I’ll Be Waiting is so creepy, I had to stop reading it at night!

Kelley Armstrong’s latest horror novel isn’t just chilling—it’s emotionally haunting in a way that lingers long after the lights are out. Most of my reading happens right before I go to bed, but I’ll Be Waiting by Kelley Armstrong made that nearly impossible. Every chapter brims with tension so expertly crafted that I found myself burrowing into my comforter at night to hide every part of myself from whatever might lurk in the shadows. But beyond the scares—and there are plenty—it’s also a story about grief, illness, and the unexpected twists in a life already marked by limited time.

We meet Nicola Laughton in her thirties, a woman who was never supposed to live that long. Diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) as a child, she beat the odds thanks to medical advances. She even allowed herself to fall in love. Anton was her future—the person who taught her to hope for more than just survival. The two were married for only a couple of years before a car crash left Nicola widowed. Anton’s final words to his wife—“I’ll be waiting for you”—became both a deeply personal haunting and a viral social media curiosity.

Armstrong leans into the eerie fallout of that moment. After a witness claims to have video of Anton’s ghost speaking those words, Nicola is swarmed by fake spiritualists offering closure. After yet another disappointment, she agrees to a séance arranged by well-meaning family who handpicked a scientist who studies such phenomena. The setting: a house perched on a Lake Erie cliff that once belonged to Anton’s family. Naturally, things go wrong immediately. Doors open on their own. Insects swarm. Nicola hears phantom footsteps and the creak of an old dumbwaiter—one that no longer functions, having had its inner workings stripped away except for a pulley with no rope.

But what makes this book so effective isn’t just the supernatural horror (though Armstrong is a master at building dread), it’s the psychological weight anchoring everything. Nicola is a woman who has lived her whole life preparing to die. Her relationship with Anton was shaped by that knowledge—they both expected she would go first. His sudden death flips that narrative and leaves her unmoored. The horror of I’ll Be Waiting isn’t just in the ghostly signs—it’s in Nicola’s sense of being betrayed by the one certainty her life was built around.

Armstrong also deserves credit for her thoughtful and consistent portrayal of CF. Too often, writers introduce a disability or chronic illness and then forget about it when it’s inconvenient. Here, Nicola’s condition is always present—not as a plot device, but as a lived experience. Her daily treatments, her vulnerability, her physical limitations—they’re a constant, and they raise the stakes of every scene. You never forget that she’s sick, because she can’t forget.

And then there’s the twist: Nicola isn’t even her real name. The séance isn’t her first brush with the spirit world. A long-buried event from her past is clawing its way back into the present, and this time, it won’t stay quiet. Something went terribly wrong years ago, and now, other people are paying the price.

If you like your horror layered with grief, identity, and ghostly vengeance—and you don’t mind a few nights of uneasy sleep—I’ll Be Waiting delivers. It’s a slow burn in the best way, thick with atmosphere and emotional weight, and it’ll have you questioning every creak in your house.

Have you read I’ll Be Waiting? I’d love to hear if it scared you as much as it scared me—or if you saw the ending coming. Let’s talk in the comments!

Related Content

• Book Review: Murder at Haven’s Rock (Haven’s Rock #1) by Kelley Armstrong (Books & Bindings)
• Review: Cold as Hell by Kelley Armstrong (A Lovely Little Book Blog)
• I’ll Be Waiting by Kelley Armstrong (Caffeinated Reviewer)
• E-galley review: Finding Mr. Write by Kelley Armstrong (Lisa Loves Literature)

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