One day, a small girl named Lisa leaves her house and is never seen again. All anyone knows is that she told her older brother Sam that she was going to meet the King of Fairies. Behind their house, in the woods, the legend goes, is where the small town of Reliance used to be. It vanished overnight, and now the woods are shrouded in mystery and myth.
Flash forward fifteen years. Sam is now dating Phoebe, who had actually visited the scene outside of the sibling's house (unbeknownst to Sam) fifteen years ago. The fact that they meet and begin dating later is a mere coincidence, although Phoebe has a particular reason to be interested in this case, which is the first scene in which the reader has to suspend disbelief. Sam and Phoebe begin receiving clues that Lisa may be alive, and as they begin investigating these clues, mysterious things begin happenings to them that make them question their own sanity and reality.
The book is told alternating between present time and fifteen years earlier. The present-day chapters focus on Phoebe and the chapters from fifteen years ago focus on Lisa, but each chapter is told in third person, which makes it easier for the reader. While the present-day action was fast-paced and exciting, the "historical" chapters were not nearly as thrilling. While what unfolded in those chapters was necessary to understand what was going on in the present-day chapters, I don't think it was necessary to have them interwoven. I found myself rushing though the historical chapters both because they dragged and because the present-day chapters were so much more suspenseful.
I found the ending to be a mixed, some of the components were predictable and some caught me completely off-guard. The author definitely showed a flair for the creative, and her characters were well-developed (the adults more so than the children). Overall, a decent book that fans of both mystery and thriller genres should enjoy.
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