The Window

by Carol Ellis

Cooped up in her cabin with a sprained ankle, Jody spends her ski vacation peeking through her window at the activity next door, and realizes too late that she has witnessed the murder of the most popular girl in school

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Thriller, Fiction, Mystery, Teen, Mystery Thriller

176 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Carol Ellis is an American author of young adult and children’s fiction. Her first novel, My Secret Admirer, was published in 1989 by Scholastic as part of their popular Point Thriller line.

She went on to write over fifteen novels, including a few titles in the Zodiac Chillers series published by Random House in the mid-1990s, and two titles in The Blair Witch Files series for young adults, published by Bantam between 2000 and 2001.

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jody Sanderson goes on a skiing trip at Brevard Pass with a bunch of kids she doesn't really know well. (Jody's friend Kate planned this trip with Jody but then came down with the flu and now she can't go with her. So Kate persuades Jody to go on the ski trip without her.) Jody arrives at Brevard Pass and she meets some of the other kids. After having an accident on the slopes Jody hurts her ankle. She decides to stay indoors in the cabin while the other kids go to a party. Bored and groggy on pain pills Kate starts looking out the window...and she thinks she witnesses a murder in another cabin.

This was an enjoyable read for young adults but it wasn't very scary. The murder didn't happen till about halfway through the story so there wasn't much action or suspense till then. But it was still a fun, short, entertaining read. This book reminded me slightly of that old Hitchcock movie "Rear Window".

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically Rear Window, which isn’t a bad thing!

Jody was supposed to be going on a skiing trip to Brevard Pass with Kate, but with her friend ill with flu she goes on the trip with a group of complete strangers.
During the trip Jody slips on the ice and hurts her ankle, whilst resting in bed she witnesses a murder.

I still found it to be a really entertaining read, the mystery element was fun having been introduced to the six strangers earlier on in the book.
I was surprised by the reveal!

[Alex (The Bookubus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Chantal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this little book at the thrifstore and I thought that nothing would happen in it because it was written for kids. I have to say it surprised me to have a real story of murder in it.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another blast from the past during my teenage years. This one was an obvious inspiration of Hitchcock’s Rear Window with a young female protagonist. I’m sure I thought this was the bee’s knees back in 1992, but in 2018 it was just okay. Decent writing, interesting characters. The suspense fell flat. Carol Ellis ain’t no Hitchcock, but who is. Still a decent read and one of the better selections in the Point Thriller line.

[Armand · Rating 2 out of 5]

The pace is as glacial as its snow-bound setting. The murder didn't happen until the halfway mark, and the actual corpse was only discovered near the end. There was some tension alright, but it didn't break out into anything remotely exciting until the climax, which was relatively frigid compared to other retro YA horror books.

I do like how the author set up the mystery so as to be nearly inscrutable. Going through the events again though, I believe the crime would have been solved even without our lead's intervention. If she hasn't been snooping through her window, she won't have put her life in danger and everything would still have been sorted out.

It's not terribly engrossing, but I shan't call it a waste of time. I'm rating it 5/10 or 2 stars out of 5.

[Ell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not great literature or great horror but entertaining. Good for an easy read.

[Sati Marie Frost · Rating 3 out of 5]

One-Line Review: Don’t stay in bed for days, staring out the window, because of a sprained ankle.

Full Review:

Okay, so it's a total ripoff of Rear Window. At least it's a fairly good ripoff. Jody has gone skiing with a bunch of kids she doesn't know, since she was invited by a friend who's now stuck at home with flu. (Does this really happen? If the only person I knew on a trip had to cancel, I'd likely cancel too, particularly if everyone else knew each other and I hadn't invested any money in it. Not to mention the fact that my parents would have been iffy about me going away with a bunch of strangers at the age of 17, even strangers that my best friend vouched for. But maybe that's just me.) Anyway, she goes to a ski resort with six strangers, skis for a couple of days, and then sprains her ankle and ends up stuck in bed. (I've had sprained ankles, and torn ligaments, and broken bones. I did NOT end up confined to bed in a single room, doped up on painkillers. Again, maybe just me.) While she's stuck in bed, she watches people in other cabins (not just me!) and sees what might be the murder of the beautiful, spoilt girl in the cabin next door, who is love-hated by two of the guys in Jody's group and just plain hated by the other four. She's not sure that anything really happened. There was a red stain that could have been blood, but it's gone now. The girl hasn't been seen again, but she did say she might be leaving any minute. There was someone dragging something heavy through the snow, but that could have been garbage bags.

Then the girl shows up dead.

Dear Lord, why do these kids not phone the police?!

For all its faults, though, The Window is a pretty good read. Carol Ellis manages to weave a feeling of alienation through the book, allowing the reader to get a pretty good idea of the isolation and confusion that Jody feels, not knowing anyone properly, not really being able to trust anyone, not being mobile enough to just leave. It's a lonely book, with enough bitchiness and friction between the supporting characters to keep you on your toes, and a bizarre villain who somehow works. Tense and creepy.

Verdict: Not an especially comfortable read, but quite chilling.

[Trisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

EDIT 2: Okay, so I got through this latest reread and I really did enjoy the book again. But probably not as much as THE LIFEGUARD, the one I re-read before this one. It's certainly got nice man meat to keep the teens occupied, but in my warped mind apparently nobody can compare to Neale Connell. Hehe. Still, it's a cool and creepy mystery, and I like the main character Jody.

Often when I'm reading these books, I'm thinking of how they could be expanded into a "proper" full length novel, really enriched. It makes me wonder if the authors of these works ever wish they'd written them as proper novels.

EDIT: I'm reading this again in 2011...yay!

This was always one of my favourite Point books. Some nice man meat to choose from, and I still remember my first read and how shocked I was to find out who the murderer was. :)

[Chantal1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quelle nostalgie de retrouver les romans Frissons de mon adolescence! J'ai bien aimé, même si l'action tarde un peu à arriver. 10 ans et plus.

[Pamela Julien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Très heureuse que certains tomes de ma collection de jeunesse préférée aient été réédités!!! L’histoire est pareille à quelques détails près, changés pour que l’histoire soit plus moderne. La nouvelle édition n’est pas sur Goodreads, donc j’ai pris la vieille!

[Suzi G · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun "Rear Window" remake from Point Thrillers 1992.

[Brian Centrone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nostalgia for a bygone era of ya books at its best.

[Anoop Pai B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice quick read with a decent amount of suspense.

[Elyanna Verlaan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect book
And i love the part where Jenny finds out that Susan is de murderer
👍

[Emma Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting re-read. I remember reading this one a fair bit when I was young and I was sure I would breeze through it in just a couple of days but it nearly took me a whole month of dipping in and out!

It's a well-done take on Rear Window, with a snowy ski-lodge and bunch of teenagers, plus an actual crime! A proper whodunnit which is well plotted.

The main character, Jody, is observant and can put two and two together pretty consistently but...on rereading I found that I didn't really like her much because she was a bit of a kill-joy. None of the characters were very likeable in fact, which makes sense because you needed to wonder which one was the culprit and see that they all had motives, but it would have been nice to have some relief from the bitchiness, if only from Kate, Jody's friend who couldn't make it to the ski resort. (Also, general sexist toxic attitudes towards the victim, eek! Oh Drew, how disappointing you got dumped - seriously, get over it.)

It was well executed though. I'm wondering what I'll think of some of Carol Ellis's other Point Horror's when I reread those too, as Camp Fear was definitely one of my favourites back in the day!

[Krista Wagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jody goes on a weekend getaway at a ski resort with a group of strangers. Her best friend Kate is unable to make it, but she encourages Jody to go along anyway because she doesn't want her to miss out on the most incredible ski resort out there.

There were two issues I had with the story. One, nothing suspenseful or mysterious happens until halfway through the book. Ellis takes too long focusing on this group of strangers without giving us any intriguing details about them. Two, everybody hates popular girl Leahna with such vicious hatred that it is concerning and not well justified.

Aside from those two issues, the story functions quite well once the mystery begins. Jody is certainly the most likeable character given that she is untainted by this closeknit group of friends and their prejudice against Leahna. Also admirable is how she persists spying through the window of Leahna's cabin once she sees her involved in an altercation with an unknown visitor. Despite the vivid hate that the rest of the group has for her, namely because she discards boys' feeling so easily, Jody decides for herself that Leahna is worth looking out for, especially after she gets Jody help when she sprains her ankle and is thereafter bedridden for the rest of the trip.

A bit of a Hitchcockian "Rear Window" appeal, the story brings about a good complex energy. We get to be with Jody through what quickly becomes an uncertain few days holed up in a snowbound weekend with an injured ankle. Staying with a bunch of strangers doesn't help, and they all seem suspicious in one way or another when it comes to their candid emotions toward Leahna, who we actually never really meet. The most we get to see is a peripheral view of her when she comes to Jody's aid and then a filtered look through her dark room. This leaves her character both literally and metaphorically in the shadows and makes uncovering her murder that much more fascinating.

The sounds and sights that Jody is exposed to while all alone in the cabin (as the others go out) are enough to keep you on edge and suck you into a tangled web of mystery.

Lots of red herrings are thrown in and guessing the culprit is virtually impossible in this YA thriller.

[Bea Tea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Rear Window, and guessed this was a teen horror version of that story. I went in expecting to hate it (let's face it nothing is ever going to top Rear Window), but was rather surprised to find I really enjoyed it.

The protagonist is actually a nice person with a level head on her shoulders. This is almost unheard of in the Point Horror universe. There are a lot of characters, I mean you get blasted with eight on them on the first two pages, so it took me a while to get them all figured out. It's a bit of a teen angst fest, with everybody fancying everybody else and being mad when other people fancy the people that they fancy.... yeah it's convoluted. The basic plot runs like an Agatha Christi who-dunnit with all the suspects in the same location and each one is set up to possibly be the killer. It did a little in the last quarter, and my two guesses of who-dunnit were wrong which was pleasing as the killer made sense... I guess in a wishy washy way.

This is one of the better Point Horror books. Worth a read!

[Chelley Toy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 out of 5 Point Horror Book Stars!

(I rate these books compared to other Point Horror Books Only)

I read this as part of the #pointhorrorbookclub that I run monthly!

You can read the post here http://talesofyesterday.co.uk/2016/01...

This is more of a discussion than a review with highlighted areas of the book and has a comedy feel to the discussion to. Please be aware that as this is a discussion there will be spoilers.

Want to know more about #pointhorrorbookclub - check this out http://talesofyesterday.co.uk/tales-p...

All in all I personally liked this book - classic retro point horror!

For more reviews and book chat please visit www.talesofyesterday.co.uk

Please be aware that the discussion will contain spoilers!

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was hands down one of the best point horror books I’ve read so far! Even the beginning when not much was happening I still found it interesting. the characters were enjoyable and not completely bland. The suspense was amazing, I was guessing who the visitor was the entire time I didn’t even think it was who it ended up being. It almost plays out like a Psychological thriller which I like. A much better written story then some of the point horror books I’ve read lately. Definitely recommend.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall, it was pretty good. Took me a bit to get into it but then I started wondering what was happening next, then I didn't want to put it down. I would read this again & recommend this book to others.

[Kasey Loftis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really really wanted to like this book. It was just too slow for me. It seemed like it was uneventful. I didn't hate it and I am glad that I read it. I just usually get into the whodunit type mysteries and thrillers a lot more than I did with this one.

[Krissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of my favorite books as a teen; read it 100 times or more.

[Erica Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rear Window x teens on a ski trip. Not bad, but not very memorable either.

[Annie L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je me suis replonger avec plaisir dans le monde des Frissons. J'en avais tellement lu adolescente. Toujours aussi bon, bien que je ne sois plus depuis longtemps dans le public cible.

[Casey Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE WORKS OF CAROL ELLIS, 1945-2022

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

My mother, Carol Ellis, passed away on November 5th, 2022. While she'd been retired for some time, she spent years making her living as an author for children and young adults. When I was a kid, I was tremendously proud of her status as a writer, but she always seemed vaguely embarrassed by it. As I grew older, she told me she didn't enjoy the process of writing, and I'm sure that was part of the problem but there was also something deeper. My mother was an extremely self-deprecating person, inclined to critique herself to a fault. As such, I think she was uncomfortable with her public status. Also, as an avid reader herself, I think she decided early on she would never measure up to the books and authors she admired. It saddened and confused me to hear her dismiss her writing and, from time to time, even become cynical about the whole concept of telling stories. This never lasted very long because she enjoyed reading too much, but it was still depressing. Later on, I would occasionally try to change her perspective by pointing out the long and (in my view) proud tradition of popular fiction authors, people who, yes, wrote largely for money but gave years of joy to millions of readers. She would just shrug and say something like "Sure, but I wasn't even that good." Even in the past few years, when I would tell her how so many people online would respond with comments like "Oh wow, I LOVED your mom's books growing up!" if I mentioned her in a comment to a post or video, she would brush it off. "Doesn't it make you happy, knowing people still like your work?," I'd ask. She'd shrug or look away and reply, "Sure, I guess so."

Despite her indifference, my mother's career as a YA and children's author was substantial. A conservative estimate would put the number of books she wrote or co-wrote somewhere north of 50, and there were shorter works as well. She's best remembered as a fixture of Scholastic's Point Thriller line from the late 80s to the mid 90s, but her work ranged over several genres and publishers, her career lasting from the late 1970s till 2017; in the weeks following her death, I started discovering material she never even mentioned to me.

Through the years, despite sharing my mother's passion for reading, I rarely read her work. While she didn't exactly come out and say so, it was pretty clear she'd prefer I not. There were occasional exceptions and, towards the end of her career, I sometimes assisted her, both as a researcher and as an uncredited co-author. But her main body of work seemed like something she didn't want to get into much, so I largely avoided it. Now I've lost her forever and, partially to distract myself from the grief but also to try and create some sort of memorial to her, I've decided to read through her works and comment on them here.

As I mentioned, my mother's writing career was extensive. A large portion of her work was ghostwriting for others and even a fair amount under her own name were series works where she was more less told what to write. There were also nonfiction works which were pretty tightly controlled by the editors as well. While I know she gave every project her all (no matter how little she enjoyed some of them) and no doubt put her stamp on all she wrote, I'm primarily interested in the peak of her career, that is novels written under her own name and over which she had at least some degree of artistic control. This comes out to 20 or so books. While I have most of these works, there are still some I'll have to search for online and in used bookstores.

There's no point in pretending these "reviews" will be objective. All the books will get 5 stars, although I will be honest about elements of my mom's work I don't care for. Mixed in with my comments on the books will be memories of the creation of those I was old enough to be aware of, memories of my mother and her thoughts and comments on the books, and thoughts about the culture and industry that shaped her career.

I have no illusions that my mother was some sort of literary genius. But her work touched many readers nonetheless. She was also an incredible human being, one of the kindest people anyone could hope to meet. I will miss her terribly for the rest of my life. My hope is these commentaries will act as a tribute to her and bring back some good memories for those who grew up with her work, just as they preserve some cherished memories for me of a very cherished person.

THE WINDOW

This book begins what I (humorously and affectionately) term the "ripoff phase" of my mother's career. Virtually everyone assumes "The Window," my mom's second Point Thriller, which features an injured person witnessing a crime through a window (natch) to be...let's say "inspired by" the classic Alfred Hitchcock film "Rear Window" and, by extension, the Cornell Woolrich short story "It Had to Be Murder" that the film is based on. This seemed to launch an entire period of novels by my mother for the Point line that alluded to popular movies in their titles and/or plots, all of which can cause wry but friendly amusement when discussing these books with people.

My mom certainly knew and loved "Rear Window" (though she didn't know the original Woolrich story), and I remember my parents mentioning the film's central conceit when coming up with this novel's plot so, yes, there's definitely a connection. However, I think it's worth considering a couple of things, some personal, some more general to the type of writer my mother was. On the personal front, she did not like coming up with plots. As recently as 2020 or 2021, to my surprise since she often seemed indifferent to her literary career, my mom told me she would happily write a novel again...as long as she didn't have to come up with the story. "I always hated that," she said. Then laughingly, "I always preferred when they just told me what it was about, then I could come up with all the details. That part was fine, even fun sometimes. But not the plot." In the case of "The Window," they most certainly did not tell her what it was about. For years, my mom would laugh about the one instruction she received from her publisher when the contract for this novel was finalized: Scholastic wanted it to take place during the winter. "Big help!," she would say. So, since coming up with the overall plot to a novel was something she didn't enjoy, it's not entirely surprising that she and my father would make use of something tried and true.

"Thieves!," you say? Well, maybe. But this gets to the other, more general point to keep in mind. My mother was ultimately part of a long tradition of hack writers. I don't use the term "hack" disparagingly in the slightest, quite the opposite. Many fine authors have come out of this tradition, and I consider her among them. She wrote for money and to entertain, nothing more. In my view, this has its place in the literary firmament, and writers of this sort often utilize previously established tropes and etc., altering and building off of them but definitely capitalizing on their commercial viability. (More serious authors do this as well, albeit usually in somewhat different ways. Also, once something is deemed "literary," the academic establishment frequently sets to work ignoring or denigrating any influences, but that's a rant for another time.) You can find this kind of thing throughout the history of popular fiction/literature. The more amateurish examples quickly disappear, while the ones that are cleverly different, while still familiar enough, are successful. A very few are good enough to become independently beloved. Without going on too big a tangent, I think the concept of complete originality can be a little overblown. Originality is great, certainly, but every writer is influenced, often heavily so.

Aside from all this, "The Window" isn't actually very similar to "Rear Window" at all! Unlike in the movie, there's quite a bit of plot before the protagonist (Jody, yet another plucky young heroine) gets hurt. She's also in a very unfamiliar space, surrounded by people she doesn't know well, and no one to act as her Grace Kelly-style confidant. This also helps create a good set up for the evergreen Point Thriller use of red herrings. While I enjoy them, sometimes they feel a little tacked on in my mother's novels, but here seemed much more carefully threaded in.

All in all, I really liked "The Window." It struck me as a big jump in quality from her first Point Thriller, "My Secret Admirer." The plot is quite tight, the chilly atmosphere effective, and the mystery genuinely puzzling. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the culprit, and there were a lot of classic "whodunit" vibes, appropriately tailored to YA levels. I didn't feel like "The Window" achieved the unexpected depth of her later "Silent Witness." It would perhaps make more sense to compare it to another later book by my mother, "The Body." That book is also a fairly straightforward mystery but, unlike "The Window," generates much more interest in the characters themselves, and has more striking plot and atmospheric details. Not that these things aren't present in "The Window"; it's just that they feel somewhat more rudimentary, albeit very skillfully handled.

So, bottom line: better things were to come, but this is a lot of puzzle-style mystery fun. And Mr. Woolrich, Sir Alfred, Mr. Stewart, Ms. Kelly...my apologies, I mean Your Serene Highness, Mr. Burr, etc., my mom meant no offense!

[Liam Underwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly taking inspiration from Rear Window (1954), The Window is a relatively tame Point Horror book. The pacing is on the slower side and there are very few attempts at any horror - no prank phone calls or threatening notes or flights of wild imagination. Instead we have a character who mostly looks out of a window and tries to piece together what she thinks she maybe saw. It's hardly a riveting read.

But I actually didn't mind The Window. I loved the ski resort setting, and although I usually gripe when Point Horror books quickly introduce a lot of characters, I felt that Carol Ellis did a good job with depicting their different personalities, and it wasn't long before I could easily differentiate who was who. I also quite liked the protagonist, Jody - she never seemed to do anything too silly and was surprisingly sensible.

So far the only other Point Horror contributions I've read by Carol Ellis have been My Secret Admirer and her short story in Thirteen Tales of Horror . She's a solid writer but I'm keen to see if her future Point Horror entries delve more into the horror, as I'd characterise her efforts so far as thrillers more than anything else. The Window is a fine Point Horror book, but beyond the setting I don't think there's anything that will prove to be particularly memorable about this.

3/5

Point Horror Ranked
1) The Girlfriend - 4/5
2) Trick or Treat - 3.5/5
3) Fatal Secrets - 3.5/5
4) Teacher's Pet - 3.5/5
5) The Baby-Sitter II - 3.5/5
6) The Cheerleader - 3.5/5
7) The Hitchhiker - 3.5/5
8) April Fools - 3.5/5
9) My Secret Admirer - 3.5/5
10) The Lifeguard - 3.5/5
11) Freeze Tag - 3/5
12) Thirteen Tales of Horror - 3/5
13) The Accident - 3/5
14) Funhouse - 3/5
15) The Window - 3/5
16) The Invitation - 2.5/5
17) The Train - 2.5/5
18) The Waitress - 2.5/5
19) The Snowman - 2.5/5
20) The Mall - 2.5/5
21) The Boyfriend - 2/5
22) The Cemetery - 2/5
23) Mother's Helper - 2/5
24) The Baby-Sitter - 1.5/5
25) Hit and Run - 1.5/5
26) The Return of the Vampire - 1/5
27) Beach Party - 1/5

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tend to like character dynamics over plot, so I rate The Window higher than the other Point Horrors I've been reading lately, where a lot of stuff happens but I never cared about it that much because I had no sense of who anybody was. At first I was wary that there were simply too many characters (and there are--Billy and Kate probably warranted the cutting room floor), but Carol Ellis does a good job establishing everyone's identity well enough that I was able to keep everybody straight.

The premise is ripped from Rear Window, down to the protagonist being immobilized because of a leg injury. I don't care that this is the case--all these books are ripping off something, but usually the influences are a bit more esoteric. (Stine's Fear Street entry The Wrong Number steals the inciting incident from a 1965 William Castle film called I Saw What You Did, but escapes being termed a ripoff because none of the preteens reading that book in 1990 would have been aware of the comparison.) It just bears mentioning.

What I think is successful about this book is the way Ellis conveys the contradictory nature of teenagers. I remember being bullied by classmates one day and sitting at their lunch table the next. Adolescence is a weird time as everyone tries to figure out who they are and what they care about amidst the tidal shifts in their bodies and brain chemistry. Your impressions of others are more flexible than when you're an adult and you can comfortably hate someone for the rest of your life because they said a stupid thing once when you'd just met them. I liked the fact that all the girls (and some of the boys) hate Leahna's guts, painting her as a mean girl and maneater, but Jody's only direct experience with her is that Leahna stops to help after Jody has injured her ankle on the ski slope. The relationships between the characters transmogrify intensely after relatively minor incidents--sometimes love turns to hate because of what a particular character didn't say. That capriciousness feels authentic to my memories of teenagedom.

The book does start to fall apart after the central mystery kicks in halfway through. By necessity, Jody is isolated for much of the remainder of the novel, leading to some boring downtime as she fails to pick up on obvious clues, or even entertain the possibility that the altercation she witnessed through the window of another cabin that resulted in a bloodstain on the wall might have been a murder. It's never good to feel like you're ahead of the protagonist in a mystery novel, asking yourself the questions she refuses to ask herself. I understand that everyone needs to be tight-lipped about their feelings on Leahna so that they can remain red herrings, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Teenagers are eager to spill the tea about peers they don't like, and the girls who don't know Jody very well would have used the topic as a bonding experience, especially when Jody starts probing after the murder. The ending is anticlimactic and makes me wish, once again, that the female protagonists in these books by female authors had more agency.

This is the second winter-set book I accidentally picked out, after Fatal Secrets, even though neither cover indicates snow. They have been fun to read, given the season.

[Courtney Gruenholz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am beginning to think that there isn't anything written by Carol Ellis that I wouldn't enjoy reading.

So of course it starts with a bunch of teenagers going up to a lodge to do some skiing. Jody is a stranger among the group even though her best friend Kate set the trip up but she got sick and we set up Jody as a character who observes silently and gets to know the others by how they look and act...I can relate to that.

There's handsome Drew, quiet Ellen, punky blonde chick Chris, silly Billy and the twins, Cal and his sister Sasha. They have some fun in the snow and get to know one another but there is some tension and it seems most of it has to do with Leahna Calder, a girl we get few glimpses of but what we gather is that she is a rich, haughty blonde who goes through boys like Kleenex and has a history with both Cal and Drew.

Things become even more tenuous when Jody ends up spraining her ankle on the slopes and her boredom gets the best of her. She basically becomes a teenage, female Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window" when she spots Leahna's cabin next door through the titular window.

A tussle one night leads to another but this time...Jody sees blood splattered on the wall, a figure dragging a trash bag in the snow. Jody's just imagining things, cabin fever getting her imagination at work...she didn't really see Leahna Calder being murdered, did she?

In an answer, yes Jody did and it's one of the people she's staying with. We get plenty of suspects with plenty of motives to want Leahna dead and the tension builds nicely up to the the reveal. When the climax is over, we get a kind of bittersweet, melancholy ending.

If you haven't read The Window by Carol Elli, I highly recommend it.

[Carmen Tudor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Point Horror at its finest.

Regardless of its plot having been lifted straight from a certain Hitchcock film, this is what the other titles in the series should have been aiming for. We have an excellent combination of slow burn, dubious paranoia and genuine suspense. The latter only makes its entry at the halfway point so while some readers complain of the slow pace earlier on, Ellis knew what she was doing. However, Ellis likely foresaw some perceived sluggishness and made up for it with subtle foreshadowing from the beginning. As a result, every part of this is paced perfectly.

When protag Jody is thrown into unfamiliar territory without her best friend there to cushion the unease, we're being prepared not for horror, but for the uncanny -- here are people just like Jody, who know Jody's closest friend, but they're strangers to the only character affording us insight. Strangers, of course, are inherently sinister and together with the confines of the setting we have the ideal environment for what ensues. The ensemble cast is reminiscent of a Christie-type work where red herrings and claustrophobia encourage us to keep making guesses as to the real threat. All around it's a great read; it's not original, but...who cares? :)