Behind the Red Door proves that not only did Megan Collins conquer "second novel syndrome," she is a thriller writer who will (and should!) become an auto purchase for readers. Collins excels at writing about extremely dysfunctional child/parent relationships and that, coupled with a genuinely gripping missing persons case, makes for a gripping read. The ending is a little too neat for my tastes, but I'm picky. And love much more ambiguous endings!

I loved the main character, Fern, who is a mass of anxieties thanks to her parents, who were neglectful and emotionally abusive. Watching her cycle through patterns she knows are harmful but rationalizes away will ring true for every abused child who hoped that "this time will be different," and when she finally breaks free, it's an extremely effective and moving moment.

And I loathed Fern's parents, Mara and Ted, and it's a testament to Collins's skill that I kept reading even as their manipulations made me cringe.

As a thriller, Behind the Red Door absolutely succeeds but for me, it shone brightest in its navigation of the often extremely complex relationship between abusive parents and their children. Very, very highly recommended.

I have got to be honest, I am still gathering all of my feelings up for Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins, but I will say this is a quick, engrossing, and frustrating read. I don't think I truly liked a single character in this book and Fern and her father both made me want to throw my book across the room. BUT, I have got to hand it to Collins for producing so many emotions in me! I did not see the end coming, and it was all a surprise to me. I had so many theories while reading the book and then it turned out not a single one was right. It may have its flaws, but I am always impressed when a book can keep me guessing and that is exactly what Behind the Red Door did.

It's a rather slow burn, but all of the chapters are fairly short, and it is a very quick read so this could easily be read in one sitting. This is my first time reading a book by this author and it will definitely not be my last! I really enjoyed Collins' writing style, and I am hoping characters in her other books will have more of a backbone. I prefer books that have strong female leads and that is not what I would call Fern, but she did redeem herself a bit in the end for me which I was happy about. And honestly she was definitely the way she was because of the story and if she would have been a strong lead this would have been a different book.

I don't think a whole lot can be said about Behind the Red Door without giving anything away so I highly recommend going in mostly blind. I do wish the end would have answered more of my questions, but overall this is a thrilling, suspenseful read that I highly recommend if you don't mind unlikable characters.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy of this book, all opinions and thoughts are my own.

This was a cleverly crafted suspense novel with some twists and turns. The tale kept me turning the pages to see what Fern remembered.
Many thanks to Atria Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria for an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This book starts off fast and intriguing, capturing your attention almost immediately. Unfortunately for me, that didn't last throughout the whole book. I found the book just repeating itself over and over, following the exact same steps, repeated again and again.

I'm really not sure how to even write a short synopsis without giving anything away. Fern Douglas catches the news that Astrid Sullivan is missing again, 20 years after she was originally taken. Her dreams start becoming more and more vivid, making her believe there's more to then than just a dream. When Fern has to return home to help her father pack up his house, her dreams turn into memories. Fern's past quickly comes back to haunt her, but who can tell what is real and what is a lie?

None of the characters were likeable for me. Fern was a leaf shaking in the wind, constantly on edge and triple guessing herself and it got old fast. The addition of the underlying part of the story (I won't mention in case it's a spoiler) I felt was so wildly unnecessary and added nothing to the story, but instead make it another annoyance. A lot of the twists weren't that surprising, but the ending totally caught me off guard and I didn't think it was all that great. Unfortunately this wasn't a win for me.

Dark and disturbing. Tents and atmospheric. I have not read a book that has made me cringe quite as much as this one in quite some time. There were SO many seriously disturbed characters it’s a wonder that Fern wasn’t more screwed up. Fern is summoned home by her less than stellar father to help him pack because he is moving to Florida. At the same time a woman goes missing. The missing woman Astrid went missing previously 20 years ago and Fern is convinced there is a connection, not only between these incidences, but between herself and Astrid. As fern reads Astrid’s memoir and is prodded by her father the pieces of the past start to come together. Can Fern help find Astrid and will this unlock secrets of her past?

OK... Fern had the most messed up parents ever. Her father was a psychologist who studied fear and used his daughter as a research subject, running experiments on her. I legit cannot understand why she was even there helping him move he was such an awful person. And her mom was just as bad she let all of this happen? Ugh 😫 This was a book bursting with unreliable narrator‘s, I don’t think anyone was honest about what was going on. The mystery of the missing woman Astrid was interesting, but I wish there was a little more tension. It also could’ve been a little more fast-paced, I like my thrillers to be a little more frantic. A well told thriller with some well developed deranged characters.

This book in emojis 🚪 🖼 📕 🐝 🩸 📱

*** Big thank you to Atria for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

A dark psychological thriller/mystery chock full of suspense and intrigue. Twisted family dynamics to say the least! Not surprising that Fern makes bad choices and has psychological issues after growing up in a household in which her father conveniently used her as a lab rat. Collins’ imperfect well-fleshed characters seem real and the disturbing story kept me on my feet with numerous twists and surprises.

Behind the Red Door is a 320-page mystery novel by Megan Collins. I received an ARC from NetGalley as a recommendation based on the fact that I love Ruth Ware’s novels. If you like Ruth Ware, you might enjoy Behind the Red Door, too.

Behind the Red DoorAlthough the mystery of the story is great (a decades-old kidnapping that was never solved, even though the kidnapped child was returned), my favorite thing was how well the author portrayed the main character, Fern, who suffers from anxiety. Collins not only shows the inner workings of Fern’s mind and her reactions to stressful and anxiety-inducing situations, she also peppers in bits of wisdom from Fern’s therapist. That’s completely relatable, considering that when I’m feeling particularly anxious, I also repeat mantras my therapist has told me.

Fern has a supportive husband and a prickly relationship with her parents, and those relationships are explored in depth since Fern goes back to her hometown to help her father with *a task* (spoiler). While she’s back home, Fern encounters childhood friends and bullies, and it’s fascinating to see what spikes her anxiety and how she copes with old trauma. Since she’s spending time away from her husband, she has to be her own anchor in an increasingly unsettling situation. While she deals with all of that, she also fuels her own obsession with a recurring dream and her possible connection to the decades-old kidnapping.

It’s not often that I read a mystery novel and come away with an appreciation of how much the main character grew throughout the story. This book is definitely an exception, because the character work was outstanding. Add to that an exploration of mental health and complex family dynamics… Behind the Red Door is truly fantastic and a quick, engrossing read.

Although this one has 'the writing on the wall' it's so well written and atmospheric that I couldn't put it down.
Fern was raised by a couple of pretty eccentric parents that left her begging for her dad's attention and love.
A woman that has been kidnapped and then released by her captor twenty years ago has gone missing again. When watching TV, Fern gets the strange feeling she's met the missing woman before when she was young. The disconnected memories nag at Fern and send her searching for the answers of who kidnapped the woman and what her role in the events might be.
Ferns father calls her asking her to help him pack up his New Hampshire house as he's moving to Florida. Feeling this might be the breakthrough in their relationship she's craved her whole life, Fern agrees and goes to help him.
With deft writing Ferns anxiety is palpable as she discovers new memories.
I found myself totally captivated by this story and was invested from start to finish. The characters are well fleshed out and believably strange.
Although the identity of the kidnapper is fairly apparent early on there is a final reveal I didn't see coming that poses a new quandary for Fern.

I fell in love Megan Collins’ writing when I read her debut novel The Winter Sisters. Her second book, Behind the Red Door, is equal in its storytelling.

This book is intense! The pace and plot are enthralling. The unreliable narrators and flawed characters make for a psychological thriller that you cannot put down. I felt the weight of the dread and paranoia of the main character, Fern.

There are so many broken, damaged characters, and their abusive background is not necessarily physical. I loved the imagery and analogy of Fern’s mom creating art from fragments of broken items where they are landed. How could you not love the literary message behind her art entitled “Exquisite Fragments”!?!

Fern, whose decision to become a social worker stems from her fragility and her past as an adoptee, has a rather delicate disposition. Her path towards finding herself and establishing some personal strength comes through her steps to save Astrid, a woman whose memoir about being abducted has led to her re-abduction and that has led to Fern’s shattered memories and dreams.

Ms. Collins’ story premise and characters are fabulous. Whether an antagonist or a protagonist, the characters are very compelling. The plot is well paced, and the story layout is made more interesting with excerpts from one character’s memoir. Behind the Red Door is an intense psychological thriller that is thought provoking and filled with twists and big reveals.

Where do I begin??

Let’s start with trigger warnings:
Child Abuse
Kidnapping
Mental abuse

Okay that should cover everything. But please don’t let these triggers completely run you off. Child abuse is the most minor in the three. But before you judge a book on the trigger warnings let me tell you a little about this book!

Fern is a school counselor who has just finished the school year. She doesn’t have to worry about anything but herself for a few months. She has an abundance of fears that she continually makes a list for to help her. Her therapist says making a list is a way to cope with the fear and get it out of her head.

Fern can’t help but feel she has been missing something since she saw the memoir of Astrid Sullivan. She knows that she has seen her face somewhere besides the billboards with her book on it but she can’t place where. Then Astrid goes missing, AGAIN.

Fern knows that she is the only one that can help find her but she doesn’t know how. Fern gets a call from her dad saying he needs her help packing because he is moving to Florida. Fern has always wanted her dads attention because he was never really a parent to her because of the “experiments” he did with her as the subject with fear.

Fern travels to help her father and as she gets there she can’t help but have the need to find out who Astrid was to her and how she knows her. Fern goes on a wild ride to work through her issues along side her dad while searching for answers about her and Astrid.

HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS BOOK:

I absolutely loved how resilient Fern is and how she handles everything thrown at her in this book. I would have been the exact opposite. I would have yelled and screamed and torn a couple houses down (metaphorically.) There are several times I feel like she let things skate by when she should have used her backbone that she has to stand up for herself regarding her dad and another character. I wanted her to tell these people to shove it, and others I just wanted her to be honest with. Like come clean and just say what you need to say.

I really loved her husband Eric and his character in general. He was an absolute GEM in the middle of chaos. I just wish he could have played a somewhat bigger role.

I don’t want to say the things I didn’t like because they are just personal bias towards a few characters. But it’s completely normal to have those feelings towards them when you are fully immersed in a book. And there was NOTHING WRONG with having characters you dislike. It’s just part of book.



Thank you so much to Atria Books, Megan Collins and Netgalley for the gifted copy!

Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins is a recommended, maybe, psychological thriller.

Fern Douglas, 32, is certain she recognizes a missing woman from Maine named Astrid Sullivan. When Fern sees Astrid's photo, she is sure she knew her when they were younger. Her husband thinks this is because Astrid was kidnapped twenty years ago, when she was fourteen, and the case, which occurred near Fern's hometown in New Hampshire, was widely publicized. Her incredible return was also across the news. As she starts to have nightmares about Astrid as a girl, Fern thinks she may hold the clue to Astrid's current whereabouts, because she also thinks her nightmares may be memories. Fern is going back to her hometown to help her father pack for his move to Florida. While there she plans to look into Astrid's disappearance years ago to see if it will provide clues to her memories/nightmares and perhaps lead to the location of Astrid today.

Fern's parents are a real piece of work. Her father is a psychologist who studies fear and fear responses who used Fern as an experimental subject for his research for her whole childhood. Fern's mother simple ignored her, treating her like a house guest. As a result of her parent's psychological and emotional abuse, Fern grew up starved for affection and traumatized. Throughout the plot are Fern's recollections of many of her father's experiments on her and her responses.

Now, the narrative is focused on Fern looking for answers about Astrid's kidnapping years ago and her memories surrounding it. Fern herself is a bundle of neuroses. She's paranoid, nervous, has ticks and spirals into obsessive thought patterns. Simply put, she's a difficult character to connect with, although most readers will feel great sympathy for her surviving such a traumatic childhood. There are two huge, overwhelming questions that totally detracted from the novel: Why didn't Fern's therapist encourage her to set boundaries with her father and stay away from him for her own mental health? and Why did Fern go to help her father pack? (Why would you help someone who put you through that abuse as a child? Why would you even allow them in your lives in any capacity?) I know, I know, Stockholm syndrome, dissociative disorders, codependency, traumatic bonding, etc., etc... Still, accepting she'd go back to "help" him is a huge part of the novel. Uh, NO.

My final thought is that this novel is predictable right from start to finish. I kept reading, expecting some sort of twist or surprise and, nope, I knew what was happening from the start and nothing altered that assessment. Two things kept me read: looking for the twist and the quality of the writing is good. Collins just needs to work on her plots in the future. 2.5 but I'm rounding up.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Simon and Schuster.
The review will be posted on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

A crime, unsolved for two decades, may have been committed again? What a horror for the victim, and how scary for someone else who suspects she may have been involved.

Poor Fern Douglas. Her serious and constant anxiety, while written well and totally believable, make her not especially comfortable to hang around. She always was imagining what could go catastrophically wrong. The anxiety seems perfectly justified after the childhood she experienced. Her father, Ted, treated her horrifically. He pretty much spends most of the book maintaining that since she was his child, he could treat her however he wanted, short of physically abusing her.

When Fern goes back to her father’s house to help him pack and prepare to move, she thinks since he’s retired they can hang out and actually have a normal relationship. Unfortunately, Ted just wants to see her reactions when a 20-year-old abduction is brought back into the spotlight as the crime seems to have repeated itself.

Without spoiling anything, the plot in this book was really predictable. The author tries to throw a couple alternatives into our reading path, but it all came back around as originally expected. Overall, I’d give the book 3 out of 5 stars. While it was well-written and conveyed the horror of the whole experience of being Fern, the plot played out pretty predictability, and the ending didn’t really leave the reader feeling good about it all.

3.5 ⭐️‘S
Fern had a very unconventional, dysfunctional upbringing, but when her father calls to ask for help, she puts everything aside to head to her childhood home. Maybe this time will be the time she so longs for. On the eve of her trip she sees a news story about a women that was kidnapped 20 years earlier and things start to nag at her. Why is Astrid familiar? Astrid was returned after a month, but the kidnapper was never caught, she’s now gone missing again and Fern can’t figure out why Astrid looks so familiar. Did she know her when they were children? When Fern arrives in Cedar, things are just like always, her father is buried in his research and she is left to pack. When Fern buys a copy of Astrid’s memoir and begins to read, she starts to remember things that she has no reason to remember. Is she connected to Astrid? With its unique storyline this book held my attention all the way through. Collins does a good job keeping us on our toes, but I was a disappointed with the ending, probably because I saw it coming quite early on, but in the end, I still found it to be “noteworthy”.

Heartbreaking and suspenseful, Behind the Red Door reads very quickly and is quite a page turner.

Fern is a wonderful, vivid character dealing with serious anxiety. When Fern is called home by her dad to help him pack to move out of state, family tension combines with Fern's feelings of connection and concern for a stranger, Astrid, who 20 years after a high profile kidnapping where she was returned, has again disappeared. Fern investigates - interrogating people from her past and her own memories - in an effort to both find Astrid and explain why Fern feels a connection to her.

I particularly enjoyed the excerpts from Astrid's memoir (published just prior to her second disappearance) about when she was kidnaped as a child, which are threaded throughout the novel. Recommended for fans of suspense and mystery.

Content Warnings SPOILERS (below):




Child abuse; anxiety, narcissistic personality disorder, PTSD; assault; homophobia; victim blaming

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions in this review are honest and my own. #suspense #mystery #BehindTheRedDoor

Many thanks to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Megan Collins for the opportunity to read and review her latest thriller. I loved The Winter Sister and her sophomore book is also a winner. 4 stars for a dark and disturbing thriller!

Fern Douglas has a debilitating anxiety order that she works on all the time. Her husband, Eric, a doctor, is very supportive and she can lean on him when she is spiraling. But when she sees that a decades-old kidnapping of a woman is back in the news because she has disappeared again, Fern feels that she has a connection to the woman, Astrid. When Fern's dad, Ted, asks her to come back home and help him back for his impending move, it puts her back in the area where the original crime took place. Although Fern has no concrete memory of that time, she has disturbing dreams that she begins to think could be actual memories. But no one will believe her.

Told from Fern's point of view as well as through excerpts from Astrid's book about her kidnapping experience, we follow Fern as she tries to understand what happened in the past as well as to find Astrid now.

Without giving anything away, this book is disturbing on so many levels - but good disturbing in that you will want to continue reading to figure out all the details.

Creepy, ominous, riveting. Fern has dreams about a girl who was kidnapped and then returned 20 years ago. She feels as if she knows her. The woman, Astrid, writes a memoir about her experience and then disappears again. Fern goes back home to help her father pack up and move. She reads the memoir and is drawn to try to help find the woman, before it drives her crazy.

I think Behind the Red Door is one of the darkest hard to read novels I've read. It's a story of a young woman who remembers something in a dream that she believes is something that actually happened to her and proceeds to seek the answers. Back in her hometown to help her father pack and close the family home, Fern feels that a missing woman who was kidnapped as a young person only to go missing again, is the individual she sees in her dream. This is a dream from an event she begins to remember from her childhood. Fern turns investigator when there's little help from local authorities. She is also battling memories of growing up with a, in my opinion, totally messed up psychologically abusive father. From Fern's constant anxiety to her father's 'scientific' experiments I read with unease till the surprising conclusion. I give the novel four stars but at the same time, it is a topic I don't seek to read in the future.

Very good story. This is the first time I’ve read anything from this author but it certainly won’t be the last.

Make sure you’ve got a few hours free when you pick up Behind the Red Door. You won’t want to put this book down! This gripping story about Fern Douglas and her bizarre childhood kept me up way past my bedtime.

Right away, we learn that Fern has severe anxiety that she copes with through medication and counseling (and with much love and patience from her husband). Her husband Eric knows all about Fern’s odd upbringing, so when her dad calls saying he “needs her” to help him pack up the house since he’s moving, he tells Fern that he doesn’t think she should go. However, Fern has always craved her father’s attention, and hearing him say he “needs her” convinces her that he’s finally ready to give her that attention.

Before Fern leaves, she sees a news story about a missing woman who was also missing 20 years ago. Fern is convinced she knows her somehow, but Eric tells her that she must have seen her picture somewhere. This one event stirs up what Fern is convinced are memories of this woman’s first kidnapping.

Behind the Red Door is creepy and intense. Its darkly atmospheric nature pulls you deep into the story so completely that you forget you’re reading a fictional novel. As I read about Fern’s upbringing, I just felt physically ill. It made me want to throttle her parents! I was amazed by the fact that Fern was unable to see how disturbing and messed up her childhood was.

Psychological thrillers are one of my favorite types of books, so all of the chilling details drew me even further into Fern’s story. Collins’s descriptive writing made this book for me. I knew who the “villain” was way before the reveal, but I think we’re supposed to know. That’s part of the horrific nature of the crime. Yes, there are a few characters who could also have committed the crime. However, as the layers of the story are peeled back, it becomes more and more obvious whodunit.

If you’re a fan of psychological thrillers, you’ll be captivated by Behind the Red Door.

One of the most disturbing, twisted thrillers I’ve read. But behind these twists is some of the most lyrical and real text I’ve read. Words and phrases about anxiety jumped off the page. Tough to read at times with the neglect and darkness but one of the BEST thrillers I’ve read. First time reading this author but won’t be the last!!!!