What you can't remember could destroy you...
From an exciting new writer comes a debut thriller in which a young woman must find her way back to a New England cabin, armed with only hazy, haunting memories and a half-written book by the father in Guatemala she never knew, to finally uncover the truth that could save her.
Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they'd been hanging around with all summer.
Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that's allowed her to cope with what happened all those years ago; the gaps in her memories and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged back into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires postindustrial hometown to relive that fateful summer—the influence Frank once had on her, and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey. And before too long all roads are leading back to Frank's cabin…
Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.
My Thoughts
The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes is a story about what happens when you lose blocks of time and your best friend.
Maya is the protagonist of the story, when she was in high school, she briefly dated a man called Frank. After she meets him, one day her best friend Aubrey suddenly dies. Why would a young woman with the best of her life in front of her, suddenly die?
Seven years later Maya is still trying to figure this out. No charges were ever filed against anyone, but Maya knows that Frank had something to do with it, so she goes back home from Boston and starts conducting her own investigation of what happened on that fateful night.
Maya is having withdrawals from an antidepressant that she has been on for a while. Not an easy feat. One day she comes across a YouTube video showing a young woman and a man seated in a diner. All of a sudden, the young woman dies, the man she is with? It is Frank her ex-boyfriend. She gets suspicious in that the two girls that died were in Frank's presence.
The reader learns a bit of past history of Maya, her mother, Brenda had gone to Guatemala in her younger years and lived with a family for a while. She becomes close to the son of the family, but their relationship is cut short as he is killed. Then Brenda finds that she is pregnant.
The only thing that Maya has of her father is an unfinished book. Her father aspired to be a writer. The book is a mystery to Maya, she spends time translating it to English. So, with the mystery of her father, how did the two girls die becomes all-encompassing for Maya to figure out.
Told in flashbacks from Maya's time in high school and seven years later, the reader learns more of the story, about Frank and his father, a professor and a mesmerist. The story seemed confusing at first, but it all comes together at the end.
I wasn't expecting this as I started reading the book, but I did thoroughly enjoy it. I give it 5 stars, gave me the creeps.
I received a copy of the book for review purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment