Stars: 4
Blurb: Past horrors bleed into a present day nightmare
Fifteen years ago, a psychotic killer abducted seventeen year old Melissa Walker. For 83 days she was raped and tortured before being left for dead in a deserted church yard… But she was still alive.
Melissa begins a new life as homicide inspector, Sabrina Vaughn. With a new face and a new name, it’s her job to hunt down murderers and it’s a job she does very well.
When Michael O’Shea, a childhood acquaintance with a suspicious past, suddenly finds her, he brings to life the nightmare Sabrina has long since buried.
Believing that his sister was recently murdered by the same monster who attacked Sabrina, Michael is dead set on getting his revenge–using Sabrina as bait.
Meagan Beaumont’s debut novel is a riveting and tension-filled, and I realised after finishing the book that it’s not actually reading what Sabrina endured at the hands of the psycho that stalked and abducted her that made me need a breather from the book, but it’s that Beaumont has managed to maintain the tension in her writing, keeping me on a knife’s edge as I read what happened to her. It’s makes for a book that made me need a breather every now and then, even as I was desperate to finish it.
When the book opens, 15 years have passed since Sabrina survived her abduction and being held hostage. She’s a cop now and no one save for Val, her best friend, her twin siblings and her grandmother Lucy know she’s still alive. As far as Sabrina is concerned, Melissa Walker, the woman who endured the captivity and rape, did die. Sabrina was the one that was found barely breathing a cemetery. Sabrina is a survivor – she’s strong, capable and she’s promised herself she’ll never be as helpless as Melissa was all those years ago. If that means ignoring her PTSD, she’ll do that.
When Michael O’Shea, someone she used to know from her hometown makes an appearance in her carefully constructed world, Sabrina knows someone has let her secret out – her grandmother Lucy, who despite her good intentions, slowly starts the unravelling of her world. Michael’s sister Frankie was killed the year before, bearing the same wounds that Melissa did when she was found and Lucy realises her abductor is still lives in the same town. She sends Michael to Sabrina to watch over her – granted I have no idea why because no one knows she’s alive.
It’s a handy excuse though for Michael to set his own plans in motion to convince Sabrina to come back with him to their hometown in Arizona as bait. She refuses at first, but it is Lucy’s murder than changes her mind.
Sabrina is complex to say the least – she’s a strong-willed and determined as evidenced by the author’s inclusion of her life with her fellow male cops. She’s very good at pretending she’s okay, even from the people she loves – Val, who knows her whole life story and her brother and sister, who call her Mom because she’s the only mother they’ve ever known. Much of her life in Arizona is told naturally during the course of the case, so as each chapter passes you’ll understand why the twins consider her their mother. The problem is, there’s far too little of them here. Even Val gets more of an appearance than they do, and Sabrina’s past and caring for those kids have shaped her as much as her kidnapping has, I think. She’ll do anything for them.
Michael seems to be the very picture of the strong and silent type. I guess, he could conceivably still be dealing with the grief over his sister’s death, but as romance is in the air between he and Sabrina, I needed more substance to them that I got. I got more from the unrequited crush one of her fellow cops has for her than from Michael. I’m not saying he’s an interesting character, but there were times the strong silent type wasn’t enough for me.
All in all, this is a stellar debut from a twisty, wonderful imagination that results in tightly written, action-packed conclusion, with a surprise or two as often happens.
