Reviewed by Michelles_Cosy_Booknook
4.75 ⭐
⚠️ Please check trigger warnings before reading — this is a dark, psychological horror that does not hold back.
What if the scariest thing isn’t what you can see… but what you can’t quite trust?
Ava is a teacher living a quiet, independent life — content, settled, and happy. Until small things begin to feel… wrong. Objects aren’t where she remembers leaving them. And there’s an unsettling sense that she’s not alone.
Then she wakes up in a cage.
Not alone. Not safe. Not in control.
Imprisoned alongside three other women, Ava is forced to live by the suffocating, unspoken rules of a faceless man who lurks in the shadows. Silence is survival. Obedience is expected. And any deviation — even kindness — is punished.
This book is intensely claustrophobic. The kind of read where you find yourself holding your breath without realising it. I genuinely had to pause a few times just to let my heart rate settle.
Ava’s journey is where this story truly shines. She begins with resilience, compassion, and quiet strength — a light in an otherwise brutal environment. But as the cruelty escalates and hope becomes dangerous, you watch that light begin to flicker… and fade. The psychological unraveling here is painfully well done.
And then comes the shift.
Because behind every monster, there’s an origin. A reason. And as Ava starts to uncover the truth, something dangerous sparks back to life: hope.
But in a place built on fear and control, hope might be the most dangerous thing of all.
This is the kind of psychological horror that seeps under your skin and stays there. The kind that follows you into quiet moments and creeps back into your thoughts long after you’ve finished. It completely reignited my love for the genre.
Chelsea O'Hara has crafted something gripping, unsettling, and impossible to look away from.
I will absolutely be reading more from her — and recommending this to anyone who loves dark, deeply psychological horror that lingers.
I would like to offer a very sincere thank you to both Chelsea O'Hara, and to Beth at Wings and Words, for the advance read of Elias. Please note, all opinions expressed within this review, are my own.