Hello Book Dragons! How are you all? I don’t know what is going on, but I have a pile of reviews to write, but my writing mojo is hiding somewhere… Does anyone have any advice on how to overcome this? Please do let me know. 😦 Today I have a great thriller review for you all! I hope you’ll like it. 🙂
Thanks a lot to publisher – Quercus for the review copy.
ISBN-13:978-1529401448
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Release date: 14 05 2020
Price*: Kindle £2.99 (GBP)/ Hardback £10.59 (GBP)
Kindle $13.99 (USD)/ Hardback$24.29 (USD)
Pages: ~ 352
My rating: 9/10
You can get this book here:
Amazon UK
Book Depository
What I learned from this book: Sometimes the most innocent ones are the most deceiving.
Description of the book: A windowless shack in the woods. Lena’s life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them.
One day Lena manages to flee – but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him. And then there is the question whether she really is the woman called ‘Lena’, who disappeared without a trace over thirteen years ago. The police and Lena’s family are all desperately trying to piece together a puzzle that doesn’t quite seem to fit.
How this book made me feel: Wow, what a surprising discovery this book was. I saw so much positive feedback about this book, that it was a true no brainer whether to pick it up.
This novel is told from multiple perspectives, and we have three people who are sharing their sides of the story. First of all, it is a woman, who ran away from the cabin. She is sharing her story during the time inside, as well as how she is coping now. She is a really disturbed woman, who went through a lot, and I found her story very engrossing and absorbing. The second character is Hannah, one of the children, that were kept in that cabin. She is on the spectrum of Autism, and she sees her life through a completely different perspective than the woman that was held captive. Hannah is a perfectionist, and the cabin with all the rules imposed by the captor are her norms, so she finds very hard to open up about her life, but when she does, I could not stop reading her parts. The last character would be Matthias, Lena’s father. For me he was the least interesting character of all, I could not understand his role in all this story, but he does have few tricks up his sleeve.
The narrative of this book is pure beauty. It has everything that my thriller loving heart could wish for, the twists and turns left me gobsmacked on many occasions, the suspense was very well placed and kept developing throughout the pages, and I was so absorbed in this novel, that the pages just flew by. The topics discussed in this novel were obsession, controlling personalities, blind fatherly love, denial, post-traumatic disorder and other mental illnesses, and many more.
The book was set in Germany, and I was very intrigued by the way German police were working. I really liked the writing style of this book, we have the very intense parts with Hannah and the woman in the cabin, as well as calmer ones with Matthias, that created the perfect balance. The chapters are short, so the book was easy to read for me. The ending was amazing and I really enjoyed how this book ended, it did answer my questions and rounded this story very well. I would like to mention, that this book has plenty of violent and disturbing parts, so it might not be very suitable to sensitive readers.
So, to conclude, I loved everything about this book apart from Matthias. 😀 It has incredibly well written and delivered characters, that look like real people, just with very messed up experiences. This book shocked me, surprised me, absorbed me, and I think everyone who is into psychological thrillers, will love it as well. Do give it a go, and I am pretty sure you will be in for a true thriller treat.:) Enjoy!
Thank You for Your time! ❤
About the author: Romy Hausmann was born in the former GDR in 1981. At the age of twenty-four she became chief editor at a film production company in Munich. Since the birth of her son she has been working as a freelancer in TV.Dear Childis her thriller debut. Romy Hausmann lives with her family in a remote house in the woods near Stuttgart.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/romyhausmann/
*-the price was taken from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com on the current date. The price might change at the time of your purchase. The links used in this post for book purchases are affiliates.
