career. So, she leaves behind her wedding plans, her lame fiancé who can’t be bothered to notice and together they travel to a small town to interview a family and their daughter named Alice who claims to be haunted? possessed? bothered? by a dead witch. This town is inhabited by a whole bunch of superstitious people.

Weird things begin to happen. I loved this portion of the book but once a few reveals were made and odd things discovered, it slowed down a bit for me and I kept putting it down for other things. Today was the day I promised myself I’d dive back in and finish it up and honestly it wasn’t worth the effort as the first half was so much more engaging for me than the last. The story got bogged down with a lot of grief and relationship agonies and foreshadowing that conks you over the head time and time again and ends up giving away what I guess was supposed to be a big surprise at the very end. It simply didn’t work for me as I figured it out chapters ago and alas the whole witch plotline turns out to be something I’ve read a few times already. Probably my fault for reading too many of these books and watching too many horror films.

Ah well, I’ll give it a three but it’s more like 2 ¾’s.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐3/4's

Publisher Plot Synopsis 

Newly minted child psychologist Mina has little experience. In a field where the first people called are experts, she’s been unable to get her feet wet. Instead she aimlessly spends her days stuck in the stifling heat wave sweeping across Britain and anxiously contemplates her upcoming marriage to careful, precise researcher Oscar. The only reprieve from her small, close world is attending the local bereavement group to mourn her brother’s death from years ago.

Then she meets journalist Sam Hunter at the grief group one day, and he has a proposition for her: Thirteen-year-old Alice Webber claims a witch is haunting her. Living with her family in the remote village of Banathel, Alice finds her symptoms are getting increasingly disturbing. Taking this job will give Mina some experience and much-needed money; Sam will get the scoop of a lifetime; and Alice will get better—Mina is sure of it.

But instead of improving, Alice’s behavior becomes inexplicable and intense. The town of Banathel has a deep history of superstition and witchcraft. They believe there is evil in the world. They believe there are ways of…dealing with it. And they don’t expect outsiders to understand.