It's 1975, Jessie Morrison is a lonely young girl who's just moved across several states to a small town in New Jersey. Her parents are borderline abusive, and her only friend in town is her new next door neighbour Wendy. Jessie has started to experience strange inexplicable episodes and needs help.
Stefan, a Czech journalist and holocaust survivor is in town, apparently to cover the bicentennial celebrations where the local pediatrician is due to be honoured with a humanitarian award. Can Stefan and Wendy work out what is troubling Jessie in time to save her from the forces haunting her?
This is a slow burner, but once the pieces have all slotted into place, it becomes a tense and powerful race against time.
The closest writer I can compare Kathryn Ptacek to is Charles Grant. They both share the same talent for quietly building a sense of dread. Grant has long been one of my favourite writers and Ptacek is just as good at his style of horror.
She writes with a smooth and fluid prose, building her characters believably and sympathetically (except for her villains, who are truly evil in this book). Even in the slow build, this was always a compelling read. If there is such a thing as a slow pageturner, this is it- until the final act when it was truly unputdownable.
Highly recommended.
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