Linda Hall's Blog

As the summer nears its end, so does my list of thriller-suspense-novel-beach-read recommendations. Today I’d like to end this summer series by recommending The River at Night by Erica Ferencik. The River at NightThis is one I could not put down.

The novel begins:

- Early one morning in late March, Pia forced my hand.-

And, we’re off. Four old friends; Pia, Rachel, Winifred, and Sandra get together every year for some sort of vacation or "adventure.” Most of the time their idea of "adventure” has the four of them sitting on a beach somewhere and sipping wine. Except this year.

Pia, the definite leader in the group, has determined that they’re all going to do something different and exciting. And what's more exciting than white water rafting in Maine? Well, fine, except, the only one who really wants to go is Pia. The rest shift between not wanting to go somewhere where they have to camp outside at night, to being outright afraid of fast moving water. She allays their fears. They have a great guide, the very capable Rory. Nothing to worry about. It'll be fun. So, okay, they all give each other pep talks. How bad could it be?

Well, bad, as it turns out.

Their adventure begins on a unfortunate footing—literally—when the jeep their guide, Rory is using to take them to the raft, sinks in the mud and they are up to their knees as they attempt to push it free. He tells them that this neck of the woods is usually dry. That this has never happened before. By this time I can almost hear the dueling banjoes in the distance. That should have been a clue to turn around now. Except, they don’t.

Good suspense is when you want to yell to the characters in the novel you are reading, "Don’t go there! Turn back now! Don't go down the basement without a flashlight! Don't go out on that river! Are you crazy?"

But, they don't turn around. The five clean up and then head out on a raft with the very hunky easy-on-the-eyes Rory as their guide. Maybe this won’t be so bad.

The author has an amazing way of describing the water, from the calm, meandering blue river, an easy to paddle and pleasant to be on, to the crazy rapids and currents and places that these four women, even with their experienced guide, are not prepared to tackle. The river is a character in this book.

No more spoilers, but there are definite parallels between this book and Deliverance. Remember that movie? Remember that book? Only this time it’s females who are on a river adventure.

As you know, if you follow my blog, a good story draws me in, believable characters make me want to read on, but if a book isn’t well-written, it’s only half a book. If the language isn't beautiful and imaginative, I'll put it down.

Here’s one example of the excellent description:

-Nests of hair twined with bites of bone and tiny pinecones snarled from under the orange ski cap.-

Who is that person with the bones tied in her wild hair? Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out.

The theme of human vs nature is a common one in books, and always remains popular. Goodreads has a list of these kinds of adventure books which includes the aforementioned Deliverance by James Dickey. The list also includes The Old Man and the Sea and Life of Pi

The cat under the front porch was at it again. Scratching at the slab of wood that echoes through the hardwood floors of my bedroom. Sharpening its claws, marking its territory—relentless in the dead of night. The Perfect Stranger

That is how The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda, today’s recommended summer-reading-super-suspense-novel begins. This story, with its many facets, its many faces, was immensely satisfying. First, there are the two friends (Leah and Emmy) who move to a new town and decide to room together. Then, there is the reason Leah is here in the first place (What was that horrible thing that happened in her old job?). Then, there is the colleague who Leah is sure is harassing her. And more. There is much more which is revealed as the story unfolds slowly.


In a nutshell, Leah had to leave Boston and her career as journalist after an article she wrote goes horribly wrong. She calls on an old friend Emmy, to come be her roommate in a rural Pennsylvania town where she has secured a teaching job. She needs someone to help her get her life back from that horrendous experience, and what better person than her strange friend, Emmy?

Here is where the whole thing gets disorienting in a way that makes you stop, blink, and shake your head as you read it. A woman who looks a lot like Leah is assaulted and left for dead down by the river. Shortly after, her roommate Emmy disappears. Leah and police investigator Kyle become close, as he helps her unravel what happened. It's all pretty straightforward. Or is it?

A large part of the novel becomes a case of, who do you believe? Even Kyle has doubts. He wants to believe her, but who is this supposedly good friend Emmy? There is no record of her anywhere—in any police data base that Kyle can locate. Emmy didn’t even have a cell phone. What young woman doesn’t carry a cell phone these days?

Why was Leah forced to leave her previous employment? Why is she accusing a fellow teacher of harassing her? Is Leah the problem? What’s with her former best friend and boyfriend? Why the restraining order? All of these questions are answered very, very slowly, very deliciously as the story progresses.

The unfolding of the story is almost disorienting. It got to the point that I would have to stop, think. WHAT did I just read? What is happening? No spoilers here, but the book is a very satisfying summer read.

Also—and this is important to me—the writing is excellent. Here are a few examples:

And then Emmy came along while I was this stripped away version of a person. So was it strange that I felt her in my skin? She was there when it re-formed. She existed inside the sharper edges I erected.

And, you can almost feel this version of winter:

The chapped lips, the red noses, the dry skin around our knuckles, and the way the sweaters itch across our collarbones. How you want nothing more than to stay in. The things you do to stay warm.

I began this blog with the first lines of The Perfect Stranger, the lines after which, I knew I would enjoy this book.

If you are a reader of I Like It, you know that first lines matter to me. First lines draw me in. First chapters draw me in. Just out of curiosity and because I’m a writer myself, I Googled “How not to begin a story.” The first thing that popped up was this Writer’s Digest article.

It suggests not beginning with a dream, an alarm clock buzzing, too little dialogue, or opening with dialogue. Pretty good advice, I would say. I Googled further to read that a whole lot of literary agents and writing instructors suggest not using a prologue. Hmm. The Perfect Stranger begins with a prologue.


As a writer, I sort of pay attention to this advice, but as a reader it flits off me like fine fine feathers in the wind. If the word “prologue” disgruntles you, just put a sticky note over the word “Prologue” and pretend it’s "Chapter One," and then proceed.

So yes, put this book high on your summer reading list.

Another Thursday morning, another great summer suspense recommendation. Today, the novel I am recommending is In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware. In a Dark, Dark WoodI read this book in the space of a couple of days, so enthralled was I.


Here is how the story begins:

I am running.

I am running through the moonlit woods, with branches ripping at my clothes and my feet catching in the snow-bowed bracken. Brambles slash at my hands,. My breath tears in my throat, It hurts, Everything hurts.

So begins the journey of Leonora who casually accepts the invitation to a “hen party.” An old friend she hasn’t seen in years is getting married. Why is she invited? She parted company with this “friend” many years ago, and it wasn't under the greatest of circumstances. Why is she being called now? Should she leave her comfortable but solitary existence in London to go to this party way out in the countryside? But her curiosity is piqued. The party is being held in a huge, modern glass-windowed house. Who wouldn’t be intrigued?

Persuaded by a mutual friend, she packs up and they drive there together.

After that, of course, the strange things start happening.

Two days later, she wakes up in a hospital bed with no memory of the entire weekend. She can only piece together bits and pieces. The book deftly moves from past to present as Leonora puts together what happened to her.

Yes, I suppose these are pretty timeworn conventions in the psychological suspense genre—amnesia, old secrets, isolation (in this case, a deserted house in the woods), “ghosts” in the woods (whether real ghosts in the form of a horror novel, or in this case, the “ghosts” of past secrets), a storm, and of course a murder. The book is replete with quirky characters—the quirkiest is the friend who wants everything to be “perfect” and even when things are falling apart will go to to any lengths to make sure this is so.

These “conventions” are used over and over, and yet for beach reads, we never tire of them. Or, at least I never do. Bring on the amnesia and the Stephen King-like quirky characters!

Here’s a fascinating article in Psychology Today about why we enjoy reading suspense novels so much.

The author suggests that we like the intellectual challenge—the old “figuring out the mystery puzzle” but in a psychological suspense it’s more than just figuring out “whodunnit”, it’s coming up with why. It’s connecting past "ghosts" to present reality.

The article also suggests that these kinds of novels are usually so engrossing, so captivating, that “nothing else has a chance of sneaking into our minds, thus giving us a break from everyday worries.”

And with things the way they are in the world, I think we DO need this break. Agreed?

So, take the suggestions that I’ve offered over these past number of months, and enjoy your thrillers.

As promised, I am devoting this entire summer to recommendations for psychological suspense thrillers. The books in this genre are probably my favorite beach/back deck/cottage/couch-inside-with-the-AC-on reads. Today I am recommending Saving Sophie by Sam Carrington. Carrington is a female author from the UK. I don’t know why this is, but I am discovering that a lot of what I would call literary psychological suspense thrillers are written by UK authors. Maybe it's the climate. Maybe it's the history. Maybe it's the ghosts.Saving Sophie

Saving Sophie begins when teenaged daughter Sophie is returned home by the police to her horrified and out-of-their-mind-with-worry parents. No matter how she is prompted and questioned, she cannot remember where she was the previous night. Nothing is coming back to her. To top it off, Sophie's best friend is missing. No one can find her. Everyone fears the worse. The community is in chaos and worry.

That is only the beginning. The book seems to be really about Sohie's mother Karen, and a past occurrence that she has kept secret and private. Is it coming back, finally, to haunt her? Or is this crime something quite new and different?

Her past secret, kept even from her husband, has led to her present struggles with agoraphobia. Tremendously fearful, Karen doesn’t ever leave her house. I have never known anyone with this mental health issue, but know that it exists. But I do know that any kind of anxiety can leave a person helpless and afraid to move.

The 'stay inside' part of this recommendation? That's in deference to Karen who won't leave her house.

And so Karen stays home, even when it’s the daughter of Karen’s closest friend who is missing. Karen will not leave the house to go over there to comfort her. There were times when I wanted to physically push her out of the house and call her a selfish slob! But there are deeper issues, and there were far deeper issues in the book.

Here is an interesting link on agoraphobia.

Every character in this book struggles with their own demons, including the officers set about the solve the case. When you write reviews which refuse to spoil the books, sometimes the reviews can be exceedingly short. But, I won't spoil this book, I can't, but trust me when I say I raced to the ending of this one, and it didn't disappoint.

I give this book a full 4.5 stars. It has enough for me to recommend it here as a fun beach read, and one that will keep you glued to it for the duration.

As promised, I plan to review an unputdownable thriller every two weeks this summer, and so I begin with a book that absolutely grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan is perfect for summer back deck reading.The Perfect Girl

This novel introduces the reader to the world of precocious musician children.


We meet genius IQ Zoe Maisey a seventeen-year-old musical prodigy. Three years prior to the book’s beginning she was involved in a traffic accident in which three friends died. Was she responsible? How? Was she sentenced unfairly? That fact is made known little by little as the book progresses.

When she "did her time" as a juvenile offender, she and her mother Maria moved to a new town with changed names to begin their “Second Chance Life.” Her mother’s new husband Chris whose son Lucas is also a musical prodigy know nothing of her past life. And they won’t, too. Neither she nor Maria plan to tell them. All seems well, except for one thing.

Her music.

It’s unmistakeable and unique and of course people from her “old life” would recognize it in an instant. Which is exactly what happens.

The book, the entire book, revolves around the incidents which occur in one terrible, awful, heart-rending 24 hour period following a concert where her mother Maria is murdered.

The reader goes from loving Zoe with an intense understanding, to wondering if she is really all that changed. The reader is introduced to all of the members of this family—Maria and Chris, Zoe and Lucas their children, Grace, the new baby, Sam, Zoe’s first solicitor and Maria’s sister Tessa.

It’s hard to review a novel like this without giving spoilers, so none here, but what kept me glued to this book was the way the author goes into the lives of each of the characters in turn revealing new horrors.

There are three things I demand in the thrillers that I read:

1. Being well-written. This one is.

Here is how the book begins:
Before the concert begins, I stand inside the entrain to the church and look down the nave, Shadows lurk in the ceiling vaults even though the light outside hasn’t dimmed yet, and behind me the large wooded doors have been pulled shut.

In front of me, the last few members of the audience have just settled into their places. Almost every seat is filled. The sound of their talk is a medium pitched rumble.

I shudder.

2. Things revealed slowly, but steadily with a “hook” at every chapter end.

3. A darn good story. And this one is.

If you're interested in this genre, here's a wonderful article in Writer's Digest.

For the next summer thriller review: Saving Sophie by Sam Carrington

Today on my blog, I’m recommending The House We Grew Up In, a compelling and wonderful novel by Lisa Jewell The House We Grew Up In

This was a choice for the bookclub I belong to (And may I take a moment out to recommend that you join a bookclub. If you don’t know of any that meet, ask at your public library. They are veritable fonts of information on all things book, and bookclubs. Do it. You’ll thank me later.), and all of us in our small group agreed—this one was a winner.


The House We Grew Up In revolves around the lives of Lorelei Bird and her family—her husband Colin and their four children—Megan, Bethan, Rory and Rhys and neighbor Vicki. Lorelei is a hoarder, you know, one of those persons who lets their possessions pile up in boxes around them. It wasn’t always this way with her. At one time she was a a whimsical mother who tacked up all her children’s school papers on the wall. She was the sort of mother any child would want—cooking, baking, having family parties, doing cartwheels in the backyard, and taking care that the annual Easter egg hunts in the backyard went on without a hitch. It is here we get the first inkling of her disorder, when she must save the colorful foils from the chocolates, because they are so pretty.

When one of her her sons dies by suicide, the entire family goes into a downward spiral. Each family member deals with the death in a different way, including his mother who just begins adding and adding and adding to her collections.

As the book plunges toward its horrific ending, we discover why Lorelei turned from being a happy, loving—although eccentric—mother, to one who would not throw anything out, and who would eventually drown and starve in all her stuff.

I know some of you are reality TV fans, and a program like Hoarders is sometimes interesting to watch. What is amazing to me about the few TV hoarding TV shows I’ve watched is the unbelievable link the hoarders feel to their stuff, the weeping when it is suggested that a broken DVD be thrown out. People with hoarding disorders sometimes choose their junk over their families. Their children will walk right out of the door and yet they choose to remain with their boxes.

The disclaimer at the beginning of the particular TV show I've linked to says that “hoarding is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire and keep things, even if the items are worthless, hazardous or unsanitary.”

I wasn't sure I wanted to read a book about hoarding, but I found once I picked up this book, I could not put it down. It was one of those books that got propped up on the kitchen counter while I cooked and washed dishes and got carried with me in my purse everywhere I went.

Good writing and a well-put-together sentence is all important to me, and the writing in this book sparkled.

Here's an example. At one point in the book Lorelei says,

Look at that sky, just look at it. The blueness of it. Makes me want to snatch out handfuls of it, and put it in my pockets.

Maybe that is the essence of hoarding—when a person loses the ability to simply sit and admire things, but instead needs to own them, and store them within your own walls and keeping.

Here’s another description on hoarding from the novel:

Everything was halfway to being where it needed to be, everything was a work in progress, with no systems, no logic, no sense of organizations about any of it.

And, here is how her neighbor Wendy describes Lorelei to her granddaughter:

You see, your nana is a very special lady—she is really quite magical you know—and when she looks at the world she sees it in a very special way, like it’s a party bag or a toy shop, and she likes to keep bits of it. And she feels sad when she throws things away.

Even if those hoarding TV shows don’t appeal to you, (they don’t to me, especially) I think you will enjoy this book.


I will be reading more of Lisa Jewell, and in fact, have another of her books I Found You just downloaded onto my Kobo.

Next Time: It’s more suspense with The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan.

I’ve written extensively here about the genre of "literary thriller" and how books in that bear that classification are my favorite goto reads. I love a suspense novel that is so well-written it could stand side by side next to any "literary" novel at any time of day. I have also written here about the late Ruth Rendell and how her "literary" mysteries and short stories were so influential in my own writing and early years as a mystery author.

I am now discovering that there are a whole new generation of suspense writers who are taking up the torch and producing quality work that leaves you turning page after page (or pressing screen after screen) far into the night.

Today I would like to recommend one of these "new to me" authors: K. L. Slater. Her book SAFE WITH MESafe With Me is today's blog recommendation.

I love books with twisty-turny plots and well-developed “strange and mad” characters—who you might not realize are “strange and mad” until quite near the end.

In SAFE WITH ME we meet Anna, a solitary young woman who lives by herself in her family home and works as a mail carrier. She witnesses a road accident where a young man, Liam, on a motorcycle was injured badly. The story begins when she recognizes the driver of the car as the woman who destroyed her life so many years ago and contributed to her own little brother's death.

In true "Rendell” form, we get to know all of these characters through flashbacks, which don’t distract from the story, but add to it. That is an art, having flashbacks appear seamlessly through the story.

Is Anna sane? Or is she, perhaps, the crazy one? How about Liam? He seems so normal. Maybe he is, or maybe he isn’t. How about the neighbor, Joan Peat, who has known Anna since she was a child. Maybe she’s the nuts one. And what about all that mail that Anna has to deliver? I don’t give spoilers here at all, but that little subplot had me nervously biting my nails. Because mail is important.

Just to give you a taste of what is to come, here is the first line of the book.

- So, they’re tucked up in bed at last.
You take a handful of matches and you light each one, watching the burn die to a powdery black dot. -

Can’t you just see those matches one by one burning right down, almost scorching the fingers that hold them? And who is tucked up in bed at night?

I was hooked.

Right now I’m reading another of her books, BLINKBlink, and enjoying it as much.

If you like well-written thrillers and wish there were more Ruth Rendell books to devour, I highly recommend this British author.

Before reading Five Quarters of the Orange, Five Quarters of the Orangethe novel I am recommending today, I was not familiar with this author’s work. I never even watched the multi-academy award winning movie Chocolat.Chocolat

Watching the trailer I get a sense of what the movie is about—Woman comes to town. Woman takes over abandoned building. Woman turns it into a successful eatery. In the case of Chocolat, it’s a chocolate shop across from a church.

In Five Quarters of the Orange, it’s a crêperie.

And, that’s where the similarities end. The trailer for Chocolat calls it a comedy. Five Quarters of the Orange is anything but. I would call it a tragedy cocooned in mystery.

I guess it’s the mystery reader/writer in me, but I love stories which revolve around mysterious tragic secrets. For that reason, Five Quarters of the Orange does not disappoint.

Framboise, the main character in this book, was driven out with her family from their small French village during the war, following a tragedy. She returns fifty years later in disguise to try to rebuild her family’s abandoned farm.

The book deftly moves between "past" and "present." During the “past” portions of the book, we get a glimpse of small town France during the German occupation. Framboise is nine then, and along with her older sister and brother and single mother they work on the farm, collecting eggs and and helping to make jams and other things to sell at the local market.

The river Loire plays an important role for the children. It’s their secret place, their swimming hole, their fishing place, a place where they store their “treasures,” and the place where "Old Mother" resides. She’s not anyone’s actual mother, but a huge pike, a fish that no one can catch.

The story's mystery revolves around one particular German soldier who befriends the children. I won’t say more. Somehow I knew that the catching of Old Mother would usher in the deadly end of the book. And that it would involve him.

Fifty years later, the now widowed Framboise, under a new name and in disguise, returns to her childhood abandoned farm, the place where her family was cast out so many years ago. She has a copy of her mother’s recipe book which also includes scribbled margin notes by her mother which give Framboise a new and different look at the grim, sickly and stern mother she grew up with and never knew. Framboise wants to restore the place. And she does, finally opening up a successful crêperie.

But the past can never be truly erased, can it?

Food is a constant throughout the book, and I hadn’t noticed this, but one reviewer mentioned that a lot of the characters are named after foods. Framboise being the main character and also there is Pistache, Noisette and Prune. (I admit I stumbled a bit on the name “Prune.” Who names a child Prune? Well, maybe in French it sounds different.)

The writing was superb. Every sentence sings.

Here is the first:

When my mother died she left the farm to my brother, Cassis, the fortune in the wine cellar, a jar containing a single black Périgord truffle, large as a tennis ball, suspended in sunflower oil, that when uncorked, still releases the rich dank perfume of the forest floor.

This beautiful prose progresses and and a story that captured my attention until the dark climax, which was worse than I had even guessed.

If you love extremely well-written historical fiction and demand a good plot at its core, I highly recommend Five Quarters of the Orange.

I will read more of Joanne Harris, that's for sure.

My blog today is going to take a bit of a backward glance as I introduce you to an author who was one of the greatest influences in my early life as a mystery writer. That author is the late Ruth Rendell and, although I have read every single thing she ever wrote, the book I am recommending today is The Water's LovelyTHE WATER'S LOVELY.

Way back in the 1980s I knew I wanted to be a novelist. I had no idea how one went about making this a career choice. I decided I wanted to focus on Christian publishers and so I wrote The Josiah Files.

Set two hundred years in the future, it was my look at the future of the church and culture. It remains the only book I haven’t re-edited and put up as an eBook for your reading pleasure. I guess the reason for this is that if I were writing that book today, it would be a very different book. So much has changed in my life and my faith, so I have left it there, as a testament to what I used to believe. But, at the time, I wrote what my heart told me to write.

(Oh, here’s a little aside - I like to say that I invented the eReader. It’s true! I did! Sort of. In my book I had people reading books and newspapers from what I called hand-readers—small devices that they carried with them, and to which books and newspapers were remotely "sent" to them. Wifi as we have come to know it, hadn't been invented yet.)

After the book came out and no more book contracts were forthcoming in that planned trilogy (another story), I decided that I needed to change genres completely. Because, you see, I always read mysteries. I have always read mysteries. Even as a child. My favorite mystery writer during the time of my early writing career, was Ruth Rendell. I had my name on the library list long before her next Inspector Wexford novel was set to release. (And sometimes I was even first!)

I read her Inspector Wexford books. I devoured her non-series psychological suspense. I immersed myself in her books written under her Barbara Vine pseudonym. And her short stories. I love her short stories.

A few weeks ago I saw her book The Water’s Lovely in a second hand store. I immediately picked it up. It had been years since I'd read that book, and with my old brain, it would might just be like reading a new book, I reasoned. Well, the second reading has been just as satisfying as the first. I have decided to re-read all of her books and stories.

I love the way she gets into the minutia and detail of every character she describes. I can turn to any page of the book and give you an example. Here’s just one:

She was a little thin woman of forty-something with stick-like legs and bony feet thrust into blue flip-flops. The flip-flops which would have been passable with a sundress, looked very strange with a check tweed skirt and a red sweater…

There is an old crime in The Water’s Lovely. Ismay and Ismay’s mother Beatrix believe that young Heather, Ismay’s sister, was responsible for the death of her step-father when the young woman was just a child. It was one of those family secrets that no one ever talked about. Not once. I am not giving a spoiler here, all of this is in the first chapter.

Now the sisters are grown and living in the first floor of an apartment, and their mother and aunt lived above them.

Rendell goes on from there, in her twisting turn way of delving into each character’s psyche backstory, motivation, fears and loves.

There is nothing light or whimsical about a Ruth Rendell story, and yet she achieves a certain Stephen King like reliance on quirky characters to people her story. In this story, that honor goes to Marion, and to a lesser extent Beatrix.


Just to whet your appetite, here is the first line of the book -

Weeks went by when Ismay never thought of it at all...

Here's an interesting NPR tribute to her. Click here.

What are some of your favorite Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine books?

Heres what happened when I started reading BEHIND CLOSED DOORS by B.A. Paris: Behind Closed DoorsI opened it up on my Kobo and began. Three hours later I was still at it. I picked it up in the morning, after having dreamt about it, I am sure, and after picking it up several times during the night to read hidden under my covers so as not to wake my husband.

I drank my morning coffee with the book opened beside me. It wasn’t until the very last page that I was aware of the breath I’d been holding. It’s that good. It’s what I’m recommending this week.

What makes it good is the ever escalating suspense, from the carefully controlled first chapter where we meet the couple, Jack and Grace to the horrific ending.

Jack is smart, good looking, a lawyer who specializes in helping abused women. And, oh, he’s never lost a case. How lucky is Grace to be his wife? Grace, to all appearances is the perfect wife, always beautifully turned out. They live a huge and gorgeous home and host lavish dinner parties. Too good to be true.

It is.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS is something I am calling a “psychopath captive prisoner story,” which is just the name I’m giving to this genre. If this genre has a real name, someone please let me know.

I think part of our fascination with these types of stories is that we like to think of ourselves as Macgyvers able to get out of any scrape and situation. I would do it this way. No, I would do it that way. As I read BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, I wanted to yell at Grace. Why don’t you try this? Wouldn’t that work?

We have read the stories, seen the news about the horrific true tales of children kept in closets for years, of women imprisoned in dungeons to be repeatedly raped. These horrific events make us want to hug onto our children more closely, and keep hold of those we love with tight arms. It’s one of the more horrible of crimes that people seem to be capable of.

And it is also reflected in our fiction.

ROOMRoom by Emma Donoghue is the story of a mother raising her son within the confines of a room where they are being held captive. It has also been made into a movie.

Do you remember FLOWERS IN THE ATTICFlowers in the Attic, that YA book from a number of years ago? It was immensely popular with young people, and when my teen daughter brought it home back then, I read it, too. It's about a family of children who are hidden away in the attic by a mother intent on getting the inheritance which is hers only if she doesn’t have children.

There are more in this genre. Stephen King’s MISERYMisery is a tale which is not soon forgotten by those who read it.

I even had a "captive prisoner" novel in THE KING JAMES MURDERS.The King James Murders

I will close this brief analysis with a look at the short story THE YELLOW WALLPAPERThe Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I remember reading this years ago, probably for a school assignment, and it still holds onto its fearfulness. This short story is about a woman suffering from some undiagnosed illness, and whose husband keeps her in a room with yellow wallpaper - which eventually drives her insane.