The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

‘The buzz building around Catriona Ward’s The Last House on Needless Street is real. I’ve read it and was blown away. It’s a true nerve-shredder that keeps its mind-blowing secrets to the very end. Haven’t read anything this exciting since Gone Girl’

Stephen King

‘Books like this don’t come around too often. An intelligent, well-written, stylish psychological thriller … with a perfectly structured plot arc and a perfectly satisfying whammy at the end. I would say I inhaled this in one, but I think I was too busy holding my breath throughout. Bravo’

Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat

‘A chilling and beautiful masterpiece of suspense, cunningly plotted and written with the elegant imagination of a Shirley Jackson or a Sarah Waters. I was completely enthralled’

Joe Hill, author of NOS4R2

‘Believe the hype. The Last House on Needless Street is not only a masterclass in horror, but in storytelling full stop. Up there with the best I’ve ever read. The most unsettling, beautiful, sad and wise book, it’ll stay with me a long time. I’m in awe’

Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies

‘The new face of literary dark fiction’

Sarah Pinborough, author of Behind Her Eyes

‘A masterpiece. Beautiful, heartbreaking and quietly uplifting. One of the most powerful and well-executed novels I’ve read in years’

Alex North, author of The Whisper Man

‘This book is tender rather than terrifying. Playful and sweet as well as sinister and thrilling, the creeping dread is tempered beautifully with humour and it ends being extremely emotionally impactful’

Emma Healey, author of Elizabeth is Missing

‘This immersive modern gothic reads like a timeless classic as it lures you hook and sinker into its world’

Essie Fox, author of Somnambulist

‘I didn’t think it was possible but The Last House on Needless Street is even greater than the hype suggests. Clever, devastating, beautiful, terrifying, poignant, how often can you say that about one book? There are not enough stars in the world for Catriona Ward’

Chris Whitaker, author of We Begin at the End

‘This is the best horror novel I’ve ever read. Even Shirley Jackson, Her Majesty, would have to concede to this one’

Natasha Pulley, author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

‘A breathtakingly ambitious book, gorgeously written, and never once shies away from showing you its fangs and its beautiful blood-filled heart. Stop reading this blurb already and open the damn book’

Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts

‘Both harrowing and compelling. As soon as I finished it I wanted to read it all over again. An absolute masterpiece’

Katerina Diamond, author of The Heatwave

‘Absolutely brilliant. This is extraordinary, high-wire-act horror, audacious as hell’

Christopher Golden, author of Red Hands

‘One of the most original and exciting books I’ve read in years. Prepare to be immersed in this chilling, thrilling, emotional read’

Jo Spain, author of Dirty Little Secrets

‘Brilliant. This is a book everyone is going to be talking about. Dark, clever and utterly page-turning’

Cass Green, author of In a Cottage in a Wood

‘The most extraordinary book. It’s mesmerising, original and challenging. A work of genius’

Mark Edwards, author of The House Guest

‘The creepiest, saddest-but-funniest, most mesmerising book I’ve read in a long time. Psychological thriller and horror writers beware: Catriona Ward just raised the bar skyward’

Tammy Cohen, author of When She Was Bad

‘As mad as a snake but all the better for it. A story that slinks deeply into uncomfortable places in the tradition of Fowles’ The Collector. An enigmatic story of trauma

Adam Nevill, author of The Ritual

‘Breathtakingly brilliant. Dark and relentlessly twisty, the best thing I’ve read this year’

Lisa Hall, author of The Party

‘I thought The Last House on Needless Street would be good but I didn’t know it would be THAT good. It’s a book of the year. For any year’

Martyn Waites, author of The Old Religion

‘Not only edge-of-the-seat, terrifying suspenseful horror, but it also broke my heart into tiny pieces. Such exquisite writing’

Muriel Gray, author of The Ancient

‘Incredible. Absolutely creep-inducing, skin-crawling, even agonising: and also so beautiful, both in writing and heart. One of my favourite things in ages’

James Smythe, author of The Explorer

‘A taut, dark, twisting exploration of the human condition. At once gripping and heartbreaking’

Rebecca F. John, author of The Haunting of Henry Twist

‘A haunting novel, beautifully conceived and written, which will have you in pieces from the beginning to the surprising and audacious end’

Tim Lebbon, author of Eden

‘An extraordinary, disturbing, original and powerful book. A bloody marvel’

Anna Mazzola, author of The Story Keeper

‘Jaw-droppingly original, deeply disturbing and one hundred per cent heartbreaking. Psychological horror at its very best’

S.J.I. Holliday, author of Violet

‘Incredible. Just incredible. Throughout, I didn’t know where to put my heart. A breathtaking, fiercely beautiful novel’

Rio Youers, author of Halcyon

‘Terrific. An utterly mesmerising feat from a powerhouse writer who elevates the British horror genre’

Irenosen Okojie, author of Speak Gigantular

‘What an incredible read: complex and clever, dark but not without vital rays of hope. Beautifully written. Gothic thrills at their finest’

Adam Christopher, author of Empire State

‘Weird, glittering, inventive and shot through with needles of warped, brilliant light, this book slipped under my skin from the first page’

Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters

‘Exceptional. Uplifting, terrifying, beautiful and mesmerisingly dark’

James Brogden, author of Hekla’s Children

‘This book won’t just stay with you, it’ll knock you off your axis. An exquisite, heart-crushing masterpiece. Worth all the buzz and then some’

Victoria Selman, author of Snakes and Ladders

‘My mind is blown. What a brilliant, breathtaking, heartbreaking book’

Paul Burston, author of The Closer I Get

‘The kind of story that novels were made for. A thrilling yet tender vortex of a book that you’ll want to share with every reader you know the second you finish’

S.R. Masters, author of The Killer You Know

‘I wanted to savour every single brilliant sentence. Exquisitely and chillingly written; at points it literally made all the hairs on my arms stand up. What a read’

Nikki Smith, author of All in Her Head

‘I absolutely loved it. Genuinely disturbing: a relentless creeping dread of madness and murder that begins on the first page and keeps building to the last gasp’

Peter McLean, author of Priest of Bones

First published in Great