Review: Hideaway

Title: Hideaway
Author: Nicole Lundrigan
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Penguin Random House Canada
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback
Release Date: July 9, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

What if home is the most dangerous place you can be? For fans of Room and readers of Shari Lapena. 

Gloria Janes appears to be a doting suburban mother and loving wife. But beyond her canary-yellow door, Gloria controls her husband, Telly, as well as seven-year-old Maisy and her older brother Rowan, through a disorienting cycle of adoration and banishment. 

When Telly leaves, Gloria turns on Rowan. He runs away, finding unlikely refuge with a homeless man named Carl, with whom he forms the kind of bond he has never found with his parents. After they are menaced by strangers, Rowan follows Carl to an isolated cottage, where he accidentally sets off a burst of heightened paranoia in Carl, and their adventure takes a dark turn. 

Gloria is publicly desperate for the safe return of her son while privately plotting ever wilder ways to lure Telly home for good. Her behaviour grows more erratic and her manipulation of Maisy begins to seem dedicated toward an outcome that only she can see. The two storylines drive relentlessly toward a climax that is both shocking and emotionally riveting.

Suspenseful, unsettling, and masterful, Hideaway explores the secrets of a troubled family and illuminates an unlikely hero and a source of unexpected strength.

Review:

This story was difficult to get into at first. Most of the characters have mental health disorders. They were making bad decisions that they couldn’t help because of their conditions, but it made me uncomfortable to read about. However, once I got into the story, I couldn’t put it down.

The two narrators of the story are both children, Rowan and Maisy. They were unreliable because they were children, but also because their sense of reality was warped by the adults with them. Rowan spent time with Carl, who often had conversations with people who weren’t there and he would lash out at random moments. Their mother, Gloria, would convince Maisy that things happened when they didn’t, to cover for her own mistakes. These unreliable narrators added a lot of tension to the story.

This was a great thriller with an unpredictable ending!

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Have you read Hideaway? What did you think of it?