I loved this book and can’t wait to see what this debut author has to offer next. It was a fast paced page turner.

Maya has done everything she can to forget a past where her friend drops dead in front of her. But when she sees a YouTube video of a similar situation, she can’t help but wonder if the man involved is at it again. She travels home to confront her fears and search for the truth.

This book was excellent! The story was so different from anything I’ve read before. The narrator had you questioning the truth from the very beginning through its triumphant conclusion. I loved this book and hope the author will write again!!

Maya was in High school when best friend Aubrey died. It was during the time the were speaking to a mysterious man - Frank. Fast forward 7 years Maya has a boyfriend they are living in Boston she is addicted to prescription medication Aubrey is always at the forefront of her mind.

When a youtube video comes to light, of another young girl dying and Frank is seen to be nearby Maya knows its not a coincidence. As this girl died in a similar way to Aubrey.

Maya starts her own investigation on what happened, Maya with her prescription addiction and of course Alcohol its a little frustrating as she is the pin up "unreliable Character" This one was ok, I really did want a little more clarity in the end of the book and something a little more "in her head" tying back to the trauma and delusions Maya experienced would have been better.

When I was first pitched this book, one thing stood out that made me not pass on it—-Guatemala. My husband is Guatemalan and there really aren’t books out there that feature his culture. Trust me I am always on the look out too! So when I saw that this book would have a Central American theme in it, I was totally on board to not only feature it but also review it!

I have been really loving thrillers and mysteries lately, and I have a special place in my heart for psychological thrillers with unreliable narrators. I featured this one back in early January and couldn’t wait to start reading it. In fact I rearranged some of my review calendar for this book so that should tell you how excited I was for this one. I wasn’t sure how much the Guatemalan angle would play in the story but just seeing it in the summary was enough to make me jump for this one!

This book was also selected as Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club pick for January so clearly it must be worth reading! Reese’s Book Club usually has some great reads. I know I have found quite a few thrillers thanks to her book club that I wouldn’t normally pick up to read. Since this book made her book club, a lot of readers have been hailing it as the thriller to set the tone for the new year. Obviously a lot of hype around this book though for me it was less about the hype and more about what the book promised to deliver—-and did it?

Summary

Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend’s sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed….

Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.

Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer–the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.

At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin….

Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home. (summary from Goodreads)

Review

I don’t know that this book fully delivered for me. It was a great debut, but there were things that didn’t work for me. Did it deliver in the tension and unpredictability of an unreliable narrator? Yes it absolutely did. So if you love unreliable narrators this book hits that target no problem. Though I have to admit I did NOT like Maya. I have a hard time sympathizing with addicts, it’s just a personal trigger for me and I almost always struggle with characters who have substance abuse issues. Am I sympathetic to the reasons behind substance abuse? Yes of course—-I am not heartless. I just have a hard time relating to them as I do not struggle with those things and I have people in my life who have and overall it’s just a trigger for me and I often struggle relating to characters who have those addictions.

In this book though, I think having Maya struggle with the trauma of her past and having it reappear again in adulthood at a vulnerable time for her, really worked. Even if I didn’t love her character, I could appreciate how the trauma of her past impacted her life and shaped her struggles as an adult. In this case, I loved that the book had a past and present timeline. It really brought the story together. And I found that Guatemala really didn’t play a big part in the novel like I had thought—which ultimately was fine but I did have hope that more of the culture would be present in the book but in the end it wasn’t a huge deal and I felt like the book stood alone just fine as a psychological thriller without my hope of additional culture etc.

So what did I think of this one? I liked it and thought it was a good debut. It held my interest and I thought it had a solid premise and a modern thriller feel to it. But I did hope for a stronger ending and maybe a few more twists. It was a fast read so I think fans of the thriller genre who are accustom to quick reads will like that about this one but for me, I was hoping for more of a connection to the characters and a stronger ending, but overall it wasn’t bad and certainly worth a read. It was a solid debut and a good unreliable narrator, but I think as the author, Ana Reyes, writes more, I think she will produce stronger thrillers. In the end I went with a 3 star review—solid good read.

Book Info and Rating

Format

336 pages, HardcoverPublished

January 3, 2023 by Dutton

ISBN 9780593186718 (ISBN10: 0593186710)

Free review copy provided by publisher, Dutton, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and in no way influenced.

Rating: 3 stars

Genre: thriller, mystery, psychological thriller

The House in the Pines, by Ana Reyes

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5 stars

This is Ana Reyes first book and a compelling read. She presents Maya as an unreliable narrator from the beginning- a young woman with demons who is going through withdrawal cold turkey and who drinks heavily. Do you believe her and her memory gaps?

In her dreams she finds herself in a cabin with a mesmerizing pull on her. Echoes of the cabin fins their way into other places in her life.

I appreciated Maya’s back story and learning about the civil war in Guatemala. The yearning she had for home and family is evident throughout the novel.

I think some of it could have been more tightly woven. The time changes and edifying details was occasionally jarring.

The book had a satisfying ending. It was overall a good read - I read it in a day on vacation.

#TheHouseinthePines #NetGalley

THIS BOOK HAD ME GRIPPING MY HAIR and almost pulling it out. I'll be 100% honest. It kept me hooked, wanting to know more, but as I kept reading and reading I became more confused. Once you get a sense that you know what's going on, a plot twist removes the carpet from under you and you're on your head again. I was amazed by the amount of BS one can come up with to make a "thriller" if you can call it that. It's more Sci-Fy to me. Hypnosis? Pleaseeeee.

This one was not for me. I wish the timelines had been more structured because I felt like the story jumped around a bit too much and it left me confused about if we were in present time or refacing about something that happened in the past because it's not spaced out enough or mentioned at all when we get flashbacks it's rather jumbled and confusing. I also did not enjoy the ending or the reveal
The characters....ehhh.

Thank you to netgalley for the advanced copy!

After reading this book, I’m inspired to check out more magical realism. While I don’t know much about the genre, I do feel that the conclusion of this book touches on those blurred lines between reality + fantasy + even what + how we remember certain events in our lives. I was definitely creeped out by Frank + not once, despite her confusion, did I doubt the validity of Maya’s story. It was good for me to read a book outside of my norm.

"An ancient poplar loomed at the entrance to the abandoned road, its rounded mass of huddled gray limbs reminding her of a brain. She passed beneath its lobes, twigs branching like arteries overhead as she entered the forest."
--------------------------------------
"Deep in these woods, there is a house that’s easy to miss.
Most people, in fact, would take one look and insist it’s not there. And they wouldn’t be wrong, not completely. What they would see are a house’s remains, a crumbling foundation crawling with weeds. A house long since abandoned. But look closely at the ground here, at this concrete scarred by sun and ice. This is where the fireplace goes. If you look deeply enough, a spark will ignite. And if you blow on it, that spark will bloom into a blaze, a warm light in this cold dark forest."

Maya Edwards is 25, not well off, ½ Guatemalan, ¼ Irish, ¼ Italian, with no career drive after getting her degree from Boston University. She is from Pittsfield, MA, where her mother still lives. Her father died before she was born. Not the only significant death in her life. When she was 18, her bff, Aubrey, died a mysterious death, at the hands, she believes, of a man they had both dated. But, despite her being present when it happened, there are no viable clues with which to make a case, and folks thought her nuts for even trying. Today Maya has a life, just moved in with her boyfriend, is about to meet his parents, when she sees a video on Youtube. A young woman, in a diner with her bf, suddenly keels over dead. A close look at her table partner reveals the same man who had killed her friend. She is terrified that he might continue to kill women and may become back to Pittsfield to clean up loose ends.

Maya keeps having dreams about a cabin in the woods, a welcoming abode, with a warm blaze in the fireplace, the burning pine logs adding their scent to the room, the log walls offering shelter from a strong wind. It is cozy, feels like home. But there is danger there as well. Frank is there in the dreams, always there. She struggles to understand the sounds she hears, but realizes they are coming from Frank, who appears suddenly behind her, and she wakes, drenched in sweat. So, what’s up with that?

The central mystery (well, there are two, the first one is whether Frank actually killed those two women, and if so how, and) what is the deal with the strange house in the woods that haunts her dreams, the House in the Pines of the title.

Maya is not the most reliable of narrators. She is going through withdrawal from Klonopin. It was prescribed to help her sleep, but the scrip can no longer be filled and she is trying to go cold turkey. She has used alcohol liberally to help her both sleep and drown out the darkness that troubles her. Is she imagining things? Are the drugs and alcohol causing her to hallucinate? Is the stress of white-knuckle withdrawal impairing her ability to reason?

"I was living in Louisiana, working toward my MFA in fiction, and, like Maya,…had suddenly quit Klonopin after several years of taking it nightly for sleep. The doctor who had prescribed it back in LA never said anything about addiction, while my new Baton Rouge doctor treated me like an addict when I asked her for it. She cut me off cold turkey, and I went through protracted withdrawal syndrome, the symptoms of which inform Maya’s experience in the book. Writing about benzodiazepine withdrawal—albeit from her perspective—helped me through it." - from the Book Club Kit

The story flips back and forth between the present day and seven years prior. We get to see her friendship with Aubrey, and how Frank had come between them. We see how her current troubles with withdrawal and her determination to look into the Frank situation may be interfering with her current serious relationship.

Maya does her Miss Marple thing to try to find out what really happened to Aubrey, to find out how Frank killed her, and one more thing. During the few weeks in which she dated Frank, there were multiple episodes in which she lost hours of time. Did Frank drug her? There is peril aplenty, as we take Maya’s word that Frank is a killer, so all her activity might be putting her in mortal peril. If only the cops had taken her seriously, but you know the cops in such almost stories never do.

Pliny the Elder said Home is where the heart is, but how can a place that feels so home-like also be so terrifying? This reflects some events and concerns in Reyes’s life.

"The inspiration was mostly subconscious. I was living alone in a new city, cut off from any place I’d call home, when I wrote the first draft. This lonely feeling inspired one of the book’s major themes, which is the universal yearning to return to a place and time of belonging. That theme shaped the story and helped me build the titular house in the pines." - from the Book Club Kit

Reyes incorporated several elements of her life into the book. In addition to struggles with addiction, both Maya and Ana are half Guatemalan. Both were raised in Pittsfield, MA. The book took seven years to write, and the gap between Aubrey’s death and Maya’s return to the scene of the crime is seven years.

In order to solve the mysteries, Maya must figure out the imagery in an incomplete book her father had been writing when he died in Guatemala. The references take one a bit afield, but if you dig into them, you will be rewarded. I posted some info in EXTRA STUFF.

"Maya’s father’s book points to an important truth about the danger she’s in. For me this was a metaphor for inherited trauma. Like so many people with roots in colonized places, the violence of the past has a way of showing up in the present in unexpected and highly personal ways. This is true for Maya in a very literal sense. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born." - from the Book Club Kit

There are some fairy-tale-like references in here, but I am not sure they are much more than added in passing. One can see certainly see Frank as a seductive wolf, a la Little Red Riding Hood. A musical group dresses as the fairy godmothers, lending one to consider Sleeping Beauty, which is further reinforced by Maya’s several episodes of lost time, and, ironically, her difficulties with sleep. Woods, per se, have always been a source of fear in Western lore.

So, is it any good? Yep. Ana is certainly flawed enough for us to gain some sympathy, although she cashes in some of those chits with occasional foolish decisions. Secondary characters are a mixed lot. Her boyfriend is thinly drawn. Mom has more to her. Her teen bud, Aubrey, even more. Frank is an interesting mix of loser and menace. The strongest bits for me were a visit to Guatemala and the depiction of the attractiveness of the house. I will not give away the explanation for it all, but, while it may have a basis in the real world, I found it a stretch to buy completely. Still, righteous, if damaged, seeker of truth digging into the mysterious, while imperiled by a dark force, with little support from anyone, with a fascinating bit of other-worldliness at its core. I enjoyed my stay in the cabin. Page-turner material.

The image is both comforting and really sinister at the same time once we learn more about it. -
"Exactly. That's definitely what I was going for, that dark side of nostalgia." - from the Salon interview

Review posted - 01/27/23

Publication date – 01/03/23

I received an ARE of The House in the Pines from Dutton in return for a fair review, and another log on the fire. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.

For the complete review with links please see the version on my site - https://cootsreviews.com/2023/01/27/the-house-in-the-pines-by-ana-reyes/

**Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Group Dutton for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the third book in a row that I have read where the author has relied on the unreliable narrator trope. What I liked about this one was the hint of magical realism intertwined with some Guatemalan mythology and recent history, and it was fast paced, I read it in one sitting. Maya is living with her boyfriend, having withdrawals from the anti anxiety medication she gets on the black market, when one sleepless night she stumbles upon a video of her ex boyfriend in the presence of a girl dying. She is horrified because her ex was also present when her best friend died 8 years prior. She returns to her home town to try to figure out what happened to her, to turn her into an addict, her best friend who mysteriously died, and the unknown stranger on the internet and how does her ex boyfriend fit into it all.

As a first novel this book had some interesting ideas and is a Reese's bookclub book for Jan 23 (I could see it being turned into a movie).

This was a zippy, thrilling read that got me out of a reading slump when I needed it. I'm not over the unreliable narrator yet, and I enjoyed watching Maya piece her memories together. I did see the "twist" coming for a bit, but that happens sometimes. I particularly liked the portions about Maya's parents and her connection to Guatemala-- it added a nice depth and unconventional flavor to the overall story.

As someone who also graduated from LSU, as well as my husband and parents, I SO wanted to enjoy this one...just to support another tiger at least. Unfortunately this completely fell flat. It was messy, disorganized and the two storylines felt unrelated. It felt like she had two book ideas that she tried to fit together.

With that said, I loved the premise and without a doubt, I'd read her next book.

I am sad to say that this book did not keep my interest. It was a little to slow for my liking. I do hope that others really love this book.
I will try this author again in the future.

I really enjoyed this book! Great thriller/mystery that leaves you questions whether or not there is a supernatural aspect and whether or not Maya is telling the truth. Is she a reliable narrator, can her memories be trusted? Great read!

I think I agree with the majority of reviewers - this was very slow paced, with some mystery but not enough happening to race through it. The subplot about her father's book was confusing at times, and I couldn't see why it was necessary. However, this author shows promise and I'll be intrigued to see what she writes next.
2.5 stars rounded up.

Just ok. There was nothing special about this book. It was often predictable and no huge twists. Definately not a great thriller. Would not read if your wanting a thriller to keep you wanting to read.

I would give this maybe 3.5 stars if I could. This was a good book but not a great one for me. I like a nonlinear timeline but at times I was very confused as to whether it was now or the past. Maya is one of the best unreliable heroines to come along. She is an insomniac coming off a Klonopin addiction and compensating with gin. She also has trust issues with most everyone, and there is a history of mental illness in the family so no one believes her. At seventeen, her best friend dropped dead suddenly in front of Maya. Now a girl in a diner in her hometown has died the same way. Believe it or not, the same guy was present at both deaths. That is a unique premise that made me keep reading. I had an idea of what was going on but there were still enough twists to make it enjoyable. I thought the science was intriguing, and the book dealt nicely with some heavy issues. I enjoyed it but it just didn't quite do it for me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy to read and review.

As books with unreliable narrators go, this is the best I have ever read. Maya was days away from moving away to college when he best friend Aubrey mysteriously dropped dead in front of her. She blamed Frank, an older guy who she had been hanging out with that summer although there was nothing to prove that he had done a thing to harm Aubrey.

Now, years later, Maya is trying to overcome an addiction to the drug prescribed to help her overcome the loss of Aubrey. When she sees a video of a woman who drops dead in a cafe and Frank is sitting with her, she sets off in a spiral again and needs to prove that Frank is responsible. I love this book with a totally likable and yet, completely unreliable narrator. This is the best thriller I have read in a long time.

This book was trippy. It took me quite awhile to figure out exactly what was going on in the story. I like these kinds of books. Makes you think outside the box and is definitely not like others.

Maya is a complex woman. She's in a loving relationship, but is hiding a secret addition. An addiction that she's used since the day that changed her life, but is fervently trying to kick in order to join the world fully. All of that is made a lot harder when her past is suddenly back in her present.

She makes the journey home to try and piece together her fragmented past. Memories that seem lost, time that seems to have vanished and a man that Maya is determined to make accountable for his actions, whatever they may be.

A truly unique story.

It held so many promising features, but it lost me towards the middle/end.

Let's start with the main character, Maya, she's a young adult who is living with an addiction to Klonopin to help her sleep due to previous trauma. Her trauma revolves around her one and only best friend from high school, Aubrey, who dies suddenly with a man that Maya previously called her *boyfriend* (Frank). Maya is doing fine until she comes across a youtube video with a girl who dies in a similar situation as Aubrey with the SAME MAN!! Weird right... only here's the catch, Maya can't tell if she is imagining the situation or if it's true because of a family history of paranoia and delusions. Her aunt suffered from a mental health illness where she began to hallucinate and become paranoid.. Now Maya believes Frank is the one behind Aubrey's death, but there's no evidence to back her up leaving people to assume Maya might be suffering from paranoia and delusions...

So it starts off well with the background of Maya's family and the trauma from her past. But what throws me off is the incorporation of her father's book... For some reason, Maya needs to understand her father's book to understand how Frank has murdered these women... confused yet? yeah, I was too...

There are two POVs, one being in present time with the other in past tense to have an understanding of Maya's relationship with Frank. There are multiple red flags throughout the book, but you know how it is being a young high school senior falling in love. I was annoyed with how Maya handled situations and at specific points, I had to put it down because of the frustration. *hence why it took me a bit to finish*

However, the story overall was good! I was intrigued with how Frank could possibly be behind the murders. I kept asking myself if Maya really is paranoid? or if she's onto something?? You'll have the read to find out hehe. I think what I disliked the most was how her family's background and father's book were thrown into the story because to me, it really didn't make sense and I could have gone without this extra information.

Overall, I liked it but I wouldn't recommend or purchase it for myself. I will keep my eye out for any other books by this author because the concept behind this thriller was captivating! I wouldn't say it was unique, but it was good.