Review: This therapy would give me permanent paranoia!
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 13, 2014
Daphne Janus and her friend Cam arrive at an island resort where she has agreed to receive therapy via Dr. Hortense Gray's therapeutic games.Dr. Gray's games are unconventional and not at all what Daphne expected. At first we are unaware of what the issue is that Daphne requires the therapy for, just that she is terribly unhappy. It slowly comes to light that she blames herself for a family tragedy.The therapy that Dr. Gray employed involved included making the patient face their particular fears by placing them in fearful situations so that they truly believe they are in danger for their lives. The use of ghosts and the Native rituals of the Chumash Indians were also employed.The Purgatorium was an intriguing look at a strange method of curing someone from depression and suicidal thoughts. Whether or not it would truly work is unknown and rather an extreme form of treatment.The descriptions of the island are easy to visualize. The resort sounded like a paradise. The only issue I had with it was that I do not believe that any horseback riding tour company would use animals that were as ill- disciplined as the ones that Daphne and her group were using on her ride that morning. Generally those animals are so docile that you can't get them to do anything BUT follow the rear of the horse in front of them so it would be unlikely to be thrown from one.It was fun to see how the author was able to take each of the situations that Daphne was put in and how she was able to make it seem as though to Daphne it was real, but show later how it could have been faked.I liked Daphne's character and felt for her as she trusted her friend Cam at first and then wasn't sure whether to trust him or not. I was totally surprised each time (as she was) someone she trusted betrayed her. Each of those people were believable.I have to admit that I truly hope that this book is ONLY fantasy. I would not ever want to find myself on an island like this for therapy. I think it might scare me into paranoia. This was a good book for armchair suspense and thrills. I gave it a healthy 3 stars out of 5.Thank you to the author for providing a copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review. A positive opinion was not required. All thoughts are my own.This review was published on my blog Shelf Full of Books [...]