Come Closer - Sara Gran

Come Closer
Sara Gran
Berkley

Paranormal - Horror

“We could devote our lives to making sense of the odd, the inexplicable, the coincidental. But most of us don’t, and I didn’t, either.”

Amanda is an architect with a good job, a nice husband, and a very normal, stable life. But, little by little, that stability is slipping away from her. It starts with a proposal she hands in to her boss. Instead of the proposal she wrote, the thing is laced with profanities and insults about him. While Amanda privately agrees with every word, the two shrug is off as a practical joke and life continues.

Then the tapping-scratching sounds begin at home. Neither Amanda nor her husband, Ed, can pinpoint the source of these sounds. According to Ed, the sounds only happen when she’s home. That’s when the bickering begins between the two. What were once little personality tics in Ed are now irritants, or worse. When her annoyance with Ed escalates into the physical, Amanda knows something is seriously wrong. She’s right about that. She has no idea.

Reading Amanda’s story, told calmly in the first person, will hit you where you live. This novel is a rare thing. It’s creepy without being overt. It’s incredibly disturbing without being gory. Watching her normal life erode, bit by tiny bit, from the mundane to the surreal is horrifying. The reader takes the trip into darkness with Amanda, not quite believing what you both know to be true; what is clear, if only you (and she) had read and interpreted the signs correctly. “But most of us don’t, and I didn’t, either.” Plan to sleep with the lights on, turn this over in your mind, and look at people a bit more closely for quite some time after you finish this one.

Rating: 9
May 2006
trade paperback isbn# 0-425-21031-6

Rating Scale = 1-10