Reviewed by Laura
As
I was reading this novel, I thought that I had figured it out before I was
halfway through the book. I was quite proud of my detecting ability and nearly
broke my arm patting myself on the back. I envisioned writing this review and
asking for other readers to let me know at what point they had solved the
mystery. Turns out, I was wrong all along. I was so absolutely, completely sure
of my prowess that I nearly fell off the couch when I was proven wrong. So… obviously
this is a book that will keep you guessing, which is always a plus in my
opinion.
The
book starts out in present day as Heather receives a package containing an old
necklace with the charm, Best Friends Forever. She still owns her half, so this
could only belong to her childhood friend, Becca. The childhood friend she
killed.
Heather and Becca were
best friends and wore the necklaces constantly to prove it. They both had them
on that fateful night, thirty years ago, when Becca died. They had been friends
with two other girls that summer forming the Dead Girls Club. They all enjoyed
Stephen King and other horror writers and were intrigued by anything they could
find to read about actual serial killers. But then things got out of hand. Becca
began to draw pictures and tell stories of The Red Lady. Who of us hasn’t
participated in a séance or used an Ouija board at a sleepover when we were
young? They were flirting with things beyond their control for the fun and
excitement, but Becca became obsessed. She would steal a key to a house her
realtor (drunken) mother was showing and they would meet there in the dark to
hear her stories and enjoy the chills that ran down their spines. It was a
tantalizing and forbidden thrill until Becca requested to perform a ceremony
and The Red Lady came in force. The book never definitively states whether the
entity was real or rather a product of group hysteria, but instead, leaves that
decision up to the reader. Regardless of your choice, just be warned that this
book may inspire nightmares of your own.
Things go from bad to
worse for Becca as she becomes more and more entrenched with the idea of The
Red Lady’s powers and her home situation deteriorates to unbearable
proportions. She begs Heather to meet her for one more ritual and then they can
go back to the way they were before, leaving The Red Lady behind for good. Only
in the course of events, Becca ends up dead and Heather is haunted forever.
The story is told in
flashbacks between that summer and present day. Heather finds herself falling
into her own dark hole when it becomes evident, through increasing deliveries
and incidents, that someone knows what she did that night. The number of people
who could have known is small and getting smaller. Heather becomes increasingly
unhinged as she draws closer to uncovering who knows her secret after all this
time. This is a fast-paced thriller with many twists and turns and I highly
recommend it.
Note: Christy also reviewed this book in our Monday blog post. You can read her take on it here.
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