This story begins with our main character, Fern, hearing about a missing woman on the news. She has the overwhelming sense that she knows this woman but cannot place her. The story centers around Fern trying to unravel the connection. We get flashbacks of Fern's childhood as well as pieces of her current personal life that aren't really connected to solving the missing woman connection.
I'll be honest, I had a good idea who was behind the main source of the plot not that far into the book. I thought the clues were way too obvious which is why I had to give the book only three stars. There was another twist that I didn't see coming but I thought it was really outlandish and felt like the author was trying to do a shocking twist only for the sake of shock. Overall I thought the story had a lot of potential but unfortunately just missed the mark for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for my {Gifted} Review Copy. All opinions are my own,
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Megan Collins is becoming one of my go to for quick thrillers. I love how she doesn't add words unnecessarily, she doesn't drag the story out just to have additional pages and she keeps the story flowing. I am always intrigued. Behind the Red Door was no different.
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This novel was fascinating. It had it all. Toxic parents. Unreliable narrator (self admittedly). A fascinating study of human behavior. What exactly does fear do to a child? Yes, all of that. I am not going to go into the novel with specifics....keeping it spoiler free, I will say. This entire story. Fascinating. Was it a great suspense? No, not really....but I questioned my decision on the "who done it" at every turn!
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I'm going to highly recommend Behind the Red Door. Megan brings it all to you. Plus....who doesn't love a quick thriller?

This is a book I have had sitting on my shelf for months. I had seen mixed reviews and was wary about picking it up.

I was quickly pulled into the storyline of Astrid Sullivan who was kidnapped years ago and has now vanished once again leaving everyone to think her kidnapper ( who was never caught) came back for her.

Fern Douglas sees the latest news story regarding Astrid’s disappearance and knows that she has seen this woman before. Years ago. When she went missing the first time.

Sadly this became a very predictable read that I guessed so early on I had nothing left to enjoy or discover. I do occasionally wear my detective’s cap and guess an ending, but never this early in a book.

I do have the next release from this author on my shelf and am looking forward to it.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.

YES YES YES!!! I highly recommend this book. Different than what I normally read and completely unputdownable.
Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me the thrill of reading early.

There was so much hype over this book. I went in expecting one thing and was pleasantly shocked at how wrong I was. This one was definitely a worthwhile read!

In this psychological thriller, Fern had a messed up childhood with an indifferent mother and a psychology professor father who was mostly interested in her for helping him with his research into fear. When the book starts, she is still extremely anxious, but now a mostly functioning adult with a husband and social work job. But then a woman named Astrid who had been kidnapped and then returned as a teenager publishes a memoir and then disappears again, and at the same time Fern’s father asks her to come home to help him pack his house so he can move - and the confluence of these events cause Fern to believe she had seen Astrid as a child and starts trying to figure out where she is. Pretty interesting premise, and the book definitely creates a good atmosphere of suspense, and creepiness. However, it also suffers from the weakness that bothers me most about some thrillers - total and utter preposterousness. I know some people love completely crazy thrillers and they will probably enjoy this one more than I did - but I just can’t deal with books where the characters and plot are this ridiculously unbelievable. (And yet predictable as well.) All that being said, this book did keep me reading. It just wasn’t for me.

When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing Maine woman, she's positive that she knows her. Back in her childhood home in New Hampshire she discovers that she too had gone missing as a child and in fact does have a connection to this woman. Convinced she can use her unfolding memories to find Astrid she goes on desperate search for answers. I was hooked from the beginning to the end.

This was a fun thriller! Not the best ever, but paced well and with an interesting plot line. It kept my attention the whole time I was reading which is a plus in my book!

Woah, I really loved this book. It had just the right amount of suspense that kept me on every page and completely sucked me into the story. I've already recommended this book to friends and followers.

I could not stop reading this! I was instantly hooked. Fern hears about a woman, Astria, that has gone missing, 20 years after she was abducted before. Fern senses she knows this woman. Memories start coming back to her. Fern realizes she has suppressed memories. She tries to remember in Hope's of helping Astria. In doing so, she uncovers secrets she is shocked to learn.

This is a great psychological thriller that I highly recommend. There were twists I didn't see coming that made my jaw drop! Great book!

New author to me, and I am glad to find a new thriller writer as we can never have enough! This kept my attention throughout the story as I enjoyed the twists.

Although I found the book hard to follow, I enjoyed the original storyline and I am sure many readers will as well. Interestingly I couldn’t really categorize the book or the intended audience. Is it fantasy, well not exactly. Dystopian? Hmm. Maybe. Mystery? Sort of. It’s a creative plot and well worth the time to read. Looking forward to the author’s next book. Although published several months ago I realized my review never made it online. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the arc.

Wow what a f-ed up family cycle these people got stuck in. And the thoughts acknowledging themselves as right and good are fascinating and terrifying at the same time. I really enjoyed picking apart Fern and her father's interactions. I honestly could have done without Astrid's book excerpts because the turmoil inside Fern's life was so strong. Eric is a wonderful man and is just the right person to guide and help and love Fern. Rita is not the right person for Astrid, she is enabling and attention starved also. This shows the difference in outcomes for people with the same experiences.

Atmospheric, Disturbing and a Tad Predictable.

Astrid Sullivan went missing as a teen and then reappeared a month later. Now, as an adult, Astrid has gone missing again.

Fern Douglas was raised in a family where she calls her parents by their given names. Her father is a psychologist who treated his daughter as a subject rather than his child.

The moment Fern sees the news story about Astrid having gone missing yet again, Fern feels there’s a connection. Fern is convinced that she has insider knowledge.

The themes here involve: Kidnapping; Repressed Memories; Dysfunctional Families; and Unreliable Narrators. “Behind the Red Door” by Megan Collis is dark and disturbing. That being said, it was clear from quite early on where this was going to go which took quite a bit away from the convoluted storyline.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the arc.

While reading Megan Collins's Behind the Red Door I followed along the "true crime" feel journey when Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan and thinks its her. I enjoyed reading about how the story unfold.

Fern Douglas gets pulled into the mystery of Astrid Sullivan, a 34-year-old woman who was kidnapped at the age of 14 and eventually returned, only to disappear 20 years later. Even though Fern’s hometown was only an hour away from where the original kidnapping happened, she doesn’t remember the incident since she was so young.
Fern returns to her father’s house to help her father pack for his move, picked up a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir and soon has the feeling that she has some sort of connection with the missing woman. And upon digging, she discovers much more than she is expecting.
Megan Collins’ books usually offer an intriguing story. This one is no exception.

This was a good, fast-paced read. It was also a bit hard to read because the father is such a complete $%#@. I wanted to kick him over and over. But there was some satisfaction in the ending.

This book has all my psychology-background wheels spinning on turbo speed. It's a deja-vu fest for main character Fern -- get ready for sudden flashbacks and repressed memories galore. While it's not a surprising suspense story, my heart pounded several times.

The main mystery and twists were pretty easy to figure out early on, even with multiple red herrings thrown in for good measure. I still rated it 4 stars, though, because watching Fern's transformation and growth was worth the read.

Fern Douglas is a troubled, anxiety ridden young woman who has had a rocky relationship with her parents. Trying to put her past behind her, she's now married to a wonderful man named Eric, a doctor in Boston. He is her champion. When her father in New Hampshire says that he needs her help to pack up for a move, she's hesitant yet agrees to come and help.

There's also been a story on the news about a missing young woman from Maine named Astrid Sullivan who was kidnapped 20 years earlier when she was only 14. Although Astrid was returned, she is now missing again on the 20-year anniversary of the first kidnapping. All of this happened about an hour from where Fern grew up, yet she has no memory of the event. When she decides to buy a copy of the missing woman's memoir, reoccurring nightmares make Fern feel like she may have some way been connected.

This was a fast moving psychological thriller that had me riveted. The setting in rural Maine, a cabin in the woods was perfect. The narrator was sympathetic because of terrible childhood she had at the hands of her irresponsible parents. There are more than a few odd characters in this book and although I guessed the abductor, I still enjoyed this book a lot. Not perfect but - Recommended

Well-written, unique, and perfectly paced, Behind the Red Door is a tense suspense novel that had me staying up all night to get to the end. Fern, our unreliable narrator, has a childhood no one would ever envy and it has left her with some serious trauma. She helps children with difficulties in her line of work, but she fails to face her own anxiety and past. She covers it up and continues to starve for the attention from her father, a professor and fear researcher. When a trip home to help her father pack coincides with a major news event Fern realizes it may be her own memories that are suppressed and she may hold the key to helping locate a missing woman.

Behind the Red Door is the sort of book you just have to read, it's too easy to spoil. Megan Collins gives readers multiple unreliable characters, several plots, and a multi-faceted mystery that, despite guessing early on, had me turning pages as quick as I could. It's a smart thriller, it's clear Collins did her research to make it believable, and I really enjoyed the complexity of the psychological side of it. Twisted and atmosphere, this is the book for readers looking for a unique suspense read.