Book Blurb:
In 1926, five women disappeared from a remote island in Vermont. Now, one hundred years later, it’s happening again.
Struggling actress Marin Keane is shocked when she lands a role in a major motion picture about the unsolved mystery of New Avalon, an island on sprawling Lake Faraday in Vermont. She’s even more surprised when she learns that the role requires a weeklong research trip to that very spot.
Because New Avalon isn’t your ordinary island. A century ago, it was a commune for spiritual mediums—until they all vanished in 1926. The only trace of them was five dresses hanging from the branches of an old oak tree in the middle of the island, one for each missing woman. Some locals say they simply left. Others think they were murdered. But the prevailing opinion, thanks to a diary left behind by one of the vanished, a young woman named Daisy Rue, is that a séance gone wrong conjured something supernatural that took them all one by one.
Not long after arriving, Marin and her castmates, including legendary actress Violet Wright and white-hot director Ronan Peters, begin to realize all is not right with New Avalon. They hear strange noises in the night and notice mysterious symbols left behind by the island's previous occupants. And after a sudden health emergency leaves Marin, Ronan, and the other actors stranded on the island, the disappearances begin again.
Is it the work of someone trying to derail the movie? Or is the island’s alleged supernatural past catching up with the present? As fear and suspicion mount, Marin turns to Daisy’s diary, hoping it holds the key to figuring out what really happened to the women of New Avalon—and how to keep the island’s terrible history from repeating itself.
Tropes:
*Thriller *Mystery *horror *State Challenge Vermont (Repeat) *Paranormal
*locked room (island) *paranoia *abnormal events
*trigger warnings (death, long term grief check yours)
Thoughts:
Marin is looking for her big break in acting and believes she finally has it when she last minute gets cast for the role of a life time in a big budget film... she just has to be ready to go immediately putting her life on hold she knows this will be worth it she's goign to be working with legendary actress Violet Wright and Ronan Peters who is a big time director this will be worth it and she prepares for her trip.
Ronan Peters is known for having his cast prepare for their roles by doing method acting it's easier to get in character if you are living the way your character does... to prepare for the movie Marin, Ronan, Violet and the rest of the cast go to New Avalon an Island in Vermont that has an unsolved mystery attached to it in 1926 five woman went to the Island... and never returned to the main land.
Marin wants to do a good job and impress her more famous co-stars, but is also dealing with emotional distress as her past his coming back to haunt her along the way.
The author does a great job creating a eerie and mysterious atmosphere with a small cast of characters but with the story being from Marin's POV we see the others on the island from her side and this leads us to not truly know who of Marin's cast mates can be trusted, they all seem to possibly be up to something or have ulterior motives.
Going off of Daisy Rue's Diary, one of the women who vanished all those years ago, Marin and her cast members are now living how these women lived 100 years ago including no cell phones, no electricity, they have to wear the same clothing and they are stuck on this Island for several more days, when the director decides they will hold a séance just like the women did and then odd things begin happening including her cast members beginning to disappear... in the same order they do in Daisy's diary it appears that history is repeating itself.
The longer the story goes along the more you begin to wonder what is really going on, on this Island you know something sinister is happening but is the Island really haunted? Or is something else happening entirely?
This story definately had me thinking of the movie Exorcist at times... especially with the creepy séance gone wrong, it was even more eerie with the characters described in the Diary having very similar personalities to the ladies in the future playing them.
I didn't like how Marin was treated by some of the others on the Island (I'll leave it at that, if you read it you'll understand).
This for me kept me turning pages it is eerie, there are so many weird things happening that you don't know at points what is real and what isn't, there are plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing. I don't want to say too much more about it because I don't want to give anything away but I thought this was a great read for spooky season.
Have you read this one? What did you think?
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