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Maya has lived seven years with the memory of seeing her best friend just drop dead in front of her. Maya was sure that the enigmatic man she had been spending a lot of time with for the previous few weeks was responsible; he was standing right there with them. Something strange had been going on, but Maya simply couldn’t figure out what it was. Her memory was a bit hazy in spots and she couldn’t account for some of the hours she spent with Frank.
Now she’s living with a loving and kind boyfriend. She’s trying to kick the secret addiction she’s had to a prescription medication — the meds have helped her cope with what she went through. She is hoping to move forward and find some peace without the medication. But then a video that gets a lot of views online takes her right back to what happened with Aubrey. In the video, a young woman sitting in a diner suddenly tips forward and dies. And as with Aubrey’s death, there appears to be no physical reason for it. The kicker? Frank is sitting across from the woman in the diner.
Maya feels she has no choice but to return home to investigate. She asks questions of the waitress and a friend of the dead woman. And she tries to remember more about what happened to her and Aubrey.
At home, Maya comes clean with her mother about putting herself into detox. And she remembers the manuscript she had been reading at the time she met Frank. The unfinished story was written by her Guatemalan father, who died before she was born. She finds it and reads it again, and she starts to believe there are messages in the book that can help her, if she can just figure out how.
Being back in her hometown, with her mom, with the memories of Aubrey and Frank, Maya is still sure Frank is a killer. But she still wonders sometimes if her own brain is betraying her. After all, her late aunt was seriously mentally ill, and Maya’s unfounded accusations about Frank only made her sound unhinged. And they led to her being dosed up on the medication that she now is trying to kick. Is her paranoia all in her head? Or is the truth of what happened to Aubrey and the woman in the video — and even Maya herself, though she didn’t die — hidden somewhere in her mind? The key to the answers may lie in Frank’s cabin in the woods.
This suspense book had me wondering what exactly was going on. Maya is fragile and haunted and I felt so much for her. She wants to move forward and be happy with the good man she’s found, but the past and her uncertainty and addiction are preventing her from finding peace. She puts herself in danger by going back to her hometown and confronting Frank, but it’s the only way to finally free herself and know the truth — whether it’s that she’s right about Frank being the villain, or that she is dealing with serious mental illness. I started to feel fairly strongly maybe halfway through the book that I knew what was going on, but the book still kept me guessing a bit longer. Then I knew for sure and was still held on the edge of my seat by wondering how it would play out.
The House in the Pines is a strong debut, a compelling psychological thriller.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 6 uses of strong language (putting this right on the line of almost being high, though the rest of the content is not harsh), fewer than 10 instances of moderate profanity, a dozen uses of mild language, and almost 10 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Violence includes several suspicious deaths. Sexual content is fairly minimal; there is a little simple kissing. Alcohol and prescription drug abuse play a large part in the story.
*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
