The Captive - Fiona King Foster (Releases January 12, 2021) 🌟🌟🌟
I think if you are looking for a gritty, rural noir, this read just might be for you. I confess it elicited more mixed feelings than anything else for me and I included all the reasons why in my review below. That said, the writing is evocative and it placed me as the reader immediately in the scene. If a Hatfields vs. McCoys-style story interests you, perhaps check this one out. My full Goodreads review is below and HERE.
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Let me relax my jaw and unclench my hands as this read made me tense throughout as all good thrillers do. The premise of this one is so interesting and it was one the reasons I could not resist reading it. I needed to resist reading it because my TBR is honestly embarrassingly long, but it just sounded so interesting and it definitely was! Now I have to say that I came away with rather mixed feelings about this one, although my overall impression is positive.
I never summarize books so if you are looking for a summary, I am going to fail you. I will say this is set in a dystopian society where there are "states" that have succeeded and now live by their own laws. In all honesty, spending all of this time with racist, white, violent folks is not exactly fun reading. While none of this is glorified in any way, it was emotionally exhausting. I feel that it is important to give this trigger warning.
In addition to this exhausting setting, our main protagonist makes decision after decision that left me as a reader absolutely frustrated. While the book slowly delves into the background of our main character in a way that makes her frustrating decisions easier to understand as the we delve further into the book, it still dissatisfied me as a reader.
Probably one of the most frustrating plot points involves children who are lost in the woods at one point in this tale. The adults in the novel were just a little too lax about it. It was UNFATHOMABLE to me that characters would have these long-ass conversations or even sleep while children were missing!! How were they not restless and uprooting every single tree to find these kids?!?!?!? Can you tell I hated this?!?!??! Do the exclamation points not prove this?!?!?!
All that aside, in terms of thrills and actually being a really, really interesting story, this one lives up to it. I had, have, a rollercoaster of emotions about it, but by the time I turned the last page I really found that I liked the tale overall. I think readers looking for a dark, gritty thriller will not be unhappy with this one. Just know there might be a few frustrations along the way.
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