In the latest thriller from the bestselling author of Final Girls, a young woman returns to her childhood summer camp to uncover the truth about a tragedy that happened there fifteen years ago.
Release Date: July 3, 2018
Price: $14.32
Publisher: Dutton
Plot Summary:
Two Truths and a Lie. The girls played it all the time in their cabin at Camp Nightingale. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and first-time camper Emma Davis, the youngest of the group. But the games ended the night Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin into the darkness. The last she–or anyone–saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.
Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings–massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches that cover ghostly shapes in white dresses. When the paintings catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale, she implores Emma to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor. Seeing an opportunity to find out what really happened to her friends all those years ago, Emma agrees.
Familiar faces, unchanged cabins, and the same dark lake haunt Nightingale, even though the camp is opening its doors for the first time since the disappearances. Emma is even assigned to the same cabin she slept in as a teenager but soon discovers a security camera–the only one on the property–pointed directly at its door. Then cryptic clues that Vivian left behind about the camp’s twisted origins begin surfacing. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing mysterious threats in the present. And the closer she gets to the truth about Camp Nightingale and what really happened to those girls, the more she realizes that closure could come at a deadly price.
Grade: A+
Review:
This was one of my favourite books that I’ve read this year (and I’ve read over forty books so far!). This book was simply a tour de force. I love that the book alternated between past and present, as I like being able to take a glimpse into the past and see how that affects the present. I love mysteries about missing girls because it always fascinates me how people simply disappear into thin air and what happens to the people who are missing.
The writing was superb. It’s deceptively simple, yet it compels in a way that cannot be described. It’s descriptive but not overly so, and very atmospheric. This book is full of twists that actually make sense and are plausible and aren’t far-fetched (cause a lot of times ever since Gone Girl became famous every author and their mum is trying to force plot twists that simply do not work, the plot twists found within this book not only work but are true to the characters).
I’ve never been to summer camp, so the location was an interesting one for me, as my only notion of summer camp is from watching Friday the 13th (in other words it’s very limited). So it was fun for me to kinda vicariously live through the characters and experience a summer camp, albeit it is more on the murderous side!
This book was thrilling, fascinating, and had one of the best endings I’ve read all year. So if you’re into thrillers and whodunit novels, then this book is the right choice for you!
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Dutton Publishers for the digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review!
The Inkblotters 