Slow Burn, Spooky Vibes, & Surprises
I was super excited to pick this up after reading 56 Days—and yes, it’s true what they say: the book was so much better than the show! I loved the concept of Buyer Beware by Catherine Ryan Howard; it read like a spooky TV movie and made for another great vacation read. After sitting with it for a few days, I’m giving it a solid 3.5 stars—I just needed those creepy house vibes dialed up a touch more to push it higher.
The premise immediately grabbed me. I’m always a sucker for a creepy house with a complicated history, and Delaney Row brought that unsettling atmosphere right from the very beginning. One of the book’s biggest strengths is that I genuinely had no idea where the story was headed. Every time I thought I’d figured things out, another piece of the puzzle shifted. It never became predictable, which kept me fully invested even when the pace slowed down.
I also really liked the structure. The three timelines featuring Ellie, Erin, and Hannah gradually weave together, and watching those connections emerge was deeply satisfying. Rather than relying on nonstop action, this leans much more toward slow-burn suspense, letting the mystery build over time (though it did take me a minute to figure out what was happening!).
Where the book lost me was the pacing. For a relatively short novel, it often felt much longer than it actually was. Some of the backstory sections dragged, taking quite a while to reach the revelations they were building toward. Once everything finally came together, some twists worked brilliantly while others felt a little too over-the-top for my taste, making the ending a bit uneven.
Final Verdict
Buyer Beware is an atmospheric suspense novel with an intriguing premise and an unpredictable mystery. While the slower pacing and some of the bigger reveals didn’t completely land for me, readers who enjoy character-driven suspense with multiple timelines and eerie settings will likely have a great time piecing this one together. Despite a few bumps, I definitely enjoyed her storytelling enough that I’d be interested in reading more from Catherine Ryan Howard in the future!
