Long Lost Reviews is a monthly meme created by Ally over at Ally’s Appraisals which is posted on the second Thursday of every month. The aim is to start tackling your review backlog. Whether it’s an in-depth analysis of how it affected your life, one sentence stating that you only remember the ending, or that you have no recollection of reading the book at all.
Published: 1st February 2016
Publisher: Random House Australia
Pages: 390
Format: Paperback
Genre: Fiction
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars
Carly Townsend is starting over after a decade of tragedy and pain. In a new town and a new apartment she’s determined to leave the memories and failures of her past behind. However that dream is shattered in the dead of night when she is woken by the shadow of a man next to her bed, silently watching her. And it happens week after week.Yet there is no way an intruder could have entered the apartment. It’s on the fourth floor, the doors are locked and there is no evidence that anyone has been inside. With the police doubting her story, and her psychologist suggesting it’s all just a dream, Carly is on her own. And being alone isn’t so appealing when you’re scared to go to sleep.
This is a perfectly suited Long Lost Review because I remember bits and pieces of this book but not enough to write a proper review about it.
Looking at the literal one sentence note I wrote about it when I read it in 2016 I determined it was clever and “You understand Carly’s reasoning for what she does, and even at the end, she leaves you wondering about her and what her future holds.” All very important pieces of information.
I remember feeling unsettled as I read, the nature of the story and how Ford plays with your mind that you get caught up in Carly’s own paranoia. As she suspects the people around her so do you and the unknown is a very good fear factor. The simplicity of this thriller is what makes it works. It isn’t anything over the top, it relies on playing with the human experience, the unsettling nature of the unexplainable and our own fears and using that against us. The everyday nature of the narrative is what connects you, the fact this could happen to anyone is where it becomes most unnerving.
I would be interested in a revisit to this story because I think I remember how this ends but getting caught up in Ford’s gripping, dark and twisted story again could be worth it.
You can purchase Darkest Place via the following
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