Title: Bad Things Happened in this Room

Author: Marie Still

Releases: September 16^th, 2025

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Things-Happened-This-Room-ebook/dp/B0DXQTPKMC

Summary

Bad Things Happened In This Room is a chilling psychological horror that descends into madness where the walls whisper, and secrets are buried in the garden; perfect for fans of Carissa Orlando and The Yellow Wallpaper, exploring motherhood, grief, and the thin line between reality and delusion.

In this haunting psychological horror, Willow’s life has become a fever dream, her days lost in a twisted loop where time no longer flows as it should. Is she held captive by her husband Liam’s iron rules—or by the insidious darkness of her own mind?

Her only connection to the world beyond her walls is a young girl named Sarah, whose unexpected visits to Willow’s garden spark a glimmer of hope. But as cracks form in her carefully controlled existence, horrifying truths seep through, twisting the familiar into something sinister. The floral wallpaper peels back to reveal haunting messages carved into the walls, and the house itself pulses with malevolent life.

When Sarah suddenly vanishes, Willow is forced to confront the dark shadows of her past and the horrors lurking within her fractured psyche. The question remains: is Willow truly a prisoner of her home, or of her own mind?

Some doors, once opened, can never be closed. And some truths are better left buried in the garden.

My Review

5/5 Stars

“…while I drift, a prisoner behind my own eyes. The world blurs at its edges.”

Willow does her best to get through her day, every day. She follows the same routine for a husband who, sometimes?, loves her: dinner, chores, TV, bath, bed. The highlight of her life is her garden and the little neighbor girl, Sarah, who occasionally visits. When Sarah goes missing, Willow goes on a quest to find her and learns that her routine may have been holding her prisoner all along.

I don’t have enough good things to say about this book. I really didn’t know what to expect when I started reading but by the end of it, I was ugly crying. After I finished the epilogue, I sat and stared at the wall for a while thinking about the last few pages in particular, and the way they tied everything together.

This was probably the best piece of psychological/grief horror I’ve ever read. The emotions are so well-written that it sets the reader in the mind of someone who is experiencing a great deal of trauma. This book explores a lot of mental health themes including domestic abuse, postpartum psychosis, depression, and dissociation and the pain of all of that is so thoroughly depicted.

The haunting imagery wove together a tapestry of someone experiencing a large amount of grief and heartache and gave the sense of not only losing your mind but how hard it is to find yourself again.

Bad Things Happened in this Room is going to stick with me for a long time.