First, thank you Netgalley and Greyt Companion Press for this ARC!

Oh wow... what a book! Here we meet Zip, a famous author checking into this retreat to work on her new novel - a story about a woman being abducted and held captive in a cabin in the woods. But Zip feels paranoid and being stalked, and then, while she struggles from a writer's block, strange things start to happen at the retreat that make her start to question her sanity...

I can just say, I did not see that plot twist coming. My jaw was literally on the floor! You should all go and read this book once it does come out! I promise you are not going to regret it!

Zipporah Bazile, a fairly famous best-selling thriller author (no photos on book flaps, though, and no social media) is using her new main character’s name, Hannah Williams, to check in at Raven’s Hollow, a high altitude mountain resort. Her goal: use the next ten days to get a decent draft of her next addition to her well-received “Darkness” series. And we get an immediate bonus: we’ll get to read the work-in-progress as our main character experiences a little too much fiction turning into reality.

An unexpected romance at the retreat occurs, but so do a few unsettling occurrences — a visible powder on the froth of her latte; a printed Wikipedia page left behind about her at the business center; an overheard conversation regarding her from her new “friend.” Zip wants to strengthen her written character Hannah to make her be less helpless, but she’s hit a wall and is almost ready to kill off Hannah.

This is totally a gripping page-turner. I’ve loved Ruff’s Victoria Heslin series, and I was thrilled to have a new standalone with a character a little less superhero-ish. Zip is a bundle of contradictions from the start — successful, yet hiding from fame; adjusted to being alone, yet yearning for the company of a stranger she doesn’t quite trust. She shouldn’t be as paranoid or suspicious as she’s getting. There’s a twist midway that totally made me wonder where the rest of the plot was heading, and it turns a normal suspense thriller into something very original and intense. 5 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO No unusual eye colors at all.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska):NO But let’s be thankful for the dense forest of rural North Carolina.

Thank you to Greyt Companion Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

I ate this up! Very unique thriller, with twist I REALLY did not see coming! Got not much sleep tonight because I could not put this book down. Easy 5 stars!