On the day of her Kansas town's annual picnic and carnival, sixteen year old schoolgirl Blythe is abducted. Tricked by someone she knows and trusts into believing her brother has had an accident, she finds herself driven to a disused missile silo - and imprisoned there. At first stunned into disbelief by what has happened, she expects to be found and rescued after at most a few days, but as time drags on she begins to feel she could be there for life. Her captor, school librarian and survivalist Dobbs Hordin, believes he's saved her - rescued her from terrible events which are going to wipe out civilisation. He's got to be delusional though, hasn't he?
This is a book that I'd heard a lot about through various bloggers on social media, so although the Mole has already reviewed it back in May I thought I'd treat the paperback publication as an excuse to read it myself.
Knowing about it turned out to be a bit of a disadvantage, so I'm hoping not to give away more here. I'd heard in quite some detail about the plot twist in the middle so knew what to expect and how things were more or less going to end. This meant that I raced through the beginning which, in retrospect, I think was the better half of the book. Blythe's plight, initial shock, followed by anger then acceptance coupled with Dobbs' creepy attempts to win her over, are all brilliantly portrayed. Their relationship see-saws with the power first being on one side, then briefly the other, rocking back and forth between Dobbs and Blythe. At times I thought that Blythe, worn down by years of incarceration, missed out on opportunities to manipulate Dobbs, but on the other hand she'd had no other human contact for so long and no chance to mature beyond her age when abducted.
Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Two Roads
Genre - Adult fiction
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