Review- The Girl Upstairs by Jessica R. Patch

 I've been looking forward to reading The Girl Upstairs by Jessica Patch since I saw the cover on Facebook almost a year ago. Jessica is the Queen of Twists, and I am a lover of twists, so I knew this book would be right up my alley. 

I was blessed with an advanced reader copy, and couldn't put it down until I had the story finished. 

Here is the back cover copy:

Gwen McDaniel’s life is broken. But she knows the perfect place to fix it. Cold Harbor, Maine, an idyllic small town with views of Acadia National Park, is where she used to vacation with her parents as a child. Here, she and Steven can start over, renovating their cliff-side fixer-upper while patching up their marriage. Soon, everything will be better.

Except from the moment they arrive, Gwen sees and hears things, and it’s more than just the drafts and shadows that are part of any old house. Steven downplays her fears, warning her not to fixate on problems as she has in the past. But Gwen spent years as a homicide detective, and her instincts don’t lie. Something happened here. Proof comes when she rips up the attic’s carpet to discover a chilling message carved into the wood underneath.

As Gwen delves into the history of the house and the Cold Harbor community, she begins to piece the fragments together. And gradually, a terrifying picture emerges: A missing girl. A house of horrors. And a dark, decades-old nightmare that is more haunting than Gwen ever imagined…

From the first page, this story had me hooked. The characters had big struggles and the reasons behind those struggles were cloaked in secrets until the climax. 

Typically, I like to try and figure out twists before the reveal. However, when I get the villain right or uncover a hidden truth in the story before I'm supposed to, I'm left with mixed emotions. On one hand, I'm proud of myself for being clever and on the other, I'm a little disappointed, because I ruined the surprise. As I read The Girl Upstairs, I thought I had everything figured out--from the twists to the villain--and boy was a wrong. While I did get one of the twists figured out, the rest of the story took me by surprise in the best possible way!

One of the things I love about Jessica Patch's books is that the stories themselves tend to be pretty dark and spooky, but that darkness makes the light of hope shine so much brighter when the characters embrace truth. So many elements in The Girl Upstairs contributed to the creep factor from the setting on a cliffside surrounded by raging water to the time of year (Halloween). Halloween, especially, brought out the parallel to the masks we can have a tendency to wear. Masks showing who we want people to think we are and those we maybe wish represented us but don't exactly fit. The symbolism was striking and the message of hope in the midst of chaos was profound. 

This book releases on April 28th, and I can't recommend it enough. For a chance to win an ebook copy comment below with your favorite summer vacation destination. To pre-order a copy, click here!