A gothic and unnerving novel about a woman who becomes obsessed with the lady of the house, hoping to be her personal maid. I loved the premise, loved the writing style, and loved the claustrophobic atmosphere - all of which made this very tense and engaging. The imagery was absolutely stunning and I found myself highlighting so many enticing descriptions and original metaphors.

Plot-wise this was a little bit confusing, with the unreliable narration blending the real and the imagined, which made it hard to follow at times. I struggled a bit towards the end, when a lot of strange things were happening, though did enjoy the surprising twists. Also, this was a lot darker than I was expecting it to be, with grotesque imagery, visceral gore/body horror, and heavy SA content. I’d definitely recommend checking trigger warnings before going in.

The characters were fantastic and I enjoyed seeing them from Ann’s perspective, particularly as she became less reliable in her narration. If you like psychological horror, gore, gothic settings, and a strong atmosphere, this needs adding to your tbr.

Tense, mysterious and compelling. Thank you to John Murray Press for the NetGalley arc.

I requested this based on the cover it's just fantastic. It's a weird fever dream read I was fully immersed in the vivid writing style different to anything I've read before. It's utterly weird with grotesque descriptions.

I liked the premise of this book, and enjoy historical fiction as well as darker, gritty crime and thriller books but this book was a bit too visceral for me! I actually loved the writing style and could see a strange kind of beauty in it, but it's very physical and visual in its descriptions and that wasn't for me.( I know that's what life below stairs was like so I appreciate not sugar coating it).
The cover is a beauty and was one of the reasons I chose the book. Maybe it should also be listed in the horror category so wimps like me can be pre warned!

DNFd at 9%. Overwritten, overwrought. Obviously going somewhere but was going to take forever to do it, in clichéd language. I didn't have the energy. Shame

DNF 25%

Unfortunately this just wasn't for me - It felt a bit heavy handed in what it was trying to say, but I thought the writing was really descriptive and emotive.

Lush descriptive writing, vivid imagery, I absolutely did not understand what happened in this story.

This is definitely a strange one! Downton Abbey meets the hallucinatory weirdness of Bunny by Mona Awad meets Piranesi’s mysterious meandering house, maybe. Don’t ask me exactly what went on, I couldn’t tell you.

Where the plot itself feels paper-thin and not fully answered, the novel is drenched in description. Visceral really is the best word for it: the “downstairs” side of the house is everything disgusting and oozing and grimy, all violence and grotesquerie, while “upstairs” is pure and light and airy but filled with overwhelming sweetness and cakes and colours. The whole thing has no shortage of blood and bodily fluids and morsels of food, everything formed of clots and dripping globules. It’s a gross, gluttonous fever dream.

And I could definitely see talent in the writing -- there were lots of evocative lines, especially about the house itself. Unfortunately I felt like there was often too much; paragraphs got repetitive, the same ideas repeated again and again, and while we’re stuck in Ann’s head with her thoughts and not much other interaction is happening, it can all get a bit dense and sluggish? I’m not always one for less is more, and there was absolutely atmosphere here... but on this occasion I also think a little /less/ might have made for more effective storytelling.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

cw sexual assault and many instances of bingeing/purging/vomiting, not one for the squeamish

Absolutely gorgeous in the most hideous sense. A tale of the self-sustaining nature of classes, and the empty promise of social mobility of capitalism.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @johnmurraypress for the ARC.

Well, this was a weird read.

It definitely dark, it’s definitely twisted. About class, power and desire.

It’s eerie, unsettling and gory.

I will look forward to seeing what this author does next.

On the one hand, I loved this upstairs-downstairs setting and Ann is such an interesting character. However, the writing itself was a slog. Overwritten—I imagine the author was going for purple prose but it wasn't that at all, it was just confusing. It took me way to long to get through this and discolored my reading experience. I would have loved this story itself with all the fat trimmed.

"Mrs Hardy understands this house and its silly little people like no one else! She, with great skill, understands exactly what it needs, who it needs, when it needs..."

This book was not what I expected but was so entirely up my alley. At once a dark parody of upstairs downstairs style stories and a twisty, visceral horror novel, this book is hard to define and resists categorisation. It tells the story of Ann, a maid in the grand house of Ropner, who desperately wants to serve the ladie upstairs to prove that she, unlike her colleagues, is pure and virtuous and good. Worthy of her. And this desperation to be seen as pure and different propels her into places she never imagined.

This a VISCERAL book which includes a lot of sexual violence so be aware of that going into it. Sometimes the viscerality feels like it strays a bit into fatphobia and disgust of certain bodies but I do get what the author was going for. It is also a book that will not hold your hand when it comes to the secrets at its core. If you want everything tied up in a bow, this book is not for you, but I really enjoyed the dark road it took me on. Sometimes the metaphorical prose can obfuscate what is actually happening but I think this mimics the very environment the story takes place in.

I thought this was a fantastic debut novel and I cannot wait to see what Elland writes next.

I will admit though, I kept reading ladie as laddie which sometimes didn't quite match the tone!

👩🏻 Unsettling
👩🏻 Historical
👩🏻 Femgore

Oof what a wild ride!
Ann is a ‘below stairs’ scullery maid who pines to be at the side of the lady of the house. But when a chance encounter makes her dreams come true, Ann doesn’t get the happy ending she hoped for.
This was a total fever dream with the lines between reality and delusion completely blurred.
The writing style is very rich in description which for me felt stighlty overwritten but others may enjoy this style, I’m a simple writing girly. I also found sometimes the author would use a simile then explain it which felt a bit like she didn’t trust the reader but this bothered me less as I read.
As an aside I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone managing an eating disorder as the main character uses purging as a coping mechanism which is described graphically.
I’m grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this gifted e-arc and experience this emerging genre of femgore.

The Ladie Upstairs has a wonderfully eerie gothic atmosphere and an intriguing premise, but the execution is messy. The story feels disorienting and overly complicated—convoluted, overwritten, and hard to follow—making it more frustrating than haunting. The journey from scullery maid to lady’s maid has potential, and there are genuinely unsettling moments, but the tangled narrative and excessive prose make it difficult to stay engaged. It’s an ambitious novel with a strong sense of dread, but it ultimately gets lost in its own chaos.

I liked the premise of this one but struggled with the narrator. I will say that the voice provoked a strong reaction! But in my case I couldn't enjoy it unfortunately. I'm sure it will find an audience, though.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Amazon.

This was such a convoluted story, and while it took me a while to get into this, one I was half way through I was engaged
Would love to read more books by the author!

This is a dark and intriguing book. I liked the feminist themes of the book and the dream like horror. The choice of nature imagery and the conjuring up of grime and horror from everyday items and from human bodies worked well, mostly.
However, the book felt overwritten. I felt a bit bombarded by the imagery at times and wanted less.
Ultimately it felt too dense and although I like bizarre horror, the overwriting marred this for me.

Ann is a scullery maid with dreams above her station. With a violently black and white outlook on the world, she associates the ethereal beauty of the house's mistress - the titular Ladie Upstairs - with goodness, cleanliness and Godliness. The Ladie stands in sharp contrast to the vulgar, bestial serving class that populates Ann's world. Like a fairytale princess unjustly swapped at birth, Ann knows in her soul that she is above the drudgery of this life. A chance encounter opens the door for her to be elevated upstairs, closer to her true station, closer to her Ladie. But rot has permeated all levels of Ropner Hall.

Despite having some great scenes, overall, this wasn't really for me. I think it could be super popular with Mona Awad/Eric LaRocca fans. In the opulent world of Ropner, Ann's distorted thinking twists food into grotesqueries; purging and restriction become synonymous with saintliness. The writing luxuriates in Ann's disgust for everything of the body. The descriptions became so dense, though, and came so often, I found myself skimming more and more as the book went on. I found the intentional awfulness lost a lot of its impact through excessive repetition.

I agree with the other reviews that given how amorphous (non-existent?) the plot is, it's difficult to see what the scenes of sexual assault add.

Thank you for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review. In it we follow the story of Ann who is utterly obsessed with Lady Charlotte, the niece of the Lady who owns Ropner Hall. She is disgusted by her fellow servants and desires to remain as pure and saintly as possible in the hopes that she will be chosen to be Lady Charlotte's new maid.

So when the opportunity does arise, Ann is elated, and I felt genuinely happy for her. However, it doesn't take long for things to take a dark and twisted turn and I was hooked! I kept thinking I knew what was happening, but was proven wrong time and again and I am finding myself STILL thinking about that ending!!

Creepy dolls; grotesque servants; rich, sumptuous, sick inducing food; death and decay; bouts of insanity; terror in the woods; and an overall feeling of dread that makes you second guess that thing you think you saw in the corner of your eye, this book kept me hooked from the first to the last page!

My only complaints are that it did feel a bit too wordy at times and there was A LOT of references to sick and often very descriptive examples of sick which I had to skip over because I have emetophobia, so I would warn anyone wanting to read it that those scenes are in there.

This book succeeded in feeling like a fever dream, with an unsettling and stifling atmosphere, but unfortunately had a writing style that felt clunky and ultimately took me out of the story.