Synopsis: Hannah can't wait to sneak off for a romantic weekend with her boyfriend, Colin. He’s leaving for college soon, and Hannah wants their trip to the lake house to be one they’ll never forget.
But once Hannah and Colin get there, things start to seem a bit...off. They can't find the town on any map. The house they are staying in looks as if someone's been living there, even though it's been deserted for years. And Colin doesn’t seem quite himself. As he grows more unstable, Hannah worries about Colin’s dark side, and her own safety.
Nothing is as perfect as it seems, and what lies beneath may haunt her forever.
Read my review HERE.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emma Carlson Berne
Nine years ago, my teenage brother died in a rock-climbing accident. It was a tragedy, suffice it to say. I didn’t read anything for eight days after we got the news. That was the longest I had ever gone without reading since elementary school.
So many things were strange that week—all the food in my parents’ kitchen from strangers, doing laundry at two in the morning, the numbing funeral. And not reading.
On the eighth day, when the marker of the first week had passed, the thought occurred to me that I could still read. It was a relief. I slept in my childhood room that week and when I ran my hand along the row of faded bindings on my bookshelf, I stopped on the water-bloated, torn copy of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Long Winter. I lay on my bed and opened the stained pages and as I read the pages I’d read twenty times before, I realized I’d unwittingly chosen the most painful of Laura’s stories.
The Ingalls family almost starved to death that winter, and almost froze. It’s a horrific story when you think of it in adult terms and Laura later said that she had to lighten it up in order for children to be able to handle it. Reading it after my brother died felt right—familiar, of course. And also it felt like I had an ally in Laura—like someone else had been through hell too, and made it.
Years later, I walked the halls of Good Samaritan Hospital, waiting to give birth to my first son. I read a Penguin Classics edition of Jane Eyre, one I’d ordered especially for the occasion. My old copy from the 1930s was crumbling and the red cover always bled dye onto my fingers.
When I thought of what book to take to the hospital, Jane’s familiar epic immediately felt like the right fit. Her story is that of a long, halting, painful, joyous journey—just like the one I was embarking on. I started the book that night and a week later, read the last lines as I sat in my recliner at home, nursing my new son with the clear, sane autumn light coming through the living room windows.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0 comments:
Post a Comment