Still Missing
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Product Description
On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a thirty-two-year-ancient Realtor, had three goals: sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-uncomplaining boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she’s about to place, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.
Interwoven with the tale of the year Annie spent captive in a remote mountain cabin — which unfolds through sessions with her child psychiatrist — is a second narrative recounting the nightmare that follows her escape: her struggle to piece her shattered life back together, the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor, and the disturbing sense that things are far from over.
The truth doesn’t permanently set you free.
Still Missing is a shocking, visceral, brutal, and perfectly crafted debut novel about extant the unsurvivable — and living to bear witness.
Amazon.com Review
Product Description
On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-ancient realtor, had three goals—sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-uncomplaining boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she’s about to place, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.
Interwoven with the tale of the year Annie spent as the captive of a psychopath in a remote mountain cabin, which unfolds through sessions with her child psychiatrist, is a second narrative recounting events following her escape—her struggle to piece her shattered life back together and the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor.
Still Missing is that rare debut find–a shocking, visceral, brutal and perfectly crafted debut novel.
Amazon Exclusive: Lisa Gardner Reviews Still Missing
New York Times bestselling crime novelist Lisa Gardner started her career in food service, but after her hair caught on fire copious times she took the hint and all ears on writing as a replacement for. A self-described research junkie, she has parlayed her interest in police procedure, cutting edge forensics, and twisted plots into a streak of 11 bestselling suspense novels, including her most recent relief, The National. Read her guest review of Still Missing:
Heading to a beach? Boy do I have the book for you!
Every now and then a new leader comes along that really knocks one out of the park. As a reader, I’m permanently tickled to learn a fantastic new voice. As a writer, of course I’m insanely jealous and suffer a terrible case of why-didn’t-I-reflect-of-that? Agreed that debut leader Chevy Stevens is young, gorgeous and talented, I’ve been gnashing my teeth for months!
Still Missing represents psychological suspense at its very best. Realtor Annie O’Sullivan is abducted from an open house and held captive for a year in a remote cabin by a sadistic survivalist who considers her to be his wife as well as preferred breeding stock. His goal is to get her pregnant and live creepily-ever-after as the last man and woman on planet. Her goal is to get away from him.
Now, you know Annie wins this war as the book opens with her talking to a therapist. So you may question, where is the suspense? I can’t give you a simple answer to that, additional than to say every page crackles with it.
Still Missing makes one of the most haunting narratives I’ve read in years. On the one hand, survivor Annie is tough, mad, and brittle. The very worst has happened to her, and she escaped through her own ingenuity and frankly, savagery. On the additional hand, survivor Annie is jumpy, terrified, and sleep-deprived. All these months later, she still can’t pee “off schedule.” In one of the more moving scenes of the novel, she downs a gallon of iced tea in order to force herself to urinate by her own free will. She can’t do it.
In addition to her compelling heroine, Stevens has made one of the best psychopaths since Hannibal Lector—and that’s not something I say lightly. Annie refers to her captor simply as The Freak. Much like Hannibal, The Freak considers himself to be a civilized human being. Intelligent, excellent looking and resourceful, he’s an brilliant “spouse.” He has provided a charming cabin. He supplies fresh food—sometimes so fresh that city slicker Annie must nosebleed it out first, but details, details. Of course he has expectations of his wife. She must be well groomed, properly garbed, and 100% submissive. All failures to comply are met with The Freak’s thought of appropriate punishment. The Freak is also thoughtful and tender. Want to stop sleeping for a few nights? Read the scene where The Freak first shaves Annie. And he means it in the nicest sort of way.
Stevens skillfully juxtapositions the back tale of Annie’s captivity with the front tale of a woman desperately trying to reclaim her ancient life. As with all fantastic suspense novels, the surprises abound. Annie thought she’d survived the worst with The Freak. But has she?
As the taut cat and mouse game unfolds, you will cheer for Annie. You will despise The Freak. And you will be absolutely mesmerized by the last line of this novel. Then, most likely, you will return to page one, and start it all over again.
So give yourself a summer trip. Check out debut leader Chevy Stevens, and soon you will be Still Missing.
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This debut book by Chevy Stevens was one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time! It’s about Annie O’Sullivan, a Canadian realtor who is abducted from an open house she is holding. She is held captive for a year and finally escapes.
The last 100 pages were right page turners!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
When I got this book, I sat down to read for an hour — and didn’t stop until I had finished it. This is an unbelievably powerful book by any standard, but that this is Chevy Stevens’s first book is really incredible. This is the tale of Annie in her own words, and as she is talking to her therapist, layers of the tale come out. There is the year she spent trapped by a psychopath, which will have you absolutely on the edge of your seat as she struggled to survive, both physically and mentally. Then there is the additional side of the battle — what happened when she came home and tried to pick up her life. You feel her tiny triumphs — when she can sleep in her bed rather than in a closet, when she is finally able to pee on her own time rather than the schedule that her captor forced on her. And you feel every setback, and when you learn the most horrible secret of her captivity, you’ll weep for her, like I did.
But beyond plot and storyline, what makes Stevens’s work really resonate is that all of the characters are fully rendered. No one is a stock character, and no one is flat. Annie is powerful in her rage, but you also see her lowest moments, and the times when her rage is vented on persons who are innocent. You see her struggles. All of persons around her are also full — her boyfriend, best friend, mother, the cop handling her case, and even the psychopath himself are all complex individuals with motivations and longings.
This was an incredible book, and I absolutely recommend it, as well as whatever else Chevy Stevens might write in the future.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This is a well-written book and, if I didn’t know better from the leader’s bio, it would seem she’d really lived the experience. The tale is told through discussions with a therapist and the emotions are described extremely well. The interactions with family tree and friends are completely believable, and “The Freak” is one of the creepiest evildoers since Hannibal Lecter. The ending is surprising and we realize that a situation like this never really ends. I recommend STILL MISSING to anyone looking for a scary page-turner.
Make room in your closet and lock all your windows and doors if you plot to read this.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Annie O’Sullivan had a excellent life – plenty of money, a nice house, nice car, lots of excellent clothing … everything was going fantastic. Until she was abducted by a man who was obsessed with her, who set her up as his “perfect” housewife, insisting on all sorts of rules that she had to follow on a day-to-day basis and keeping her captive in a cottage on a mountain. Annie doesn’t know where she is, but she does know she will take the first chance she can to kill her captor and escape.
Told in a series of first-person narrative and then flash-backs by Annie herself as she attends sessions with a therapist (which is, while not a completely new technique, still a reasonably effective one). The ending WILL shock you – it is a wonderful twist.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This book is one of persons rare gems that had me riveted to the pages. STILL MISSING provides everything one could want in a thriller/mystery, and while I highly recommend it, be for-warned: There are parts of this book that will make you very uneasy.
Leader Chevy Stevens has devised a very clever way to present this tale. Each chapter (or “Session” as it’s referred to) starts with Annie O’Sullivan talking to her Child psychiatrist. Annie suffered through a yearlong suffering as the victim of an abduction, which has left her trying to regain her very self. Annie starts each session by describing what has been happening in her life since her last session, and then she talks about what happened during her captivity. She refers to her abductor as “The Freak”, and talks in detail about what she went through.
There are certain chapters that had me on the edge of my seat. They were creepy and unnerving, but as a reader, I could not place the book down. I HAD to know what happened next, and while I’m not revealing a spoiler by mentioning Annie does escape her abductor, what happens after her escape is just has engrossing and compelling as what happens before her escape.
Kudos to Stevens for writing such a remarkable debut. I cannot reflect of a single thing a disliked about this book. I look forwards to reading more from her in the future.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5