Seaside Book Nook: Behind the Red Door

Saturday, August 8, 2020

Behind the Red Door

~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~

Synopsis: How well do you trust your memories? When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing woman from Maine, she is positive that she knows her. Fern’s husband is sure it’s because of Astrid’s famous kidnapping—and equally famous return—twenty years ago, but Fern has no memory of that, even though it happened an hour outside her New Hampshire hometown. And when Astrid appears in Fern’s recurring nightmare, one in which a girl reaches out to her, pleading, Fern fears that it’s not a dream at all, but a memory.

Back at her childhood home to help her father pack for a move, Fern purchases a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir, which the media speculates has provoked her original kidnapper to abduct her again. With the help of her psychologist father, Fern digs deeper, hoping to find evidence that her connection to Astrid can help the police locate her. But when Fern discovers more about her own past than she ever bargained for, the disturbing truth will change both of the women's lives forever.

Exploring the murkiest realms of the human psyche and featuring Megan Collins’s signature “dark, tense, and completely absorbing” (Booklist) prose, Behind the Red Door is an arresting, heart-stopping psychological thriller that will haunt you long after you turn the last page.

One (or more) Sentence Summary: Holy cow. What a good twisted story. I had a feeling who the "monster" was and kept saying there is no way......but oh yeah, I was right. However, there was more than one "monsters." I had no idea how it would end. Never could have figured it out. Crazy good (I mean crazy) and full of twists. Behind the Red Door is a book that will keep you wanting to turn to the next page. I do have to admit, it caused my heart to race a little bit as she was going through anxiety/panic attacks.

Would I Read Other Books by the Author: Sign me up to read The Winter Sister!

Megan Collins is the author of The Winter Sister and Behind the Red Door. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. She has taught creative writing at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and Central Connecticut State University, and she is the managing editor of 3Elements Review. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work has appeared in many print and online journals, including Off the Coast, Spillway, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Rattle. She lives in Connecticut.