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Of course, they don't see the one detail they should be noticing, a hole ripping their perfect little plan so wide apart that their lives will never be the same.

Because there's something they don't know: they won't hear him. Not until ut's too late. That freezer door is far too thick.

Seda, the main protagonist, is the surviving half of her mother's first pregnancy.

My mother has a womb for twins.

When I was six or seven, I found a baby name book in my mother's dresser with two names circles: Seda and Sawyer...I feel him in my gut, pushing against my stomach as with the head of an ax, testing to find a way out.

The topic in which a baby or fetus becomes absorbed while still in the womb during multifetal gestation is familiar to me through my studies in biology; however, none of my previously read books have ever grasped me this hard with this spooky of an element. Not even learning the chemical properties of radium could have prepped me for this story. While learning of Seda's situation with Sawyer, I was intrigued to imagine Sawyer's direct influence on Seda's mind, body, and maybe soul. However, as a non-licensed nor non-skilled talker of puppies, I am currently not equipped with the correct magical materials to find that sort of material.

So, while Seda's life seems normal with her lofty gang of friends, a list of college applications, and doting parents, the creepiness begins to set in after she takes a visit to an old cabin in the woods. Now, I'm not saying that a solitary vacation isn't nice. Just the thought of snow-covered trees, a house with the heat on full-blast, and a library stocked with enough books to last me a century sounds relaxing. However, we cannot forget the lovely cup of peanut butter hot chocolate oatmeal, obviously.

But, in Seda's situation, she's currently surviving the elements alongside her younger brothers and sisters in a creepy cabin with a creepy backstory including a creepy character with a creepy thought pattern. I mean, "Can it get anymore creepy?"



So, with my logic, I would become a scaredy cat and leave the creeping cabin that I am creeping living in...duh; however, when hot guy shows up, all caution goes to the wind. That's when I bring out the popcorn!

In conclusion, this book is amazing and is filled with several plot twists that knock your socks off with such immense and brute force! This book is suspenseful, and Balog cruises through the story with a perfect pace and puzzles along the way. Reading through Seda's perspective was both insightful and confusing, and I am extremely excited to pop back into another story written by Cyn Balog. Otherwise, if she never publishes again, I will never be sane.

*Many thanks to Netgalley and Received a copy of Alone from the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

Great book, love this author and how they can keep my attention to the end! The plot is well developed, characters are believable and they obviously paid attention to detail to make the story worth your time to read.

Found it hard to get into. Was a really slow read for me. I didn't enjoy it. Thank you for allowing me to read it.

I really loved the premise of this book, what with its potential ghost story. And I ended up really enjoying the ride and the atmosphere. But that ending... um, yikes 😬

So this house they’re fixing up sounds really cool. It has a lot of themed rooms and it’s just really spooky. I loved it! Seda’s family actually inherited it from a relative recently and they’re fixing it up to sell it.

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Despite the morbid stories about this place, I don't ever worry about ghosts. After all, I have Sawyer, and he is worse.
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Seda and her family are used to spooky things. But the one thing Seda does worry about is her dead twin brother. He was stillborn be he stuck around as an imaginary friend for years. But now he’s more sadistic. Of course, it’s all in her head. But then weird things start to happen around her new home when a group of kids wind up there after being stranded in a snowstorm. Seda starts to worry whether Sawyer is influencing her somehow... or if he isn’t just in her head 😳 I really liked this concept of this evil brother who is bitter because she’s the one who is alive and maybe he’s trying to take her over.

Seda has more siblings, two sets of twins, all very young but all super cute. I loved that the little ones are just completely unfazed by all the horror stuff around the house. It’s so funny! So in order to pass time during the storm, the mom sets up a scavenger hunt around the house for all the kids... but then things start happening. And let’s talk about said things because things get good and then they get bad and then good again???

During the storm, a bunch of high school kids show up after being stranded, and they join in on the scavenger hunt. But then the kids start dropping dead one by one and Seda can’t find her mom. Eventually she and Heath (one of those kids) stumble upon a room that seemed to be lived in in the wing of the house that was off limits. It turns out that that wing wasn’t off limits because there was construction going on and it was dangerous, as her mom said, but because SAWYER had been sent to live with these relatives a long time ago and he was living in this wing!! 😱 But guess what, he murdered the relatives and is now killing the kids too!! OMG! He was real after all! I was really excited about this! I liked the direction this was going! But don’t get too excited like I did because he actually wasn't ever alive. Sigh 😒

At the end of the book we find out that these kids aren’t actually dead. They were HIRED by Seda’s mom as ACTORS for this whole scavenger hunt thing. And while Seda DID have a twin in the womb, he was never alive enough to do any murdering. All the evidence that she found was planted by her MOTHER. Her mom remembered how Seda would talk about her brother when she was little like he was alive, so she took that and incorporated it into her little game. Honestly, I can’t believe she did that. She doesn't know the things Seda has to deal with, how her inner Sawyer always tormented her. All of this was just really inconsiderate on her mother’s part, even though she herself thought it would be fun. It wasn’t. The poor girl was seriously scared out of her ever loving mind thinking her serial killer brother was out to get them all!! But no. Her mom was basically like, “It’s just a prank bro.” 🙃 I HATED this twist! Hated it!

What’s even worse is that I really liked Heath Hunter. He was really funny and so sweet! But get this: all these kids, they’re SENIORS in freaking COLLEGE. SENIORS! And Heath kissed Seda!! Who is a teenager!! And her mom was fine with it all!! Not. Okay. NOT OKAY! Omg. I just can’t with this 😤 I felt so bad for Seda... the poor girl... whose inner Sawyer is VERY real to her.

Luckily for me, who was hating every bit of this book by this point, it didn’t end there. Oh no...

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I’m hungry.
I know you are, I tell my brother in the voice only he can hear, patting my stomach gently.
---

YES! This gave me hope that she’s gonna retaliate using Sawyer. Do they deserve to die for this? I mean, probably not. But it WAS cruel and the ending infuriated me soooo I very much like where this was heading. Just saying 😉 We don’t see any killings, but it is heavily implied that this was gonna happen after the book ends. After all, when Seda found out about the actor thing, she deliberately left Heath stuck in a freezer. Not to mention that she killed her dad... or maybe it was Sawyer using her? I don’t know, but the point is it can happen, and I am more than okay with it 😈

I had very mixed feelings about this book. I loved the setting and the creepy vibes plus the whole thing with Sawyer and whether he was real or not and if he was influencing Seda or not... I loved all that! I loved the first plot twist regarding Seda’s brother, but then the second plot twist came around and it made me mad. I hated it! The very, very end though, gives me hope, so this wasn’t a complete fail.

I tried reading this and despite how many attempts I made i was unable to fully immerse myself in the reading. Whether from writing style or a lack of interest in the plot/characters I'm not 100% sure, but this was, unfortunately, a book I didn't care to finish reading.

This really should have been a shorter book. There is so much buildup but then the ending comes rushing in and is condensed to the very last part of the book.

I tried reading this book but sadly I didn't make it very far while reading this book. I think that the different point of views made it a bit difficult to understand . I usually love this author's books and I hoped that this one would work out for me.

A chillingly bizarre tale that only Cyn Balog is capable of.
Readers will quickly become enthralled by the mysteries of this dark and chilling thriller. Seda is an interesting protagonist that readers will want to keep peeling back the layers to to get to the bottom of the mysteries. The ending was fabulous and leaves reads pondering over everything they know. It is not 100% black and white, which works perfectly for this type of book.
An easy binge-worthy read.

A copy of the book was provided by the publisher in return for an honest review.

Oh but this was a twisty little read! Fast paced, quick amd easy, it slid down like a perfect guilty pleasure. Just when I thought I had seen the twist coming, it surprised me by turning the other way and looping around.

It took me back, reminiscent of some of the gritty young adult books I read in my younger days, where everything doesn't turn out hearts and rainbows and love triangles.

Absolutely worth a read!

Books like this are what makes me love the YA genre so much. This is was a gripping page-turner. It was so well-written and unfolded at the perfect pace. A great nail-biting reading experience.

This is the perfect set-up for a chilling tale -- an isolated mansion in the mountains, a lonely teenage girl with an oblivious family, and an unwelcome group of visitors trapped by an impassable blizzard -- and Balog puts its familiarity to good use, gradually building tension, manipulating reader expectations (through clever use of classic horror references), and subtly winding from one possible horror to another. She sets up several possible endings, yet still manages to end with a shocker. This mix of Clue, The Shining, and a host of other horror and slasher films could have been cliched--instead it felt surprising.

So creepy and I loved that! The characters were all fun, diverse and engaging and the setting was just so creepy - which sets the mood right from the get-go. Loved the twisty, freaky plot. Overall, great read!

Loved the twists and turns, bloody scenes, and scary parts! Fun, crazy characters and a creative plot make this a fun, colorful, action-packed read that keeps you guessing till the end. The setting alone is scary enough to create lots of emotion and ghosts coming out of the walls. The snowstorm also adds to the thrilling scenes. Teens will love the diverse cast and ways the story flows and changes.

This is my first book I have read by Cyn Balog. I have to say it had me going from the beginning. She convinced me multiple times of what she wanted me to believe. Seda is a teenage girl who once had a twin, a twin who she still talks to. When her family gets stuck in the mountains trying to sale an old murder house. Seda feels safe and more relaxed, alone and secluded her brother has been quieter. That is until some teenagers show up out of the blue needing a place to stay out of the storm. Then the games begin but what is the truth and who will have to pay to find it. 

This story was such a good and quick read. Once I started it I didn't want to stop. It convinced me of a different "truth" a couple different times. The Scavenger hunt and the twists and turns along the way made this a different story from what I have read previously and I loved it. I want to read more from this great author.

What made me pick this book up:
I was looking at books we need to review and the cover combined with the title definitely caught my eye.

What did I like about the cover:
It's kind of creepy looking. Gives you kind of a freaky feeling when looking at it. What's behind the door? What's hiding?

What made me read this book:
Well. We needed to review it.

But besides that it sounded great.

First of all, a horror themed hotel?! Yes please! I need to go like NOW.

And it's a horror book. I love horror.

What did I like the most:
First I loved reading about all the things in the horror hotel. It sounded amazing. I loved hearing about the props, the stories, the things they did. I want to go to one so bad now! I didn't even ever think those kinds of things could exist.

The story was good. An aunt and uncle dies. They're the ones who owned the hotel. So when they died they gave it to Seda and her family to fix up and do what they want with it.
The mom doesn't want to sell it to someone who is just going to turn it around and make it a regular boring hotel. So they decide to stay there for now. Seda is alone with her mom and her siblings. Her dad had left and they don't know where he went.

Well one day before a blizzard a couple teens get stranded there. They invite them in. And they find out it's Halloween, and Seda's birthday is the day after Halloween. Her mom decides to throw her a murder mystery/scavenger hunt birthday party.

That's when **** hits the fan. People start dying. No one knows why or what's happening.

The ending was really good. You have absolutely no idea what's real, what isn't. You're constantly questioning yourself and your thoughts and what's going on.

This book wasn't really the horror book I thought it would be. More like a thriller. It did have blood and gore and obviously murders in it. But I didn't get scared. I just had to find out what was really happening.

The characters were written well. None of them were particularly annoying. They didn't make me want to roll my eyes or hit someone. So there's that at least.

And I love her little siblings. There's a fake intestines that was from the murder hotel and they like to sleep with it. Like a stuffie. It's fantastic.

What didn't I like:
It took about 2/3 of the book before something finally started happening. It took a lot of build up a lot of explaining and back story and then it finally started to get good.

I wish that it would have started happening sooner instead of taking over half the book.

Oh and I figured out kind of what was going on pretty quickly. However, it did have me questioning myself. So that was a plus.

But that's really the only thing I didn't like. And it's not even that it was slow or anything, the pace was good, for the most part.

Would I read the rest of the series/more from this author?
Yes!


This was a really interesting and crazy read, Quick but left a great impression.

I'm really uncomfortable with the way mental illness is presented in this book, as well as the fact that I do not enjoy the writing at all. I won't be recommending this one.

Creepy, creepy, suspenseful book. My lovers of horror will gobble this one up even as they ask me questions because they read it too fast. Careful reading is required, but hard to do because it is so suspenseful.

really great idea for a book. Cyn is great at keeping you guessing and throwing something at you from left field. The tension racks up and knocks you on your side.

When Seda's mom inherits an old murder-mystery-themed mansion, Seda and her family trek to the Appalachian Mountains to clean it up in order to sell the secluded property. What they didn't bank on was Seda's mom falling in love with the place and refusing to sell it to anyone who wouldn't uphold its macabre tradition. This The Shining-esque obsession drives Seda's father back to Boston and leaves the rest of the family struggling to find a sense of normalcy amongst the fake severed limbs and grotesque architecture. Seda has a struggle all her own, too -- the twin brother she "absorbed" in the womb, as her mother puts it, keeps invading her thoughts with evil. When a group of teenagers Seda's age are stranded at the property, Seda just knows something bad is bound to happen. There is evil lurking at every corner, and Seda doesn't know if it's coming from outside the mansion walls, or within herself.

Thoughts: Balog's Alone channels suspense and horror in a way I haven't seen in YA since R.L. Stine's Fear Street series. Alone has all of the staples of a great horror story -- scary and original setting in a secluded area, the stereotypical yet 21st century-updated teens (cough, GoPro, cough), and a main character with a dark backstory and even darker secrets. Throw in a murder mystery experience that turns all too real, and readers are treated to one heck of a creepy ride. And just when you think it's all over, you'll find a sentence or two that will have you hearing evil laughter long after you've turned the last page. Beware, readers: Alone is one book you won't be able to forget...

**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review**

This was a quick read and I think it's really suited to a shorter novel.. Although it started out slow, I was still intrigued by the story for the most part and it held my attention in the sense that I wanted to figure things out.

Overall I liked it, it wasn't the best book ever but I enjoyed it.