This domestic thriller opens with Rose hiding out in a cabin in upstate New York. She taps into her childhood of learning survival skills to keep alive as winter begins to move into the area. She's trying to draw as little attention to her existence as possible, venturing out only when absolutely necessary. The noises from the forest and occasional footprints in the area unnerve her as she's ready to run at any moment. She isn't sure what is out there in the forest, but if it is who she thinks it is, then she'll need to run as fast as she can.
TW/CW: drug use/abuse, drug overdose, addiction, pregnancy, postpartum psychosis, death of a child, domestic abuse, sexual assault, child sexual abuse by a parent, child neglect
The description of this book is much more vague than most domestic thrillers and I think it can be fun to go into books knowing little to nothing about them. In this case, I think knowing very few details ahead of time really helped amp up the tension and intrigue during the slower, less action-y portions of the early book. However, there are some pretty significant content warnings that aren't in the description so I would encourage folks to check on those warnings ahead of time just so you don't get blindsided.
The pacing of this was fantastic for me and I think a lot of that was thanks to the gradual build up of tension as well as reveals. The book opens with Rose at the cabin, we don't know who she is or what led her to be at this cabin. The majority of the story is Rose at the cabin which could easily get boring and repetitive. However, Alderson does such a great job of using the dual timeline as well as timing out exactly what information to reveal at key points in the story that I was fully drawn into the story really early on. We get flashbacks to Rose's difficult childhood as well as her as an adult in more recent years. Alderson does a great job laying out breadcrumbs for the reader to follow as we learn more and more about Rose's background. There's really good momentum of the story in both timelines we're following so even if we're in a bit of a lull with one, the other timeline has something moving the story forward. The pacing slowly ramps up over the story and by the time we're in the final act, the reveals are coming pretty quickly. This isn't the most fast-paced, action-packed thriller but it has such a carefully plotted and executed plot arc that the pacing naturally picks up over time.
Most of the reveals in the story are the reader finding out what led Rose to be in this cabin. The reveals are really well distributed throughout the book so it never felt info-dumpy at any point. I also thought Alderson did a great job of picking what level of reveals to give the reader. We start off with somewhat mundane details revealed to the reader but then the reveals begin to increase in severity. By the end, we're learning some really heavy stuff about our characters and by that point I was 100% invested. Then, once we're caught up in both timelines and can move forward, we get some more action on page and since I was so invested in our characters, I was on the edge of my seat while reading. The very last big reveal was fantastic and was perfectly paced - one of my favorite reveals in recent memory.
Since we spend so much time with Rose in an isolated setting, I think it is extremely important that her characterization is spot on. As we learn more and more about her background and the events that preceded the cabin, Alderson does a great job of fleshing out her character. There's a bit of back and forth with things that get revealed where we initially think Rose is one type of character, but maybe she's actually a different type. It really felt like with every action Rose took or with every piece of background information we got, she became more of a whole person. I thought she was a really engaging character to follow and reading her journey was extremely satisfying.
Overall, I really enjoyed this read and was completely engrossed in the reading experience. I stayed up extra late to finish and the ending was super satisfying so it was 100% worth it! I loved Rose as a character and found her really engaging to follow through this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for the ARC
Expected publication date is July 7, 2022
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