TUESDAY EXCERPTS: “BEHIND THE RED DOOR”

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events: First Chapter/Intros, now hosted by  Socrates Book Reviews; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by The Purple Booker.

Today’s feature is a new book:  Behind the Red Door, by Megan Collins

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Intro:  Now that it’s summer, it’s not my job to protect the children.  I have finished the follow-ups on the girl who submitted a suicide note for her English essay.  I have closed the file on the boy who came to school with rope burns on his neck.

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Teaser:  My heart thumped when I read that.  My stomach roiled.  I had to set the book aside, curl into myself, wrap my arms around my knees. (p.59).

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Synopsis:  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 may have provoked her original kidnapper to abduct her again—and as she reads through its chapters and visits the people and places within it, she discovers more evidence that she has an unsettling connection to the missing woman. 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 their lives forever.

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What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

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