Published by Joffe Books on 25 Jun 2017
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On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside, are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.
Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm... and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.
Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?
There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?
Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.
But who can she trust?
My feelings about this book can pretty much be summed up with: IS DARBY TRYING TO GET HERSELF KILLED??
It's revealed pretty early on who the bad guy is, and the rest of the book is more about how to get out of the situation. But Darby kept making the most illogical choices and simplest mistakes that I just could not feel bad for her. Furthermore, something about Darby's personality rubbed me the wrong way. I like my flawed characters, but I didn't like her. She felt a bit narcissistic, and her concern about the situation seemed to come from a place of, "What should I do/know to be a good witness for when the police ask me questions when I get out of here?" rather than, "How can I help this girl?"
There's more action than suspense, and the action is mostly poor decisions by Darby. I think a missed opportunity was building suspense around which of the strangers at the rest stop could have been the bad guy. Could it be Lars, the big, brawny guy? Ashley, the charismatic frat bro? Ed or Sandi, the sweet old duo? Or should we be asking what the girl in the cage's story is?
Reading buddy: Sadia's review
