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Synopsis
Olivia's parents had been one of Hollywood's glittering golden couples...until the night the monster came. The monster who destroyed their beautiful home and took Olivia's mother away fom her forever. The monster with the face of her father.... Now a young woman, Olivia finds her memory of that night faded. But despite the terror, and the years that have passed, a part of her still yearns to recall those horrifying events, to know the truth about her childhood. With the help of a young writer named Noah Brady, she could have the chance. Noah wants to reconstruct that famous night — and tell the story that has become a part of Hollywood history. But before she can confront her past, Olivia must safeguard her future. For the monster walks again....
Publishers Weekly
Her signature florid style again serving a suspenseful mystery combined with a fated romance, bestselling Roberts (Hot Ice) tells a Helter Skelter-type Hollywood horror story lurid with murder, drugs and insanity. One summer night in 1979, four-year-old Olivia Tanner finds her doped-up father, Sam, bloodied shears in hand, poised over the dead body of her movie-star mom. Haunted by the image of "the monster" pursuing her, Olivia is sent to live with her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest, where she is sheltered from her memories by towering Douglas firs. Two decades later, the specter of the "monster" returns. From prison, her father urges young investigative reporter Noah Brady — son of the police detective who discovered Olivia after the murder — to research the crime. Noah accepts this task eagerly, heedless of Olivia's rebuffs and undeterred by violence and danger, especially after Olivia begins to remember the crime. The denouement brings both of them into a bloody confrontation with the past. Roberts's careful research, particularly into the ecosystems of the forests of the Pacific Northwest, makes for vibrant background detail. Her artful manipulation of the plot, contrived so that amour and horror escalate in tandem, reaffirms her ability to deliver entertaining fiction.