Worry Box
By Chris Panatier
- Worry Box
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Author: Chris Panatier
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Publisher: Angry Robot
- ISBN: 9781836730330
- Published: September 2026
- Pages: 352
- Format reviewed: Paperback
- Review date: 29/09/2026
- Language: English
Intrusive thought are horrible things, but most people get them. The secret is to realise what they are and not to act on them. No need to jump off that cliff or put your hand in a pot of boiling water; just dark thoughts trickling through your brain pan. Lailah has a lot of intrusive thoughts, so many that her therapist has told her to write them down and put them in her Worry Box, a place to hold those thoughts and not act on. It just seems that someone or something may be reading the thoughts in Worry Box by Chris Panatier.
When Lailah comes home with the Martins, she hopes to have found her forever family. She moves in with Alison, Nathon, and their daughter Dru into their new home. At first things are great, Nathan grew up in the fostering system and knows what love and help Lailah needs. When a new brother is born the Bad Luck that has followed Lailah through her life returns. Someone is trying to hurt the newborn, and some seem to think it is Lailah.
Worry opens up feeling like it is going to be your typical haunted house novel but set in a contemporary setting. A newly blended family, a new home, strange goings on. I like a haunted house tale, but at this time of year I read a few of them leading up to Halloween. Thankfully, Worry is much more than that. It is a haunting house, rather than haunted house novel and that changes the dynamic of the story a lot.
The key to the story is how the family works. The established threesome bringing in a foster child, only for an unexpected pregnancy to follow. The Martins are written well as your typical family, they have their trials, but the relationships are born of love. Therefore, it is heartbreaking when things go wrong. Lailah is treated with suspicion when things like the air conditioning in the nursery gets turned down, but both she and Dru insist it is the ghost.
There is that classic child/adult dynamic where one set believes and the other does not. It is painful to read what Lailah goes through, seeing her future being taken away from her and having no power to stop it. The story is told from multiple perspectives. Each member of the family is followed, and, in this way, we get to read and feel their motive.
There is one additional perspective in the novel; Andy. This voice is key to elevating Worry from being a run of the mill ghost story, into something far more interesting. Andy has taken against Lailah, and Andy has their reasons. We learn a lot about Andy’s past and why they jump to the conclusions they have. There is a logic to Andy’s actions that adds to the pathos of the story.
There is a melancholy and sadness that runs through Worry. It is a book that makes you worry about the family. Lailah, Nathan and Andy all have troubled pasts they do not want to see repeated. Alison just wants to protect her baby. Dru just wants to be with her adopted sister. You can feel the real consequences of what will happen if this family is torn apart. Thankfully, there is also hope in the novel, one built on a family’s love for one another. The type of love that cannot be broken. Or can it?
Written on 29th September 2026 by Sam Tyler .
Topics and themes
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Tone & Pace
Themes
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Content/Warnings
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