Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher/author for providing me with an ALC in exchange for my honest review.

OMG!!! This book was exactly what I wanted it to be! I loved it. I will make sure to check out other books by this author. When I requested this I was just intrigued by the concept of it and I loved how it turned out. This story had a great plot and if you have read this and enjoyed it, This was so much. It was such a great story. I would say give this one a try. I will continue to follow this author. Way to go to this author for not letting me down.

I highly enjoyed the narrator of the audiobook. Kept me listening.

Thank you as always for an ARC forever grateful for that!

I wanted to like this book more, but the writing style was just not for me! It stopped me from really getting into the world and story

I was intrigued at first, but the tone was so dry that my interest began to dwindle. Not only that, it started feeling more like a mystery novel than a horror one. I skimmed the last third of this book, and the info dump at the end used to explain everything... yikes. This was very much not for me.

What could be more terrifying than a man stalking a neighbourhood dressed up as a creepy panda? Nothing.

This book freaked me out and gave me everything I had hoped for. The cover drew me in and the book was very well written.

Mr Jones started out really great, but I wish it was a little bit shorter.

This is an eerie tale full of mysterious goings on.My knuckles were white at times when the plot got my attention. There was no turning back. I had to read it through to the end. It was marvelous.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review*

Creepy thriller - well worth the read. The ending left a little to be desired, but all in all a very cleverly written book.

First off, this cover is insanely creepy and was what drew me to the book. The idea of a creep in a grey suit and panda mask stalking the local park is terrifying.

There were a lot of moving pieces in this story and a lot of mystery. I had no trouble at all following the path that the main character, Ben, laid out for me. He was an unreliable narrator, but he was compelling and genuine.

I recommend to those who like unreliable narrators, mystery/thrillers, and likable and “real” characters. There was some supernatural horror in there as well. Great read!

Ben is bringing up his daughter Imogen by himself since the disappearance of his wife. A rumour starts at the primary school about "Mr Jones" who is a man in a panda mask who will take away children. This rumour starts to become intertwined with the disappearance of Ben's wife and Ben gets obsessed with finding "Mr Jones".
This is one of those books which started well but the ending didn't live up to expectations. We start with a great build up of suspense - an abandoned house, the creepy Mr Jones and strange letters to Imogen from her Mother. The author really builds the suspense and the writing is good. However, then the character of Ben starts to fall apart as does the plot. Everything just seems to get out of hand and Ben starts behaving very out of character. The events move on much faster but there are loose threads left behind.
It was such as shame that the last section - about a third - of this book fell apart. It really had potential. It is as if the author took the story so far but then didn't know quite what to do next & how to end it. Very disappointing.
I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

This book was definitely a process. I thought maybe I was losing my own mind trying to keep up with all the twists and turns. Ben was thinking he was Mr. Jones and had done horrible things. The more he tried to figure out what was going on, the more convinced he became that he was committing terrible things. When everything is brought out into the open, I was shocked! Not to give anymore away, I’ll leave it up to the reader to discover the truth.

Oh dear this was a sruggle to get through. I didn't enjoy the writing style and the story didn't engage me

Mr Jones by Alex Woolf is touted as a psychological thriller, but I lean more toward calling it horror.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher IndieNovella, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis:   (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
Ben Rose has been looking after his 8 year old daughter Imogen on his own, since his wife Susan "disappeared" about a year ago.  His mother has been keeping her "alive" in his daughters eyes, but Ben is fairly certain she must be dead.  He can understand Susan leaving him, but never her daughter.  Even if she left him for another man, she wouldn't leave Imogen, would she?

Then he discovers that Imogen is receiving messages from someone who claims to be her mother.  Ben is afraid that there is a predator on the loose.  The school kids keep talking about "Mr Jones",  a man in a grey suit and wearing a panda mask, who seems to be a threat.  Ben starts to wonder if there could be something to that rumour.  Although he hasn't seen him, he has seen a young girl in the park who doesn't seem to belong anywhere.

Ben has started hearing strange noises in his basement, and seeing some weird things in the local park.  He also seems to be losing time.  He's trying to keep it together for Imogen's sake, but his temper is getting shorter.

Maybe Amy can help.  She and her son are new to the area, and although she has had struggles too, she and Ben seem to be getting closer.

Alex Woolf's psychological thriller explores loss, fear and an overwhelming desire to keep those we love safe from harm.


My Opinions:   
WOW, this was highly entertaining.  It's a mixture of mystery, thriller, supernatural and horror.  Throw in a narrator that may be unreliable, and you have a really good story.  I do, however, thinking the ending was a little weak.

As well, there were a lot of slimey characters in this book, including Ben.  Some of his actions were questionable.  Even early in the book, I had problems with him.  I know he had his daughters best interests in mind, but I think that insisting her mom was dead may have been a little extreme, and the lies he told, and tried to make her tell to her friends was just wrong.

However, all that being said, I really enjoyed this book.  The plot was good, and the writing excellent (although occasionally a little wordy).

Overall, it was a very atmospheric and creepy book, with a touch of the supernatural, and enough twists to keep me wondering which way was up.

I will not be sharing my review on Goodreads or on my personal blog. This book dragged and nothing seemed to really be happening, so I did not finish it. I am only rating it one star because it's not often I don't finish a book I start. Thank you for the opportunity to read this one. It just wasn't for me, I guess.

This had a good premise and a genuinely intriguing, creepy start. Then…too much…too much drag, too many red herrings, too convoluted. Then a weak, rushed, dissatisfying ending.

Alex Woolf has created a truly harrowing adventure from start to finish in this novel. Following Ben and his daughter Imogen (Midge), Ben just might be losing his mind. From strange creatures and creepy little girls in a swampy park to mysterious messages left by his estranged wife who has been missing for a year, life keeps getting more and more strange with no concrete answers. This book was absolutely a nail-biting thriller. I found myself racing to the end to determine who was behind all of these creepy occurrences or if we could even trust Ben as our narrator. Check this out, you won't be disappointed.

Mr. Jones is the thriller we needed in 2022!!

I wish I could rate this novel better, because it has a good story at its heart and shows that the author has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, the writing itself bogged the novel down. Starting with what was good: The story was interesting and original. It is playing in a well-worn genre sandbox and wasn’t wildly innovative, but it was entertaining and didn’t feel reductive or repetitive. Not all the red herrings worked, in part because of the clumsy writing, but overall the story kept my interest and kept me constantly guessing different potential outcomes, and the places the story ultimately went felt earned. The characters were fine, at least conceptually, and you can tell there is a solid attempt at giving depth to the main character and his immediate secondary characters, they aren’t just cookie-cutter stereotypes. With that said, though, it did feel like a collection of facts and not fully realized characters. Lastly the pacing was quite nice, constantly adding to the mystery and upping the stakes, going back and forth between past and present storylines at good intervals to break up the tension and keep the reader drawn in.

Unfortunately, while all those pieces of a good novel worked, they still need to be held together by good writing, and that is where this novel left me wanting a lot more. Woolf’s prose almost felt like stage directions at times… “Now it is Saturday, and we are in the kitchen,” and so forth. There is a lot of telling, and not showing. Everything just felt clinical and uninteresting, and often being enough to take me out of the story altogether. I didn’t ever feel like a scene was being created or tended to in any artistic way, but rather just short sentence after short sentence of explaining things that could have been better demonstrated through a character’s actions. There is definite understanding of style and genre, and an attempt to carve a space using those conventions, but in the end ambition outpaced the talent of capturing it on the page. Hopefully this is just a beginning for Woolf, because there is a lot of promise in his story and plotting, and as he grows as a writer those will be invaluable.

I want to thank NetGalley and IndieNovella, who provided a complimentary eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a clever and mind bending book where you end up questioning everything and everyone. When I first started reading this book, I just kept thinking that I have no idea what's going on but had such a compulsion just to keep reading and it was totally worth it. I wouldn't class this as horror as such but definitely more psychological though there definitely is hints of the paranormal interwoven throughout. The concept of Mr Jones did give me shivers and I throughly enjoyed how this book comes together. Clever and a darker read than your average books.
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It was ok in the beginning but didn’t deliver in the end. It had all the creepy vibe at the start but finished weakly. It started to lose me about halfway through.

This book did take me a little bit to get into. Once it hit its stride I was all for it, until the ending. I felt for the ending to work I needed more information for it to work.
The main character and his experiences were ones of someone losing their mind so it felt as tho he was all over the place in his thoughts and actions. While this author is very talented in his writing and his plots I feel as tho this particular book was just lacking something for me. I encourage others to read it so they might find something I could have missed. (I was up till 3 am reading this so there might have been alot missed)
Beginning and middle were very good the ending was just missing something in my opinion.

I love horror in all formats and I was so excited to find this book because the synopsis sounded so intriguing to me. Alex Woolf is a wonderful author and this was a very well-written and fleshed-out book. I would have given it 5 stars if not for a few minor details that kind of bothered me. There is one particular scene in the very beginning of the book where the MC finds a rib bone sticking out of the ground in the park and after he finds it the story jumps to him picking his daughter up from school. I know this is a work of fiction but realistically if anyone found a human bone they would call the police etc. I also felt like there were some details that were revealed way too late in the book and would have been better to have them revealed earlier in the story. In the end though I really did enjoy this book and I can't wait to read more from Alex Woolf because he is extremely talented and I see him going far with this genre.

This book will take down a long and winding road of mystery and horror. Ben Rose and his daughter Imogen are caught up in the summer days where Mr Jones makes his appearance, mystifying everyone of who it could be and when he will turn up next. Twists and turns occur as Ben tries to figure out what is going on while trying to protect his daughter in the meantime. The end will catch you by surprise. I give this book 5 stars all the way.