Into the Darkest Corner

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It’s dark, chilling and very disturbing; it was sickening at times but still an exciting novel to read. Four years later, struggling to overcome her demons, Catherine dares to believe she might be safe from harm. I was in a sustained sense of genuine panic reading this, and at times it was a struggle to turn the page for fear of what was coming.

Into the Darkest Corner was the third of my annual ‘Nano’ novels and it was the first one that had something like a proper ending. Although most of it is from Karen Cass with her lovely English accent we do have David Thorpe’s wonderful performance as well (also an English accent).This is an edgy and powerful first novel, utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, and a tour de force of suspense. I have been sat on my couch since finishing this book about 30 minutes ago running everything through my head, processing what has just happened to me. I think the way the author went back and forth between past and present was a clever way of giving the reader a disturbing insight into this relationship gone very bad. I especially didn't think it made sense that this person who was so paranoid she spent hours checking her door, would go walking around in dark alleyways to check on her crappy friend.

It starts so gradually with what looks like a good relationship and even your friends are jealous of your luck and really, there might have been room for complaint about your behaviour and what was asked (well, demanded) didn't seem that unreasonable. They all come off the page perfectly formed and you'll believe in every one of them – I just don't want to spoil one moment of the pleasure of this book for you.In After Cathy’s parts, her OCD is detailed well but the rest of her person after her traumatic past isn’t always convincing enough to be real. Our South coast-based book group had been starved of a good book for a month or two, so it was with some excitement that we stumbled across the buzz on Twitter about Elizabeth Haynes’ compelling debut novel Into the Darkest Corner.

The book explain really well why women stay in abusive relationship, and why it’s not so simple just to leave. While the relationship starts off simply enough as time goes by Cathy starts to become afraid of Lee and his erratic temper. One moment I believed her side of the story, and the next, I thought she was a total mental case, counting every single step up to her flat and checking things six times.The prime players are fully developed with the changes from happy Catherine to crippled Cathy appallingly frightening. So in the end of the book, Lee has finally been locked away and Catherine is married to her Stuart but Lee has sent her a letter. I listened to the audio version that is narrated by David Thorpe and Karen Cass who do an awesome job. I wrote those two sentences about a quarter of the way through the novel and before I completely understood her character. While I think this book was really good, I couldn’t recommend it to anyone that might freak out or identify with Cathy too closely.