• Author: Caitlin Marceau
• Publisher: Darklit Press
• Year of publishing: 2022
• Number of pages: 95
• ISBN: 978-1738658503

Review:

This novelette gives off serious ‘Norman Bates meets Annie Wilkes’ vibes, and I didn’t know I needed that!

Am I glad I decided to take part in the read along hosted by @theindiehorrorbookclub on instagram. This story is hair-raising.

Make sure you read the trigger warnings at the end of the book! Among them are bodyshaming and mental health issues… and these are definitely in there!

The story’s about Miller, a thirty-four year old woman, who lives with her fiancée Florence. Miller’s been estranged from her mother because of the tense relationship between them. But ever since Miller’s father passed away, her mother Sylvie is trying to reconnect with Miller. So Sylvie invites Miller to join her on a little trip to a cabin just to talk and reconnect.

Although Miller is pretty reluctant and Florence is not having it, she agrees to join her.

But the cabin she’s taken to is a recreation of her childhood home, down to the littlest details (even Miller’s clothing from back then have an adult version), trapping Miller with Sylvie in the middle of nowhere while a blizzard is raging. Sylvie has plans to revive the ‘happy family’ they once had… and Miller has no way out!

This unnerving synopsis makes for a great story. This was my first time reading something by author Caitlin Marceau… but I think her name will resonate in indie horror landscapes! Her writing is on point and very chilling… you can feel the sense of claustrophobia of being trapped in a cabin, somewhere isolated and caught by a snowstorm where no escaping is possible…

With a mix of Stephen King’s Misery and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho you may have an inkling of a sense of how this story might feel like!

Sylvie, Miller’s mom, is not your typical mother but combine mental illness with loneliness and some of those synapses are bound to get overloaded and when that happens you don’t want to be too close to that person, I guess!

Horrifying, creepy, unnerving, hair-raising, spine-chilling… all words that can easily describe this novelette!