My Rating ~ Five stars

RELEASE DATE: 4 February 2021

Publisher: Penguin Books

Format: E-ARC

Source: NetGalley

Blurb

Tom’s family have moved into their dream home. But pretty soon he starts to notice that something is very wrong – there are strange messages written on the wall and locks on the bedroom doors. On the OUTSIDE.

The previous owners have moved just across the road and they seem like the perfect family. Their daughter Amy is beautiful and enigmatic but Tom is sure she’s got something to hide. And he isn’t going to stop until he finds the truth behind those locked doors. . .

Will their dream home become a nightmare?

Review

Thankyou to Penguin Books for providing me with a copy of Lock the Doors, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Tom has just moved into a new house with his mum, step dad and step sister. Life is good. He and his mum and no longer running from her abusive boyfriends and although his worries and OCD are still there, this will be a nice fresh start. Until he notices the tiny holes on his bedroom door. Tony holes that match exactly with a lock having been put on the outside.

At school he’s asked to show the new girl, Amy, around. Amy happens to be the previous occupant of his new house. He needs to know if those locks were on her doors and if she’s hiding her own abusive family. As he gathers more and more evidence, things seem even stranger than he first believed and he’s determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Lock the Doors had me on the edge of my seat for almost the entire book. Well paced, twisty and downright spooky at times, I was not at all prepared for the outcome! I thought the psychological aspects of both Tom and his mother’s trauma, and Amy’s family situation, were well done. The affect of the maliciously manipulative people within the book, and in general, was well explored too. This was definitely YA domestic thriller at its finest.