Terri R. (emeraldmagick) reviewed on 12/7/2014 + 31 more book reviews

Excellent follow-up to 'Into the Woods', is it as good? In different ways yes... each book has it's own intensity, messing with your head nad keeping you guessing.

Miss French's writing is once again, brilliant :) She pulls us in from the get-go, the premise is a bit far-fetched but she writes everything so well and makes each of the characters so compelling that you overlook that and are caught up in the story.

Abby/Justin/Rafe/Daniel/lexie... that group was it's own universe, they really cared about and would do anything for each other. You see them as this hazy, mystical, slightly out of reach entity of sorts... almost does't seem quite real. Time seems to slow down or not exist for them at times, an idyllic (for them) paradise where all you have/need is each other.

Everything changes when Lexie is stabbed, the outside world comes to them... in the form of the police, and "Lexie coming home."

Cassie has her own reasons for doing this and it made me worried for her from the beginning... would she be able to get through this mind-game of a case? There were times I wanted to shake her for some of the actions she did, even though I knew she couldn't help falling under the spell of Lexie's friends and the house.

Sam was in the background alot but still present, Frank (love that Bastard, you never quite know what cards he has up his sleeve or what's going on in that head of his) ran the show, more delighted I thought at first by the prospect of pulling off this crazy scheme than solving the case. As the story went on, you can see how dedicated he is to finding out what happened to Lexie but he keeps alot of his thoughts/cards close.

The process of finding the killer isn't quick but there's so many layers to the case, we unpeel one then there's a few more going off in different directions. Even at the end, I wasn't quite sure what to believe.

I wanted hug those people at the end, hopefully they'll be alright. For me though, there was a feeling throughout the book, of little cracks from the beginning. Cassie's telling the story after it already happened but it doesn't lesson the foreboding and tension you feel slowly building (even the house seems to holding it's breath).

Just like Knocknaree, Whitehorn has it's own sturdy character, at times it seems to breathe and laugh with the occupants... I could picture myself sitting there with everyone, watching them at play and at work, thinking/wishing I could spend a few days there :).

We get mentions of Rob in the story, but nothing major... Cassie seems ready to move on from him and everything surrounding Operation Vestral, and I wish her all the luck and happiness in the world.

Sam I like now more, he seems worthy of Cassie to me. A stand-up, honest guy :).

Would recommend, though if you just stumbled across this one now.. I would suggest reading 'into the woods' first, there's no HEAVY spoilers for the first book, but some things are talked about from there.

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