Day 2 = Reviews
Tamara and and I are chatting all week about Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman. Be sure to enter our Cover of Snow / Ruin Falls giveaway (in my sidebar) and check back all week to see what we are talking about.
Today we are featuring our reviews. Be sure to check out Tamara's review. Here's a description of the book followed by my review below.
Title: Ruin Falls
Author: Jenny Milchman
Publisher: Ballantine
Publication Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 9780345549075
Number of Pages: 352
How I Got It: Library
Format: Hardcover
Description:
In a suspenseful follow-up to her critically acclaimed Cover of Snow, Jenny Milchman ratchets up the tension with this edge-of-your-seat story of a mother determined to find her missing children.
Liz Daniels has every reason to be happy about setting off on a rare family vacation, leaving behind her remote home in the Adirondack Mountains for a while. Instead, she feels uneasy. Her children, eight-year-old Reid and six-year-old Ally, have met their paternal grandparents only a handful of times. But Liz’s husband, Paul, has decided that, despite a strained relationship with his mother and father, they should visit the farm in western New York where he spent his childhood.
On their way to the farm, the family stops at a hotel for the night. In the morning, when Liz goes to check on her sleeping children, all her anxiety comes roaring back: Ally and Reed are nowhere to be found. Blind panic slides into ice-cold terror as the hours tick by without anyone finding a trace of the kids. Soon, Paul and Liz are being interviewed by police, an Amber Alert is issued, and detectives are called in.
Frantic worry and helplessness threaten to overtake Liz’s mind—but in a sudden, gut-wrenching instant she realizes that it was no stranger who slipped into the hotel room that night. Someone she trusted completely has betrayed her. Though she knows that Ally and Reid are safe, Liz will stop at nothing to find them and get them back. From her guarded in-laws’ unwelcoming farmhouse to the deep woods of her own hometown, Liz follows the threads of a terrible secret to uncover a hidden world created from dreams and haunted by nightmares.
Liz Daniels has every reason to be happy about setting off on a rare family vacation, leaving behind her remote home in the Adirondack Mountains for a while. Instead, she feels uneasy. Her children, eight-year-old Reid and six-year-old Ally, have met their paternal grandparents only a handful of times. But Liz’s husband, Paul, has decided that, despite a strained relationship with his mother and father, they should visit the farm in western New York where he spent his childhood.
On their way to the farm, the family stops at a hotel for the night. In the morning, when Liz goes to check on her sleeping children, all her anxiety comes roaring back: Ally and Reed are nowhere to be found. Blind panic slides into ice-cold terror as the hours tick by without anyone finding a trace of the kids. Soon, Paul and Liz are being interviewed by police, an Amber Alert is issued, and detectives are called in.
Frantic worry and helplessness threaten to overtake Liz’s mind—but in a sudden, gut-wrenching instant she realizes that it was no stranger who slipped into the hotel room that night. Someone she trusted completely has betrayed her. Though she knows that Ally and Reid are safe, Liz will stop at nothing to find them and get them back. From her guarded in-laws’ unwelcoming farmhouse to the deep woods of her own hometown, Liz follows the threads of a terrible secret to uncover a hidden world created from dreams and haunted by nightmares.
My Review:
First of all, I don't usually like reading thrillers. It's just too much. I'm also a big scaredy cat when it comes to horror. But I wanted something edgy to suit the season. After much deliberation, Tamara and I chose this novel as our October Book Talk feature and I have to say: It was perfect! I'll get into specifics in our spoiler posts but, in general it was exactly what a thriller should be: Fast-paced, believable actions by the protagonist, and correctly spaced clues. Rarely, do I find a book that I literally can't put down, but I love it when I do. I believed Liz's reactions and even when she did something I might not have done, her actions were still believable. I hate reading a novel and the protagonist does everything opposite of logical. The same with a horror movie. I'm always like "Don't go further into the house/tunnel/scary space. Get out of the there!" Then the main character hides in the basement thinking "oh, the man with a chainsaw will never find me down here." This book wasn't like that, even when things started getting really strange and creepy. As for clues, Jenny Milchman provided just enough clues for a reader to stay connected and fell they were figuring things out at the same time as Liz.
I will definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a thriller and right now I couldn't pick a better seasonal read!
No comments
Post a Comment