By: Anya Allyn

Published: May 2, 2012

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Series: The Dollhouse Trilogy, #1

Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Supernatural & Horror

Four teenagers chance across a mysterious, crumbling mansion in the depths of the mountains and then one of them vanishes. No one knows where she went and the searches for her in the mountains of Australia turn up nothing. Six months ago, fifteen-year-old Cassie Claiborne reluctantly moved from her home in Florida with her social worker mom. In her new home – a remote, mountainous Australian town, Cassie meets new friends – Aisha Dumaj, Ethan McAllister and Lacey Dougherty. For the first time in her life, Cassie falls in love, but unfortunately, it’s for her friend – Ethan, who is already dating Aisha. When Aisha vanishes in the mountains, Ethan is the prime suspect and Cassie soon follows him into the mountains to find her friend and clear his name. But what they discover is a nightmare in waiting and secrets in the dark that begin to threaten their sanity and their friendship.

Truly an unexpected and thrilling novel. The portrayal of the characters was established earlier and one of it’s finer features was that it started in the present, explored the past before returning to the present to illustrate the plot of the story. It was non-liner but it flowed in that respect very easily. There was a lot of built and tension between the characters, but the characters, the tension between Aisha and Cassie, it’s revolved far too easily. The whole confrontation and resolution was skipped over completely, making the story unrealistic in that fashion. Doesn’t matter how good of friends two people are, there is usually a fight and then a hug and make-up and never fight again or only reconcile to survive. The first may be cheesy, but both are realistic. That resolution was just too easy.

This coincides with the fact that there were obvious scenes missing and a lack of scene specifics. Man times throughout the text the reader loses sense of what is happening because the momentum is structured so well and moves the text along quickly, but there is a lack of what is around them and what is happening in the text. The story and characterization is good but often times the text and syntax don’t flow enough to make what is happening to the characters legible to the readers. Often times it was confuing and erratic and sometimes it worked because of the concept of the story, but overall, it loses the readers in a jumble of words. Plot line and twist were very well developed and truly gripping. ★★ (C+)