The East Wing

• Author: Danielle M. Wong
• Genre: Mystery/Thriller
• Publication Date: June 1, 2026
• Publisher: Storm Publishing

Thank you to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Struggling writer Wren Lee hasn’t slept properly in eighteen months. Not since the car accident that derailed her entire life. The night she still can’t fully remember. So when she receives a surprise inheritance from her estranged grandfather, a house in rural Virginia seems like the escape Wren desperately needs.

But the grand mansion she arrives at is nothing like she hoped. From the moment Wren arrives, something feels wrong. A strange lullaby echoes through the maze-like hallways at night and Ruth, the housekeeper who still sets a place at dinner for a dead man, watches Wren with an intensity that goes beyond protective. Unwelcome and unsettled, Wren is determined to uncover the house’s secrets, starting with the forbidden east wing…

Then the storm hits, and Wren is trapped with no way out. To survive, she’ll have to confront not only the darkness in these walls but the buried truth about the night that broke her. Because in this house, the past doesn’t stay buried. And neither do its ghosts.

A house with a hidden secret, a protagonist with a life-changing event she has no recollection of, and a surprise inheritance—sounds like the perfect book for a spooky read. Since I haven’t read anything by the author previously, I went into this blind and discovered that there were some things that I liked and others that didn’t work for me. Let me tell you more.

Out of the starting gate, it is clear to readers that something significant happened to Wren, and she isn’t able to access her memory of the event. I appreciated how it talked about her being in therapy and actively using the coping skills she’s developed. It was nice to see an accurate portrayal of therapy, even if she’s keeping something from her therapist. I didn’t really understand what the memory was about initially, but as I read further, it became clear that it was a life-changing event that she was working on recovering the memories in therapy. 

While the book does accurately portray therapy, it lost major points with me for relying on the old, outdated trope of ‘mental illness makes someone a violent murderer.’ That is one of my least favorite tropes to read about, because it reinforces the mistaken belief about people who have mental illness. Wren majored in psychology so she feels comfortable analyzing herself and the people around her, although it is clear that Wren is no mental health professional. This plays into the trope that mentally ill people are dangerous, while the reality is very different. A quick Google search shows that people with mental illness are more likely to experience violence than the general population, and people with severe mental illness account for only about 3-5% of violent crimes. I am a mental health advocate and former therapist, this trope just feels played out and lazy—I’ve seen this in too many books to find it enjoyable, especially since the vast majority of the time I encounter this, it does feed into that stigma.

I also liked how Wren’s biracial heritage is discussed. She mentions that she is half Chinese, and I really enjoyed seeing how that worked into the story in a way that felt natural and believable, without ever feeling forced. Wren has childhood memories connected with certain foods, and her being in this mysterious house she inherited allows her to see the environment in which her father grew up. I especially liked how she found some additional ways to connect with her paternal side of the family.

Wong misses a strong opportunity to create a gothic, creepy, and atmospheric setting: the house clearly has secrets, along with a wing she isn’t allowed to go into. There is a live-in housekeeper, and I was absolutely shocked about what Wren put up with from Ruth, especially as it worsens throughout the story, considering that she is an adult and the new owner of the house. It took a more drastic turn, but rather than developing naturally, it felt like it was requiring ever more willing suspension of disbelief.

Overall, this wasn’t one of my favorite reads. I like when a mystery/thriller/suspense novel is a little more on the realistic side instead of being what another blogger calls ‘popcorn books,’ a book with a lot more entertainment value than substance. I knew by the middle of the book that I wasn’t going to like the direction in which the story was headed, and I was right. Wren struggles with insomnia that started right after the accident, and it makes her somewhat of an unreliable narrator, which is another element that I don’t typically enjoy unless it is done really well, and this story fell short of that mark. The story could easily have slid into horror-lite territory and further examine darker themes as Wren begins to unravel, yet it leaned more heavily on the over-the-top-ness and was a much less believable story. If I had been expecting that, I might have rated this more highly, but I went into this blind. 

Bottom line: Not a bad read, but prepare yourself for an unreliable narrator, a very over-the-top story, and a rushed ending. 

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