Incidents Around the House is the dark and compelling new horror novel from Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box. The story follows Bela, an eight year old girl and her family. When the family are targeted by a dark entity known as “other Mommy”, the creature is desperate to go inside Bela’s heart. Bela knows the more she refuses the more her family will pay, but Other Mommy is growing restless and time is running out.

This is my first book from Josh Malerman and I could not put it down. This book was fast past and so engaging and Malerman does an incredible job of building a really tense and uneasy atmosphere. I’ve read quite a number of horror novels and this one was genuinely pretty terrifying. It’s a brilliantly creepy story that I thought was executed perfectly.

The story has some pretty interesting characters and I liked the way Malerman explored the different familial relationships in this one. I also thought the portrayal of parenthood was fascinating – Bela’s parents don’t always get it right and it made them feel more realistic as a result. One of the most unique things about this book is that it’s told from the perspective of an eight year old girl. I thought that added another eerie dimension to this story and as someone who has two young children at home it definitely made me even more terrified reading it! I won’t say too much about the plot because this is definitely one of those books that it’s best to go in pretty blind, but overall I thought this was a fantastic horror read and I cannot wait to read more from Josh Malerman.