Thank you Lake Union Publishing #partner, for the finished copy of Iris in the Dark in exchange for my honest review. The audio copy is via my Kindle Unlimited subscription.
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing / Brilliance Audio
Published: June 7, 2022
Summary:
A single mother faces her worst fear—the past—in a provocative novel of suspense by the author of The Speed of Light.
Iris Jenkins knows that bad things happen. She’s tried to escape these things for years. So when Iris is entrusted to house-sit at a lodge on the South Dakota prairie, she thinks she’s prepared for anything.
But one surprise is Sawyer Jones, the property’s neighbor and caretaker. He’s a caring, reassuring presence who’s making her feel safe and alive again. Then late one night, Iris hears a chilling cry for help coming from a walkie-talkie buried in a box of toys. As the calls get more desperate, personal, and menacing, Iris realizes the person on the other end isn’t reaching out for help. They’re reaching out to terrorize her.
Now the only way for Iris to move forward in life is to confront the past she’s been running from…a threat that has now followed her into the dark.
My thoughts:
This is the first book I’ve read by Elissa Grossell Dickey but it certainly will not be the last. I’m so glad we selected this book as a #GetRedPRBookclub selection for July and I loved being able to discuss it with our group and the author.
Right from the start I was pulled into this story. While it is very character-driven story, I loved getting to know what was going on with Iris. She is such a real, relatable character that is definitely not perfect, yet you cannot help but root for her. You want to see her succeed and while she has not always made the best choices, you can see that she is trying.
The story is told in the present day with flashbacks thrown in periodically that help to slowly reveal Iris’s past and allow us to see what happened to make her so guarded. I loved how this played out because it really keeps you on edge as you wait to get the full picture. The build-up really makes for a suspenseful read and I loved that not only are we exploring Iris’s past, but we also get to see some of the relationships she has made in the present and how they have impacted her life.
This book takes you on a range of emotions and while it does deal with some dark subjects, it really is quite a hopeful book. I loved the twists that it took and found that once I started it, I had a hard time putting it down.
Audio thoughts:
Even though I had the print copy of this one, I decided to listen to it and I found it to be such a great listen. This is exactly the type of book I love to listen to because the suspense builds so slowly that you don’t want to put the book down until you figure things out. The narrator, Christine Williams, did a great job bringing the story to life – her pacing and intonation were spot on, even with the range of characters she had to voice.
