Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon

Synopsis From Back Cover:

On a soft summer night in Vermont, twelve-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again.  Before she disappeared, she told her little brothers, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen.


Fifteen years later, Phoebe is in love with Sam, a practical, sensible man who doesn't fear the dark and doesn't have bad dreams -  who, in face helps Phoebe ignore her own.  But suddenly the couple is faced with a series of eerie, unexplained occurrences that challenge Sam's hardheaded, realistic view of the world.  And they question their reality, a terrible promise Sam made years ago is revealed - a promise that could destroy them all.

Randy Susan Meyers, the author of The Murderer's Daughters, said this book is "...a perverse fairyland where Rosemary's baby could be at home."  I think I could end this review now, just by quoting her, but I'm not sure that would really be fair.  I just wish she hadn't said it, so I would be the first to do so.  Instead I'm going to have to elaborate a bit more and try to tell you what I thought of this one in my own words.  I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do it justice.  So if my review doesn't leave you wanting to read it, just take my word for it and read it anyway.

When we first meet Phoebe, she is twenty years old and not really sure what she is doing.  She is having sex with her married boss who is forty years older than her, and doesn't seem to have a sense of direction to follow.  She appears to be someone going through the motions of life, but never really connecting with anything.  That doesn't seem to change until the day that twelve year old Lisa disappeared inside the confines of an abandoned village in the woods.

Fifteen years later, Phoebe is now dating Sam, Lisa's younger brother, and the past is about to slam them in the face.  Out of the blue, two events happen that are about to shake them to their core.  Evie, Sam's cousin, who was around at the time Lisa's disappears call and asks to meet Sam and Phoebe at a cabin in the woods.  They are going to spend time together over the weekend and talk about old time, namely Lisa's disappearance.  At the same time, Phoebe receives a phone call from a young girl telling Sam where to look for Lisa's book of fairies.  For all intensive purposes, the phone calls seems to be from an unaged Lisa.

When the weekend trip takes a turn for the nightmarish, Sam and Phoebe are forced to find out what really happened fifteen years ago.  The journey will shake Phoebe's faith in Sam and in everything else she thought she knew.  She's scared to death to tell Sam she's pregnant and is starting to believe the maybe the Dark Man of her childhood dreams is in fact real.  Maybe there really is a magic door under the bed that allows him in to steal you away.  Maybe the King of the Fairies does exist and is just waiting for the right time to snatch her out of the shadows.

I can't give too many other plot points without giving the story away, but I will say what I loved about this the most is the way it left me thinking about it at the end.  I loved the questions it was forcing me to ask as I read along.  What does Evie (the real one) know that she isn't telling?  What secrets are being kept by Sam's mother?  Is the King of the Fairires really going to make Sam keep his childhood promise, give up his first born?   As I read the book, I almost felt as if I was being pulled in two different directions.  On one had you have a horrific story of childhood abduction and the consequences of it.  On the other side I was, at times, almost forced to believe that Lisa really did go with the King of the Fairies, how else would you be able to explain the bizarre,  frightening behavior being displayed by almost everyone involved.

In the end though, the author brilliantly combined a story of one family's dark descent into their own family mythology with just enough "fantasy" to make you believe that maybe, just maybe, fairies really do exist.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book.  If you would like to read other reviews on it, please visit the tour page.

Challenges: GLBT, M&S