Review: A terrifying read! Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 29, 2012
I have just finished reading about a monster, a psychopath so cunning and violent that this person was evicted from the family at age 16.Joanna Stephen-Ward's well-written and beautifully paced - fortunately fictional- book kept me, literally in some places, breathless.  I wanted to scrabble through the plot to find out when this psychopath would strike next and whom or what would be killed, but had to calm down and stay with it so I wouldn't miss anything. There are not many novelists who can force the reader to feel genuine fear as the innocent become slowly entangled in the stranglehold of the perpetrator. Ms Stephen-Ward is relentless in keeping up the pressure, making the reader want to shout to the innocent to be careful - "Can't you see you're in deadly danger?"I wanted to shake the other main character, Maurice, for his cowardice even though I understood how frightened he was. I couldn't help but invest care in the fate of the prey of the monster, heavily disguised as a boring, fat pushy individual - to all except poor Maurice.This novel came to my notice highly recommended and it leaves the same way! Congratulations, Mrs Stephen-Ward for a thrilling experience.