A year or so ago, I saw an article online which included Mylo Carbia on a list which purported to be the ten best horror writers alive today. Based on this, I obtained this book from Amazon to see what all the hype was about. I finally got around to reading it and it definitely did draw me into a rather intense tale about a wealthy woman, Violet, living in Manhattan who discovers her husband is having an affair with a young 20-something beauty named Allegra. Somehow Violet is able to kidnap Allegra and hold her captive in the basement (which is converted into a safe room) of her luxurious Manhattan mansion while her husband is away on business. Violet is bulimic and has had some other mental issues and is still seeing a retired psychiatrist. She is also enamored with Grimm's original fairy tales which are sometimes quite graphic and violent. (She mentions the original Cinderella story where the stepsisters actually cut off their toes to try to fit in the slipper when the Prince brings it by. I had never heard this before but coincidentally, I recently read Stephen King's Later and he also includes this as part of his story). Violet tells some of these violent stories to Allegra during her captivity as supposed moral lessons. In the mean time, Allegra is trying her best to escape but she is locked behind two steel doors with different security codes needed to open them. And then the story has a very unexpected twist at the end that comes out of the blue and sort of turns the whole story upside down.
Overall, I thought this was a decent thriller. Like I said, the twist at the end was very unexpected but it was also quite far-fetched and I'm not sure I really liked the ending. I think Carbia is a very good thriller writer. She supposedly has also written screenplays for movies but I only found one movie on IMDB with her as a writer and it was a documentary. Although I did enjoy this, I don't think I would consider Carbia to be one of the ten best horror writers alive. However, I would probably read something else by her if I happened upon it.
Overall, I thought this was a decent thriller. Like I said, the twist at the end was very unexpected but it was also quite far-fetched and I'm not sure I really liked the ending. I think Carbia is a very good thriller writer. She supposedly has also written screenplays for movies but I only found one movie on IMDB with her as a writer and it was a documentary. Although I did enjoy this, I don't think I would consider Carbia to be one of the ten best horror writers alive. However, I would probably read something else by her if I happened upon it.
