Review: The Hiding Place

This was a good book.

Typically this would be a positive thing, to have read a good book. And this being a good book, I did enjoy reading it.

But I was also definitely disappointed. I had such high expectations for this book, because of how much I loved Tudor's first book The Chalk Man. The Chalk Man was one of my favorite books of the year when I first read it.

The Hiding Place had so many of the qualities that made The Chalk Man so great-suspense, mystery, twists, secrets from the past, and horror. It tells the story of a man who returns to the small town he grew up in, a town where his sister disappeared, reappeared, and died. Now whatever terrible thing happened back then seems to be happening again, all connected to a horror from the past that refuses to stay buried.

The supernatural elements just do not work in this book, however. They seem unexplained and unresolved, and not as well integrated as I would have liked. This kept taking me out of the story, which was suspenseful and scary enough on its own without the supernatural elements.

From many other authors, a good book would have left me happy and content. But I just wanted so much more from Tudor's second story. I've got my fingers crossed about the third.