HUGE CW FOR SUICIDE as soon as the book starts. And CW for mistreating and gaslighting of someone with mental health difficulties throughout the book.

Aside from being predictable there were various parts of this book that irritated me.

The main character has some very stuck-up, prudish opinions that really added absolutely nothing to the story. She makes some comment about how tattoos are wrong and people who get them are not only idiots but apparently morally bad. WTF. She assumes the male landlord is a bad guy because he has tattoos.

Later, she hears the couple fighting and someone getting punched. She assumes he hit her despite him having a black eye and her being unscathed. Honey, you went to private school and you can't put 2 & 2 together?

Speaking of private school. This seems up for debate as at one point the author says private school and at another says public school, which are different things. Which is it?

Somehow, despite it being totally illegal in the UK, MC goes out on her lunch break and casually buys some pepper-spray.

The only reason I finished the book was to see what the reason she was so obsessed with this house in this otherwise totally shitty situation was.

And what kind of person in the 21st Century says "pauper suicide"? I mean, really?

Unlikeable characters throughout, huge plot holes, no real explanation/ending to one of the plot lines, and someone murders a cat. So. Overall, not worth the effort imho.

I really enjoyed this story! Would recommend!

This is the first book I have read by Dreda Say Mitchell and it's a cracking psychological thriller which is et in a creepy old house owned by an equally creepy married couple. The protagonist, Lisa has had mental health issues and is still a little unstable, and as the story progresses we realise that events in her childhood, of which she has little recollection, seem to be the cause of her problems.

The story is very dark and menacing as it progresses to it's shocking conclusion.

I listened on Audible and enjoyed the narration by Kristin Atherton.

This book caught my attention pretty early on but then as it progressed I was able to predict where it was going.

I was rlly into this book in the beginning, but by the time I got to the end of the story I was just over it and didn’t really care anymore

Slow start but keep going

I began thinking it was going to be very predictable, but it went far deeper than I expected, with a Yellow Wallpaper feel decent to "madness".

My only complaint - anti anxiety medication can be taken as and when, anti depressants don't work like that.

The last person who rented the spare room never left...

When Lisa sees a rental listing for a spare room on the top floor of a beautiful home, she knows she's found the one. The perfect room. She arranges a tour with the landlord and finds him and his wife to be a very kind couple. They accept her application and Lisa is thrilled for her fresh start. She moves in and quickly finds that the couple's demeanor was a façade, and begins experiencing strange things in her room. She then finds a disturbing letter in her room, and realizes she is not the first person to rent the room (as she was told upon moving in) and she feels a strange connection to the writer of this letter. As things get increasingly worse in the room and Lisa's personal life, no one is safe to turn to or trust, and time may not be on her side...
The first chapter of this book was incredibly disturbing, graphic and could be triggering to some. It immediately had me craving more of the story and wanting know what could possibly happen next. As a lover of all things eerie, creepy and disturbing, I could not stand to put this book down! I loved how all of the characters and events in the story were tied together in ways that you wouldn't imagine from the beginning of the book. Nothing and no one is as it seems in Spare Room, and there are twists around every curve in the road.

Though you could piece together where it was going. the author did a great job with leading up and dropping hints. It wasn't far fetched. It was tragic. I really felt for Lisa as she struggled to put her life together and end the lies around her. Great read.