Genre: Horror/Thriller Age Range: YA Star Rating: 4 stars Series: standalone
Synopsis:
Welcome to the reality game show that’ll scare you to death! Have you got what it takes to last the night?
Five contestants must sit tight through the night in dark and dangerous Umber Gorge caves, haunted by a ghost called the Puckered Maiden. But is it the malevolent spirit they should fear or each other?
As the production crew ramps up the frights, secrets start to be revealed. These teenagers have hidden motives for taking part in It’s Behind You! and could some of them be murder?
Synopsis taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
And once again, I read a horror in one go right before sleeping, and it was a bad idea. I should really have learnt by now that I just can’t deal with creepy things before bed, because this certainly was creepy.
Five teenagers locked in a cave system for a TV show, and then there’s a problem and the generators are damaged, locking them in. And apparently it’s haunted. What could go wrong?
I don’t believe in ghosts and all that – anything haunted can be explained by shifting buildings, optical illusions, hysteria, and people trying to sell something in my book. So of course I didn’t believe that there really was a ghost with them – but I did believe there was someone who’d snuck in with them, and that their intentions couldn’t be good.
This was where the horror came in for me. All the unnerving scuttling about and shadows? Someone in there readying to strike. And finding out who came from finding out why – and naturally everyone (except the lead) had secrets.
I was a little surprised as Lex wasn’t hiding something, and wasn’t involved in the big conspiracy that drew everyone together. She is an unsuspecting person to make up numbers and ends up along for the ride. It was quite nice though, not to have a “twist, it was the main character all along” or “twist, the main character is the focus of the act.”
Nothing is scarier or more dangerous than people – though the claustrophobic tunnels and rocks falls did add an extra element of danger. I am not good in tight spaces, so I could understand their fear as they were forced to crawl through fissures to get out.
Read my reviews of other books by Kathryn Foxfield:
Standalones:
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 