.JPG)
Product details:
Publisher: Chicken House.
Paperback, 369 pages.
Release date: October 3rd 2013.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Ages: 14+
Source: Received for review.
Emily’s dad is accused of murdering a teenage girl. Emily is sure he is innocent, but what happened that night in the woods behind their house where she used to play as a child? Determined to find out, she seeks out Damon Hillary the enigmatic boyfriend of the murdered girl. He also knows these woods. Maybe they could help each other. But he’s got secrets of his own about games that are played in the dark.
A new psychological thriller from the award-winning and bestselling author of STOLEN and FLYAWAY.
Personal demons become deadly
weapons in The Killing Woods, the
haunting new thriller from Stolen
author Lucy Christopher.
What happened in the woods the
night Ashlee Parker died?
Emily lives in a military town, a
town where life is laced with fear and touched by death, a town where wounds
run deep – a town where people know a killer when they see one. Everybody in
Emily’s town is convinced her dad murdered Ashlee Parker. After all, he’s the
one who carried Ashlee’s dead body out of the woods. And everybody knows that
Emily’s dad hasn’t been the same since he was discharged from the army, so
traumatized by his wartime experience that he now spends his days hiding out in
a bunker in the woods, stalking, if you are to believe what people are saying,
Ashlee Parker. But Emily knows her dad is innocent. She knows he’s not a
killer. And Emily knows that the truth is out there, somewhere in the woods.
But the woods are deep, dark, and sometimes deadly, just like the secrets they
keep…
Damon Hilary is also keeping
secrets. The most popular guy at school, Damon is golden, and in Ashlee Parker
he has the hottest girlfriend too, or at least that was the case until Emily
Shepherd’s wacko dad killed her in the woods. But Damon knows that’s not the
full truth, because he knows that on the night Ashlee Parker died, Emily’s dad
wasn’t the only other person in the woods. He knows, because he was there too-
and the scary thing is he can’t remember a thing about that night. Damon wants
to believe that Emily’s dad is guilty, but he knows in his heart that there’s
more to this story. And with Emily so determined of her dad’s innocence, Damon
starts second guessing himself, because he knows that Ashlee was no golden
girl. And Damon knows that dangerous
games are played in the woods at night.
Darkly beautiful, The Killing Woods is a twisted puzzle
piece of a book that kept me reading late into the night and guessing right to
the end. Unlike a lot of readers, I wasn’t a huge fan of Christopher’s Stolen, finding it too slow-paced for my
liking so this one was an extra-pleasant surprise for me. I’m also now thinking
of re-reading Stolen in the hopes
that I’ll have a newfound appreciation for it since I enjoyed this one so much.
I love a good thriller, and the
inclusion of the woods here was an added bonus for me. I mean, who doesn’t find
deep dark woods just a little scary -especially at night. Christopher writes
beautifully, bringing the woods to life. In this wonderfully atmospheric book
the woods become a character in themselves, playing games and keeping their secrets
buried deep right until the final act, when the light breaks through, and the
truth finally reveals.
Tense, atmospheric and haunting,
this tale of dark secrets and murder in a military town is perfectly plotted
and executed, and is well worth checking out.
