Can't Wait Wednesday #15: There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released. It's based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine. So it seems I must have either shared all the sequels I've been waiting on or something, because once again I've got a standalone book.  I am a huge fan of horror movies, and the Scream series, the first two anyway, are some of my favorite movies.  I've only read one book by Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss, but I really liked it, so when I saw this on Edelweiss, I was immediately intrigued!  Here's the synopsis from Goodreads:

Scream meets YA in this hotly-anticipated new novel from the bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss.

One-by-one, the students of Osborne High are dying in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and the hunt intensifies for the killer, the dark secrets among them must finally be confronted.

International bestselling author Stephanie Perkins returns with a fresh take on the classic teen slasher story that’s fun, quick-witted, and completely impossible to put down.




There's not a lot to go on there, but it still sounds like a blast to me!!!  So, what are you eagerly awaiting on this week?

Review: The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

Book info:
Title:  The Dead House  
Author:  Dawn Kurtagich
Genre:  YA Horror
Published:  September 15th, 2015
Source:  ARC won in giveaway October 2015

I won this from a Halloween giveaway last year on another blog.  And sadly, I didn't get around to reading it until this summer when I tried to do a challenge.  Overall I really enjoyed it!  I could totally see this being done as a horror movie.  And if you've read any of my reviews, you'll know that truly I consider that a pretty high compliment.  I know that Kurtagich will be a go-to author for scary stories for me from now on. 

The story is told in diary entries and interviews/police records.  Supposedly all of this happened 20 years ago, and just recently the diary of Kaitlyn Johnson.  But there are not any actual records of Kaitlyn, only Carly Johnson.  From the story we learn that Kaitlyn was Carly's "second personality" that only came out at night.  Technically this is called Dissociative Identity Disorder, as is explained by the author at the end of the book.  The way a lot of it was told was very descriptive.  It really put me right into the scary moments and locations of the book.  I also enjoyed the Scottish voodoo/mystical type of magic that was part of the story.  It is always fascinating to me to learn about things like that. To realize that the voodoo that I know of, isn't the only one that is out there. 

In the end there was a big fire that killed as well as burned down part of the school where this mostly takes place.  It is interesting to see just how long Carly/Kaitlyn existed.  I would have loved to get more of the family background from before all of this.  But the little sister moments, as well as memories from the girls and others in their lives did give the story an even more twisted aspect.  You'll spend the whole time wondering who could really be behind all of the death and vandalism that goes on.  While it seems that there is no way Kaitlyn could do all of it, there are times that it seems obvious that everyone would think it was her. 

I highly recommend this as a scary book, with most questions answered at the end, but not all.  Enough is left open that it will leave you thinking long after you finish it. 

YA Review: The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude

First, thanks to Edelweiss and HMH Books for Young Readers for allowing me to read an e-galley of this.  Now, not only did the synopsis of this story grab my attention, but the fact that it takes place in the Missouri Ozarks sold me on having to read it.  I live in Missouri, and we go visit the Ozarks at least once a year, so I definitely love stories set in locales that I am familiar with.  I really enjoyed this story.  It had some unique parts to it, lots of twists, and I could totally see it as a horror movie, because that is how it unfolded in my head as I was reading.

The main character is Ivy.  She lives in a small farming community called Rowan's Glen.  Now they're not Amish really, but they are probably more of a quaint type of society, definitely one with many superstitions and traditions.  The kids do go to the local public school though, where they do get picked on by the town kids.  All of the kids have kind of unique names, for one thing, all the girls' names are some kind of plant or flower.  Ivy's cousin and best friend is starting to slip away from her.  She seems to have secrets and be hanging out with some of the other kids outside of their community.  Ivy is very quiet, and shy, and even has a bit of a stutter.  One of the boys, Rook, who has always been a friend, has also become her crush.  And while she thinks he may kind of like her too, some things happen that make her think maybe he is actually interested in Heather. 

But that's just the "normal" stuff that is going on.  You see, many years ago, when Ivy's father was a teenager, there was a murder case, and a strange boy was blamed for it, before he ran off into the woods surrounding the community.  Now there seems to be the same kind of happenings going on.  Animals are turning up having been killed, often cut up in such a way that makes them think of some kind of ritual.  And then, bodies of people turn up.  Someone from their own community.  The search to find who it is, if it is actually the boy from the past, or if there is someone new in the community being a copycat killer, or is it someone from outside?  There will be all kinds of secrets that come out as the community tries to figure this out and keep everyone else safe.  Secrets that will tear apart some of them, pull in some people who had left after the last round of horrible events, and cause more danger for Liv and her family. 

I don't want to give any more away.  I just want to say the end was so twisty and kept me on the edge of my seat with not knowing just who was behind it all!  So many false leads, but ones that still opened up scary secrets about the people they involved.  And Rook, I wanted so bad for him to be the good boy that Ivy loved at the beginning that he seemed to be at first, until the night Ivy saw something in their barn.  I won't tell you how he turns out either.  Just know that the ending was very satisfying, and I look forward to reading more books by this author!

Review: Monsterland by Michael Phillip Cash

I was lucky enough to win a copy of this in a giveaway.  It was a very quick read, nothing really different from what I expected, basically exactly the type of story you'd expect from the title.  I feel there were some things that were missed that could have definitely added to the story, but it did feel just like a horror movie would be, the way the things were missing was like what might be missing from a movie compared to the book. 

There were parts of the story told from different viewpoints, but in a way, who I felt was the main character was Wyatt Baldwin.  He's a high school student, and he lives in the town where one of the new theme parks called Monsterland is getting ready to open.  The story takes place in a future when a disease has caused some people to become zombies.  It's pretty much contained, the zombies are being kept in detention types of camps.  And  now are being brought to be part of the different theme parks that are being set up all over the world.  But in this future world, they have also found out that vampires are real, and have been just kind of hiding out, on the sidelines of the human world.  And when the creator of the parks is out searching for a Sasquatch or Bigfoot, he finds that werewolves are real.  They capture the werewolves that they find, which is easier because they have really dwindled in numbers.  So this theme park has a section where people can see zombies walk around, from a safe distance/viewing area.  There is a jungle ride where they will be able to see the werewolves, again from a safe area, and the park uses artificial moonlight to get the wolves to change.  And the vampires, because they have been around humans all the time already, they just have caps put on their fangs, and then they have a little town where people can go mingle with the vampires and even watch them as part of a rock band. 

Wyatt and his friends get free VIP passes to the opening night of the park.  And, as you would expect from a story like this, something goes wrong, monsters will get loose, and chaos ensues.  As I mentioned at the beginning, it was really a lot like a movie would be. 

I do feel there could have been some more character development and explanations.  There was one of Wyatt's friends that everyone called by his full name, all the time.  I'm sorry, that's just weird.  It reminded me of the movie 21 and Over where they kept calling the one character by his full name, Jeff Chang, the whole movie.  Only, it could be something I missed as I read, but I'm not sure why they did that?  I do like what happened with his friend Melvin though.  We also had some drama with Wyatt's family, his mom and stepdad - who we also got some of his viewpoint, and then a surprising bit with Wyatt's dad even. 

While I get the point trying to be made about the detention camps, and that the big gate reminded them of the Auschwitz Concentration camp gate that said "Work will set you free", I feel like that may have stretched a little for the actual type of book this is.  To me the cover looked like the Jurassic Park gate, and yes, they did draw comparisons in the book to that, like they should have.  And really that fit the story much better, so they probably could have stuck with that.  Comparing zombies, werewolves, and vampires to real people who were in death camps seems a little bit in poor taste. But that's just me.  I could be overthinking it. 

All in all it was a quick, horror movie style read, interesting even while predictable for the most part.

Review: Diary of a Haunting by M. Verano

First, thanks to Simon Pulse and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  Overall, I enjoyed the book, up until the end.  I was really excited to start it, when it showed up at the bookstore where I worked a little earlier than I thought it was supposed to be released.  The cover is just so awesome!  If you haven't seen the physical copy of the book, you should go to a bookstore and check it out.  The slipcover does something really cool when you take it off. 

So, the main character is a girl named Paige.  Her parents were Hollywood royalty, a director and an actress.  But her father has done what they all seem to do, traded her mother in for a younger model/actress.  So her mother has packed up Paige and her brother Logan and moved them out Idaho.  To a big old house in a tiny little town.  They live in a beautiful setting with mountains in the distance.  When they arrive, it is winter and Paige is kind of excited to see her first snow.  But the house has issues to start with. First, when they walk in, there are these fly paper strips hanging from the ceiling in the front hallway, and they are covered with flies.  Well, Paige's mother is kind of a hippy type person, and thinks this is cruel, so they take them down and throw them out.  But soon, like the next day, there are clouds of flies in the doorway now. Even though it is winter.  Not only that, Paige sees spiders everywhere. 

The best room in the house is taken by Logan, her younger brother.  She lets him have it because of the horrible noise that she hears from it, a buzzing type of noise, that no one besides Paige seems to hear.   Now, back to the spiders.  Paige has always been extremely creeped out by them.  So her brother suggests thinking about them in a scientific manner, and when she does her journaling/blogging, she makes a point to have counted them every day. 

The new school goes great until the most popular girl's boyfriend hits on Paige, and then she is stuck with only the weird girl in school, Chloe, as her friend.  Chloe is very interested in the house and wants to know if it is haunted, because it used to be a hospital.  There are strange noises and lights in the house, a door that is sealed off, and windows on the outside that aren't open to anything.  They find out what is in the basement, and it kind of ties into the whole story, though not necessarily in a frightening way.

The whole story is told through Paige's journal/diary as the title implies.  It gets creepier and creepier as the story goes along.  Her brother gets sick, something in the house is getting to him.  And then he has trouble sleeping.  There is a scene or two with the spiders that totally gave my skin the creepy-crawlies.  But then, then comes the ending.  It builds up so good, and is so good, and then, well let's just say the ending isn't a good book ending. 

Without giving anything away, the ending is a major twist.  The type that you often see in horror movies, which up until this point, the book has been just like one, in a good way. The problem is that in movies, you're able to see flashbacks, things to help you see just what you missed as you went along. As this is a diary, from one point of view, you don't get any of these flashbacks, any way to know for sure if the twist is real, or what.  And that honestly destroyed the whole book for me.  On Goodreads I gave it a 3 star rating, because up until the end it was so good, and soo scary.  But the ending almost made me drop it to a 2.  I think you can stop around page 295, or June 16th diary entry, if you want all the ends tied up neatly, problem solved kind of ending.  If you want it to kind of end like some movies do, but still an okay open type of ending, stop on page 296, or the June 17th, 3 am entry.  After that, it just all falls apart.

Waiting on Wednesday: Return to the Dark House (Dark House #2) by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting. While I didn't LOVE the first book in this series, Welcome to The Dark House, it was a reminder enough of a horror movie, and left off at such a cliffhanger, that I do need to read on in the series.  I would love to see the first one made into a horror movie though, I'd definitely go see it.  Here is the blurb for the sequel from Goodreads:

Ivy Jensen survived the Dark House once, but can she make it out a second time?

Two months have passed since Ivy narrowly escaped the Nightmare Elf’s grip, but the memories of Parker, Natalie, Shayla, Frankie, and Garth continue to haunt her. Their killer is still out there—somewhere. The police trail has gone cold, though, and it’s up to Ivy to piece together the clues to find him.

When a cryptic video arrives in her inbox, Ivy soon finds herself back in the spotlight, this time on a twisted scavenger hunt through the dark, ancient halls of a long-forgotten Gothic school building. Ivy’s not alone, either. Taylor Monroe has returned to the scene. But can Taylor be trusted? Or is she another pawn in the Nightmare Elf’s deadly game?

Definitely sounds like another scary story.  So what about you, what are you eagerly anticipating this week? 

Review - Mary: The Summoning (Bloody Mary #1) by Hillary Monahan

Thanks to Disney-Hyperion and Netgalley for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  Now, I'm not one who ever played Bloody Mary.  While I do enjoy watching scary movies, and even going to supposedly haunted places, I'm not a fan of doing something like that.  I'll admit that in college I did play around with a Ouija board with my sorority sisters, but never by myself.  And I was a little uncomfortable having it in my house after awhile.  I live by myself, and have for about 18 years now, and just got to be a bit scared, more nervous than scared.  Mainly because of all the scary movies, as well as beginning to watch shows like Paranormal State.  So I did pass it on to someone else about 6 years ago.  This book was definitely a good scary story.  And I could totally see it being made into a movie.  It had all the good events and descriptions of Mary to really scare someone watching a movie like this.

The main character is really Shauna, although the whole story centers around her other 3 friends, as the four of them together play the Bloody Mary game.  Jess, really Shauna's best friend, is the one who did all this research on Mary from the town where her grandparents live. And it is her idea to play the game in the first place.  Then there is Anna, whose house they play at the first two times.  And Kitty, who is really best friends with Anna, and also used to date Bronx, who is best friends with Jess's boyfriend.  The first time is really creepy, the kind of see Bloody Mary in the mirror.  But when Kitty gets really scared and tries to let go of Shauna's hand, the stop the game.  As you probably know, to get Bloody Mary there, you have to say her name three times in front of a mirror in a room lit only by a candle.  Or one person does at least, and in this case it is Jess.  And she also gets rid of Bloody Mary with the words "I believe in you Mary Worth."  But it has to be her, at least according to all the information Jess has found on the ritual.

The 2nd time they do it because they want to actually see more than the shadow and tips of fingers.  And they get it.  They see all of her.  Now Jess knows you must put the salt in front of the mirror to keep Mary there, as well as they must not let go of each others' hands during the ritual.  But this second time, Jess has put the salt in a line, but left a little room between it and the mirror.  And Bloody Mary uses this space to start to crawl out of the mirror, in what I pictured as the girl crawling out of the tv in the movie The Ring.  She seems to be able to keep coming out, even as Jess tries to yell the words that should send her away.  Only Shauna grabbing salt and throwing it at both Mary and the mirror is able to get her back in.  The only problem?  Bloody Mary scratched Shauna, and has the smell of her blood.  And now, Shauna is haunted.  Any shiny surface can bring her out.  Now the girls must figure out how to end the haunting for their friend Shauna.  And as each thing happens, it seems that Jess knows more than she is letting on.  Making their friendship more and more strained, only keeping them together to try to save Shauna.  They will research back in the town where Mary supposedly lived when she was alive, and also talk to the last person haunted by Mary.  And Shauna's friends will be in danger as well.  Not only does Bloody Mary want to injure and hurt Shauna physically, she wants to take away her friends, and anything that makes her happy.

I just have to say I loved Mary's back story in this.  I know I'm an outsider, but I caught on to Jess having some reason for doing all this pretty quickly, she was just very suspicious to me.  I know I mentioned how one scene reminded me of a movie, and that's why I say this could be an awesome horror movie.  Such vivid, scary scenes, I could picture them in my head.  Now the ending is a bit abrupt you could say, and doesn't necessarily solve the problem for all the friends.  But since this says it is #1 in a series, I think that was done for a reason.  And I liked the ending the way it was.  Once again the problem with reading e-galleys, now I have to wait sooooooo long for the 2nd one, because I read this one early!  As the 80s song says, "It hurts so good!"

Review: Amity by Micol Ostow

Thank you to Egmont USA and Netgalley for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  Unfortunately, while it had some definitely scary parts to it, very horror movie like,  I wasn't necessarily as thrilled with it as I had hoped to be.  You see, I recently looked into the whole Amityville Horror stories, more about this after my summary. 

This story takes place in two different time periods, with two different families.  It starts out even with a letter from the oldest son of the first family, one he's writing to his twin sister.  His name is Connor, and his sister's name is Julianna, or as her father calls her, Annie, but she prefers to be called Jules.  Their father is abusive, at least he is to their mother, as well as their younger brother Abel.  Connor seems to take after his father with the anger issues.  And it is possible that is what saves him and his twin sister from their father.  They have moved to Amity because of issues his father has had with money it seems.  Moving out there is not what the twins really want to do, but it is better not to complain in front of their father.  Because complaining will lead to someone getting hit, their mother or their younger brother.  But moving there, something changes about Connor.  The house seems to be calling to his "bad" side.  Even causing him to get mad at his twin, something he's never really felt about her. 

The 2nd family moves in 10 years later.  There are two kids in this family, a brother and his younger sister.  Luke and Gwen's family have moved there for some family reasons as well.  It seems Gwen has had mental problems, that have caused her to even be in an institution for a while.  And the family felt it would be better for her to have a new start.  Gwen is saying and trying to act like she is better.  But she still sees and feels things like before.  Her Aunt Ro is the only one who really understands her, but her parents don't really appreciate what her aunt seems to condone.  Gwen feels the house is talking to her.  But it's not just her.  Her older brother Luke seems to be affected as well.  He gets really kind of spaced out, and abrupt.  Very similar to Connor, ten years before.  And things seem to be happening all over again.  Gwen sees a ghost, of a girl named Annie, who seems to want to help her. 

We go back and forth in time, the viewpoints of Connor and Gwen are how we get the story.  There are some great scenes that I could totally see in a horror movie, and so in that way it is a very scary book.  And if you don't know a lot about the actual Amityville Horror reality and background, and this sounds good to you, you can probably stop with my review right here, and go enjoy a good scary book.  Otherwise, if you want to read what my problems with the book/story are, you can go on.  But don't let it keep you from reading, like I said, it is a good scary story.

When I mentioned in the first paragraph about how I'd recently looked into the whole background of the real place called Amity, it was mainly because of Lorraine Warren, and her involvement in the original "haunting." I had read the original Amityville Horror book years ago before I looked into this, as well as watching the movie.  But now I know that many people say it was all a hoax because of those involved who have come back and said they lied.  Now it's not that issue that bothers me, it is the things that have been proven to not be true.  Such as the land being a Native American burial ground.  Or that a famous man, thought to possibly be a witch during the Salem Witch Trials lived there.  And the other thing, that it was a insane asylum at one time.  All these things were used in the story as possibilities of what the reasons were for all the hauntings or mysterious events that happened there.  I'm not saying that using one of them would have been that bad or bothered me too much. Just that the author pulled in all three misleading ideas, seemed a bit of a cop-out to me.  But as I said, if you didn't know all those things, then you would enjoy it because those things are very eerie and make for a good back story.  Sorry, I guess I may have just ruined that for some people.

Review: Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz

First, thanks to Netgalley and Disney-Hyperion for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  I've only read one other title by this author, Deadly Little Secret, and I really enjoyed that one (which reminds me I need to finish that series!).  So when I saw this available, and read the synopsis, I was really excited to read it.  For the most part I was pretty satisfied and enjoyed this book.  I had one or two issues, but they weren't anything big enough to make it not a good read.

The story is about 7 people teens, who have entered a contest to share their worst nightmare, and then go be part of a show with a popular horror director and have him help them "face" their nightmares.  Maybe even helping them to get over it.  First is Ivy, who has a nightmare based on a real event in her life, her parents' murder.  She even came almost face to face with their killer, who only left her alive because they could hear the sirens of emergency vehicles arriving thanks to her 911 call.  Compared to her nightmare, you have the fake dream of Parker, who wants to be a film maker, and so he makes up a dream that he thinks will help him win the spot to get to meet a great director.  The others all seem to have real nightmares though, Shayla, who found her best friend dead after committing suicide.  Natalie, who had a twin brother that was born dead.  And ever since then she's been obsessed that he is still around, and her parents have treated her horribly, of course we don't know how much of that was based on how she was already.  But she mutilates herself, by pulling her hair out, as well as getting tattoos of things from these horror movies.  And then there is Frankie, who had his nightmares start with the death of his uncle, right about the same time his mother left him and his father.  The name that is immediately one to laugh at, Garth Vader.  His father called him a baby for having nightmares and being scared of horror movies, since his father was such a huge fan.  For Garth, it became a love of his, all the horror movies, just something he did to overcome his fears.  And finally there is Taylor.  Although she is gone from the house as soon as the others start showing up.  So we really don't get to know much about her, other than we do get her nightmare at the end of the book.  And it has something to do with her taking off on a hike in the woods, kind of. 

The bed and breakfast they are all staying at is designed just like the house in one of the horror movies, and there are characters and other things plucked from the scenes.  For most of them, it is easy to point out. For Ivy who is only there to try to rid herself of her nightmares, most of it is new, as she's never watched those movies.  They will all end up at a place where they must each go in and face their nightmares, and then be part of the next movie, as well as getting to meet the director.  But if they go in to anyone else's nightmare, they will be cut from the movie.  One of them will find that out the hard way.  And as their nightmares seem to be coming true, and in deadly ways, it seems that maybe this isn't actually done by the famous director.  This movie is actually going to be filmed with what happens to them.  Who will survive, and who will succumb to their nightmare?

Really, I love the idea of this, and I can totally see it as a movie, or maybe a tv show where they could do a different group of people each season?  My biggest complaint is probably with the formatting of the Kindle copy I downloaded from Netgalley.  It was hard to tell when a new person was narrating.  Because other than Taylor, we do get to see this through each person's view at some point in the story.  The narrator's voices were different enough once you got a few lines in, but it would have been nice to have something else to point out it was changing.  Otherwise it was a bit confusing until you got that identifier.  I'll be interested to look at a finished copy and see if they do differentiate in some way.  And I do agree with one point that I saw another reviewer make on Goodreads.  What about Taylor?  I'd like to know more about what happened to her.  Maybe they found her somewhere when they were facing their own nightmares?  I don't know.  But I did read that there is going to be a 2nd book, so maybe it will be in that one?  When I said I could see this as a movie, I almost feel this story might lend itself better to something more visual like that.  I think that all the ideas were really good, and the description of things was also great, but I'd love to actually see it somewhere besides in my head. 

A fun, easy (depending on formatting) horror story read.  Anyone looking for anything "deeper" should consider that it is about a B movie type of horror film maker, so the way it was told was really just about perfect!!!  It fit that format perfectly.

Ten by Gretchen McNeil

I finally gave in and purchased this book at the RT Convention the first weekend of May.  I'm glad I did.  It was a good read, and definitely a good change from all the dystopian I've been reading lately.  This book reminded me a lot of RL Stine and Christopher Pike type of stories.  Which are good scary stories!  It also reminded me of the movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Not quite the same thing, but definitely it could make a good horror movie.
The main character is Meg, she and her friend Minnie have been invited to a party at the island house of one of the most popular girls in school, that Minnie used to be friends with before Meg came along.  When they get to the island, Minnie's ex-boyfriend's best friend, TJ,  is there to greet them, along with a guy named Ben, who may be the popular girl's latest guy.  But Minnie doesn't seem to care, as she and Ben hit it off right away.  Part of this is because Minnie is trying to make TJ jealous.  See, she's always wanted TJ, even dated his best friend, Gunner, for a long time trying to get TJ's attention.  During that time Meg and TJ became pretty good friends, and Meg began to like TJ, as well as he seemed to like her as well.  But, because of Minnie's crush, Meg had to turn down an invitation to go to Homecoming with TJ.  It seems however as if TJ might still be interested though!.  They get to the house, after walking by another house which seemed to be having quite the party themselves!  There are 6 other people at the house, Vivian, Lori, Gunner, Kumiko - Gunner's new girlfriend, Nathan, and Kenny.  And when a raging storm kicks up, it seems they may be stuck there without the rest of the people coming.  They decide to watch a movie, but all the DVD cases are empty, but one, and it says "Do Not Watch".  Of course they have to watch it, and on it is a mysterious video, showing a countdown from 10-1, and confusing poetry and images, and a menacing message.  Then the power goes out.  The phones are also out because of that, and of course there is no cell phone service.  Meg thinks maybe the internet will work, and goes to test it, but just as she begins to get online, that goes out too.  At dinner, one of the boys, Ben, begins to choke they think, but then they find out it is an allergic reaction to some nuts that somehow made it into the salad.
Feeling spooked and worn out, and having nothing to do with the power out, they all go to bed early.  Meg and Minnie have got the really cool room up in the tower.  Meg thinks she hears someone running barefoot and it wakes her up, so she goes out and sees a body hanging from above.  It looks as if Lori has hung herself.  And there is a suicide note, but something seems off about it.  With no way to contact the police, or get off the island due to the intense storm, the rest of them are stuck in the house, where a wall now has a huge blood red slash.  As one more is found dead, and another, more slashes are added to the wall.  They now must figure out if it is one of them doing the killing, or if there is someone out there trying to exact revenge, and if so, what for?
As I said at the beginning, this was very good.  While I could kind of guess what might happen next, and figure out who the killer might be, (well why a person would do the killing, but not who it actually was), it was still done very well, and kept me thinking and trying to figure out with Meg all along what was going on.
If you're in the mood for a scary story, you should give this a try, if you haven't already!
And, because I must share, below is my picture with the author, Gretchen McNeil, from the RT Convention.

The Unspoken by Thomas Fahy

In my goal to read 5 books this week, which I barely made by the book I finished today, this was one I chose because I figured it would be a quick read. But now I'm behind on blogging! So here goes!

As I read through the other reviews of this on Goodreads after I finished reading this, several reviews stood out. First was the one that was not what the book was about at all. Which was really weird. Second, several of them said this was just like a teen horror slash film. And I got to thinking, yeah, it could totally be one of those.

Basically our main character is Allison. She and 5 other teens survived a cult that ended in a horrible fire. But before they got away, the leader of the cult, Jacob, told them that in 5 years they would all die by their worst fear. When the first one dies by drowning, although he is found in the middle of a field, they all go back to the hometown for the funeral. One by one they start dying. As we go through this, we learn what really happened to them in the cult and why it was so horrible.

I didn't like the way the story was told, there were times I wasn't sure who it was we were following. But other than that, the story was good, the ending was a bit of a surprise, I didn't quite realize that would be what would happen.

Again, maybe they should make a movie out of this! It would make a great teen slasher flick.