HIDE
KIERSTEN WHITE
*****
A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White, perfect for fans of Stephen King and SQUID GAME.
The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don't get caught.
The prize: enough money to change everything.
Even though everyone is desperate to win - to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts - Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that.
It's the reason she's alive, and her family isn't.
But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.
Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
MY REVIEW *****
Hide has been on my TBR for quite a while now and I must say, it’s been my most anticipated read of 2022 so far. A Hide and Seek competition set in an abandoned fairground? Count me in!
First of all, just to set expectations, this is a thriller with a supernatural horror twist – please do not go into the book thinking it will just be a straightforward thriller! There are of course some elements of suspension of disbelief with this genre but if you go into it knowing that it is a horror it’s a lot easier to get your head around.
The book has 15 characters – 14 competitors in the Hide and Seek game and the mysterious organiser Linda. This is a lot of characters and I often have trouble when it gets to this number to keep everyone straight in my head, particularly when the book switches points of view. I think this is one of the only books I have read that takes this mechanic and makes it straight forward and easy. We get the majority of the perspective from Mack, a homeless woman with a disturbing past, and she is used as our entry way into the rest of the story. We then get small paragraphs of perspective from the other characters - there isn’t a huge ton of detail or backstory to each character though, they each have their own personalities and this is reinforced by what each character thinks about the others. This repetition in personality traits allows us to quickly get a grip on who is who and makes the characters distinct in our minds without getting muddled and lost. As the character count goes down as players start to lose the game more detail & backstory is then added to the remaining players.
The book is also really well written with flowing prose and atmospheric descriptions of the eerie setting. The fairground is well described and makes for a fantastic backdrop to the story. The pace is kept high throughout and with the switch in perspectives you never really knew which characters would be safe and which would ‘lose’ the game.
Overall Hide is an atmospheric thriller with a supernatural horror twist – with flowing prose and a great perspective mechanic to keep you engaged throughout. Thank you to NetGalley & Ransom House UK, Cornerstone & Del Rey for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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