Review: Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon

Don't Breathe a Word: A Novel-Jennifer McMahon
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Publication Date: May 17, 2011
Source: Review copy provided by publisher for blog tour
Author website


On a soft summer night in Vermont, twelve-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again. Before she disappeared, she told her little brother, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen.
Fifteen years later, Phoebe is in love with Sam, a practical, sensible man who doesn’t fear the dark and doesn’t have bad dreams—who, in fact, helps Phoebe ignore her own. But suddenly the couple is faced with a series of eerie, unexplained occurrences that challenge Sam’s hardheaded, realistic view of the world. As they question their reality, a terrible promise Sam made years ago is revealed—a promise that could destroy them all.
(Amazon)

Do yourself before starting Don't Breathe a Word. Don't read any books alongside it, or if you're the type that doesn't have a lot of time to read, clear your schedule. This book is nearly impossible to put down!

It's a downright creepy book, and I enjoyed the unreliable characters. You can't really trust most of them (besides Phoebe, for the most part), because you don't know where their loyalties lie.

The book flips from Phoebe's perspective in modern time and Lisa's from fifteen years earlier for a large portion of the book, before she went missing. The story is so creepy, you can almost feel the Fairy King breathing on your neck as you read. I almost felt as though I had to keep reading, to trap the unsettling characters within the pages once again.

The storytelling was as twisted as it comes. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, I realized everything I'd thought was all wrong. Don't Breathe a Word is a roller-coaster of a book that leaves you scratching your head and wondering what's real and what's just a fairy tale.