What happens when ambition trumps the truth?
A town reeling in the wake of tragedy
An arsonist is on the loose in Colmstock, Australia, most recently burning down the town’s courthouse and killing a young boy who was trapped inside..
An aspiring journalist desperate for a story
The clock is ticking for Rose Blakey. With nothing but rejections from newspapers piling up, her job pulling beers for cops at the local tavern isn’t nearly enough to cover rent. Rose needs a story-a big one.
Little dolls full of secrets
In the weeks after the courthouse fire, precise porcelain replicas of Colmstock’s daughters begin turning up on doorsteps, terrifying parents and testing the limits of the town’s already fractured police force.
Rose may have finally found her story. But as her articles gain traction and the boundaries of her investigation blur, Colmstock is seized by a seething paranoia. Soon, no one is safe from suspicion. And when Rose’s attention turns to the mysterious stranger living in the rooms behind the tavern, neighbor turns on neighbor and the darkest side of self-preservation is revealed.
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In a sentence? I can’t possibly put all my thoughts and emotions in one sentence. I was reading this book non-stop for a whole day. I was reading and writing down notes. Notes that I thought were important. Notes that I thought described the characters. Little did I know…
As the story unfolded so did all of the main characters. A girl, a best friend, dreaming of a simple life in a simple place with a husband to care for her and children to raise would turn out to be one of the ugliest and cruelest monsters. A man, a messiah, a protector, an emitome of masculinity, every woman’s dream would unfold to be a bully, a sick and horrible creature capable of unspeakable things to satisfy minute desires and cravings.
Yes, the story is horrifying. Some places are more horrifying in their simplicity, familiarity and predictability than others.
Small town mentality is worse than Stephen King’s monsters. Small town that is dying of decay, poverty and crime is even worse. Everyone on their own. Town is a jungle and only the cruelest survive.
Little secrets cause big pain. Little secrets uncover big crimes. Little secrets poison the town like millions of infected papercuts. Everything explodes in the end. Everything breaks, fractures and burns as the bodies in this story.
Once I finished this book I could not bring myself to sort out who is bad and who is good in this story. There is no clear division, no clear boundaries. It feels like everything that seemed good even though simple and limited turned out to be the worst and the cruelest.
The main character Rose manages to leave this town in the end. She leaves behind ruins of the town, ruins of the people she thought she knew and ruins of all the relationships she’s ever had in her life.
She leaves the place, but she does not leave herself behind. It will still be the same her… with her little secrets.
This book is definitely is not a light read. However, it is very engrossing and overwhelming. I’ve read it in a day as I could not put it down. I could not believe an unfolding fabric that was taking place in the story. I gasped and swore too many times along the way.
Humans are dangerous. They are cruel to each other
Svetlana Tishchenko 