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Thursday, October 15, 2020

Review: Dear Child by Romy Hausmann

Dear Child 
by Romy Hausmann

Thank you Flatiron Books for this read!


Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publish Date: October 6, 2020
Hardcover
358 Pages
Standalone
Genre: Psychological Thriller

A windowless shack in the woods. A dash to safety. But when a woman finally escapes her captor, the end of the story is only the beginning of her nightmare.

She says her name is Lena. Lena, who disappeared without a trace 14 years prior. She fits the profile. She has the distinctive scar. But her family swears that she isn’t their Lena.

The little girl who escaped the woods with her knows things she isn’t sharing, and Lena’s devastated father is trying to piece together details that don’t quite fit. Lena is desperate to begin again, but something tells her that her tormentor still wants to get back what belongs to him…and that she may not be able to truly escape until the whole truth about what happened in the woods finally emerges.

My Review:


😲 Whatever it says about me, I absolutely love this type of psychological thriller read.  I was instantly hooked from the very beginning.  A family held captive and finally an escape.  But this escape is just really a continuation of the horror already lived.  

There are a lot of twists and turns with this one and the author keeps us on our tippy toes and I think there was actual smoke coming out of my ears trying to figure this one out.  I was flipping pages with the absolute NEED TO KNOW FEELING.  Don't you just love it when that happens?!  Hausmann bombards us with quite the cast of characters and at times going from one POV to another could be a bit jarring and I had to adjust my thinking with each turn.  I think my favorite character was Hannah, the little girl that was highly intellectual and you never knew quite where she stood or what was happening.  I don't know a lot about one particular note regarding this character to know if it was handled correctly, but I am assuming it was. (Won't go into it to avoid any potential spoilers).  

Y'all, there's a LOT going on in this book.  The psychological aspect of the victims and how they varied.  What you can get used to when you HAVE to.  How strong mentally anyone could be - especially if they never know any different... it's all highly fascinating stuff in my opinion.  I do think that maybe it got just a little *too* convoluted as one reveal was probably unnecessary.  However, I did appreciate the Epilogue for a variety of reasons but I'll just leave that thought there. 😉

At the end of the day, this is one gripping, crazy, psychological thriller that I think will grab your attention and keep you guessing until the very end.  Proceed with caution.

★★★★


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