THE HOUSE IN THE PINES
by Ana Reyes
I kicked off my beach reads a little early this year and devoured this book during an amazing weekend away for a friend’s wedding. A swirling mix of suspense, psychological mystery, romance and coming of age, there was nothing I didn’t love about The House in the Pines. Except maybe how stressed I got reading the last 75 pages!
Maya is a troubled young woman who is hiding several secrets from her live-in boyfriend, the primary one being her dependence on drugs and alcohol to sleep each night. And although she knows it is keeping her from her dreams of becoming a writer, substances are the only way she can repress the trauma of seeing her best friend drop dead in front of her at age 17. When Maya’s old boyfriend, who was the only other witness to her best friend's death, appears in a viral video showing the sudden, unexplained death of another young woman, all of Maya’s fears and suspicions come flooding back.
Reyes has created a masterful maze of a plot about the human psyche that, while I couldn’t predict where it was going, always felt inevitable and true. The House In The Pines is the kind of psychological thriller that I live for, and if they made it into a movie I would watch it tomorrow! (Lily)
