Ratings5
Average rating4.2
It begins with a door in a dusky corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire. A door that someone has sealed it shut with thirty-nine enormous carriage bolts. The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin daughters. Chip was an an airline pilot until he was forced to crash land on a remote lake the jet he was flying after double engine failure. Thirty-nine people aboard Flight 1611 died that day - a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door ...Meanwhile, his wife is increasingly troubled about the women in this sparsely populated village, self-proclaimed 'herbalists'. Why do they seem excessively interested in her young daughters.
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This is the second book this year that tricked me by being excellent until I pass my cut off point (four chapters or 100 pages) and then just sucking. I feel like I carried this one on my back during a marathon I didn't want to run.
I did switch to audio book about mid-way though but even that was painful at times.
The words “moreover” and “tincture” were so awful sounding, and he uses these words A LOT!
And constantly calling these crazy asses “herbalists” was super getting on my nerves. This WASPy retelling of Rosemary's Baby happens ON TOP of a poor airline pilot who is being haunted by the ghosts of people who died on a plane he crashed.
So, it loses one star for having 10 year olds that speak and think like 40 year olds and another star for being just plain bourgeoisie.
Beyond that, I have read many, many reviews and it seems this is NOT the Bohjalian I should have started with. His fans say this is a terrible representation of his work and someone I trust very much gave me another title to read and begged me not to give up on him.
So, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, simply because he had me enthralled with the first part of this book.