Behind the Red Door: A Novel
The author of the “suspenseful, atmospheric, and completely riveting” (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author) debut The Winter Sister returns with a darkly thrilling novel about a woman who comes to believe that she has a connection to a decades old kidnapping and now that the victim has gone missing again, begins a frantic search to learn what happened in the past.
When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing woman from Maine, she is positive that she knows her. Fern’s husband is sure it’s because of Astrid’s famous kidnapping—and equally famous return—twenty years ago, but Fern has no memory of that, even though it happened an hour outside her New Hampshire hometown. And when Astrid appears in Fern’s recurring nightmare, one in which a girl reaches out to her, pleading, Fern fears that it’s not a dream at all, but a memory.
Back at her childhood home to help her father pack for a move, Fern purchases a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir—which may have provoked her original kidnapper to abduct her again—and as she reads through its chapters and visits the people and places within it, she discovers more evidence that she has an unsettling connection to the missing woman. With the help of her psychologist father, Fern digs deeper, hoping to find evidence that her connection to Astrid can help the police locate her. But when Fern discovers more about her own past than she ever bargained for, the disturbing truth will change both of their lives forever.
Featuring Megan Collins’s signature “dark, tense, and completely absorbing” (Booklist) prose and plenty of shocking twists and turns, Behind the Red Door is an arresting thriller that will haunt you long after you turn the last page.
When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing woman from Maine, she is positive that she knows her. Fern’s husband is sure it’s because of Astrid’s famous kidnapping—and equally famous return—twenty years ago, but Fern has no memory of that, even though it happened an hour outside her New Hampshire hometown. And when Astrid appears in Fern’s recurring nightmare, one in which a girl reaches out to her, pleading, Fern fears that it’s not a dream at all, but a memory.
Back at her childhood home to help her father pack for a move, Fern purchases a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir—which may have provoked her original kidnapper to abduct her again—and as she reads through its chapters and visits the people and places within it, she discovers more evidence that she has an unsettling connection to the missing woman. With the help of her psychologist father, Fern digs deeper, hoping to find evidence that her connection to Astrid can help the police locate her. But when Fern discovers more about her own past than she ever bargained for, the disturbing truth will change both of their lives forever.
Featuring Megan Collins’s signature “dark, tense, and completely absorbing” (Booklist) prose and plenty of shocking twists and turns, Behind the Red Door is an arresting thriller that will haunt you long after you turn the last page.
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Community Reviews
Behind the Red Door is dark and deeply disturbing. Fern is a school social worker on summer break who has always had a complicated relationship with her parents. Mara is an artist, and Ted is a psychologist and professor rejected by Ivy League schools and legitimate journals. They never hid the fact that they didn't plan to be parents from Fern. Growing up, Fern received little guidance, supervision, or nurturing. Ted was physically abused by his own father and reminds Fern regularly, "I never hurt you. Never laid a hand on you." But Ted has always been obsessed with conducting experiments about the fear response, studying what triggers fear in his subjects, how long the fear lasts, how they react to it. And over the years, he has demanded that Fern serve as his subject. Fern has struggled to overcome anxiety for many years, with Eric sometimes having to talk her through situations she is unable to handle on her own. Now she is back at home with her parents, searching for answers about Astrid's disappearance and memories seem to be seeping back. Ted again wants Fern to participate in what he calls his "Experiments." Eric, a physician, discourages Fern from being bullied by her father into participating because he recognizes that Ted's experiments are not actually scientific but are, in Eric's estimation, nothing more than cruel pranks.
Behind the Red Door is atmospheric, with Fern's small New Hampshire hometown, surrounded by dense woods, providing an ideal backdrop for the shocking plot twists and developments that Collins includes at deftly-timed intervals. She also provides numerous suspects who could have kidnapped Astrid when she was a young girl, among them a Catholic priest and Cooper, the older brother of Fern's best friend. And there's a mysterious stranger who walks along the road outside of town wearing all black and disappears into the woods whenever someone approaches him.
Fern's journey to the truth takes her to the neighboring town from which Astrid was abducted -- and where she deduces she was spending time with her friend's family on the very day Astrid disappeared. Her search also takes her to the Catholic church where Astrid had just been confirmed when she was stolen away, and the home Astrid now shares with her wife. Each step Fern takes and each page of Astrid's memoir Fern studies help her recover her memories of a hand over her mouth, and a man wearing a welder's mask, gloves, and waders. A room. For years, it has been believed that there was no witness to Astrid's abduction. But there was. In her memoir, Astrid wrote about another girl being held captive with her whose real name Astrid never knew. Astrid dubbed her Lily. Even though Astrid's therapist thinks Lily was an imaginary friend Astrid manufactured in order to bring her comfort and help her survive the ordeal, Fern wonders if she could have been Lily. But that's ridiculous, of course. She assures herself "there's no way a person can forget being abducted, being locked for days in a basement, or even a red door as bright as the one on the memoir's cover."
Behind the Red Door is a riveting exploration of a dysfunctional family, a daughter who has always accepted her parents as they are because she has never known any other way of life, and the recovery of repressed memories. With Ted and Mara, Collins has created two characters who are shockingly flawed and mesmerizingly fascinating. Collins illustrates how Fern's upbringing has affected her and her relationship with her loving and supportive husband, Eric, who was raised in family that functioned normally, with spectacular finesse. Fern is frequently gullible and naive, but her instincts are impeccable and Collins credibly demonstrates her growing willingness to trust them. Collins portrays Fern's pilgrimage from being oblivious to the truth to being fully informed and aware, and her emotional reactions to what she learns, with compassion and empathy. The fact that Fern is likable and sympathetic amplifies the dramatic tension, especially the revelations of what really happened to those two young girls so many years ago, including the identity of the kidnapper, the motivation for the crime, and how the experience shaped Astrid's life.
Collins does not answer all questions posed in Behind the Red Door. Rather, once Fern uncovers the whole truth about not only what happened twenty years ago, but also recent events, she faces difficult decisions that will have far-reaching consequences. Collins leaves it to her readers to imagine what Fern chooses and supply their own resolution to her story.
Behind the Red Door is both horrifying and poignant, populated with fascinating, well-developed characters, and featuring a fast-paced plot surrounding a decades-only mystery. It's a captivating and emotionally layered family drama that will haunt readers long after they finish reading it.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Behind the Red Door is atmospheric, with Fern's small New Hampshire hometown, surrounded by dense woods, providing an ideal backdrop for the shocking plot twists and developments that Collins includes at deftly-timed intervals. She also provides numerous suspects who could have kidnapped Astrid when she was a young girl, among them a Catholic priest and Cooper, the older brother of Fern's best friend. And there's a mysterious stranger who walks along the road outside of town wearing all black and disappears into the woods whenever someone approaches him.
Fern's journey to the truth takes her to the neighboring town from which Astrid was abducted -- and where she deduces she was spending time with her friend's family on the very day Astrid disappeared. Her search also takes her to the Catholic church where Astrid had just been confirmed when she was stolen away, and the home Astrid now shares with her wife. Each step Fern takes and each page of Astrid's memoir Fern studies help her recover her memories of a hand over her mouth, and a man wearing a welder's mask, gloves, and waders. A room. For years, it has been believed that there was no witness to Astrid's abduction. But there was. In her memoir, Astrid wrote about another girl being held captive with her whose real name Astrid never knew. Astrid dubbed her Lily. Even though Astrid's therapist thinks Lily was an imaginary friend Astrid manufactured in order to bring her comfort and help her survive the ordeal, Fern wonders if she could have been Lily. But that's ridiculous, of course. She assures herself "there's no way a person can forget being abducted, being locked for days in a basement, or even a red door as bright as the one on the memoir's cover."
Behind the Red Door is a riveting exploration of a dysfunctional family, a daughter who has always accepted her parents as they are because she has never known any other way of life, and the recovery of repressed memories. With Ted and Mara, Collins has created two characters who are shockingly flawed and mesmerizingly fascinating. Collins illustrates how Fern's upbringing has affected her and her relationship with her loving and supportive husband, Eric, who was raised in family that functioned normally, with spectacular finesse. Fern is frequently gullible and naive, but her instincts are impeccable and Collins credibly demonstrates her growing willingness to trust them. Collins portrays Fern's pilgrimage from being oblivious to the truth to being fully informed and aware, and her emotional reactions to what she learns, with compassion and empathy. The fact that Fern is likable and sympathetic amplifies the dramatic tension, especially the revelations of what really happened to those two young girls so many years ago, including the identity of the kidnapper, the motivation for the crime, and how the experience shaped Astrid's life.
Collins does not answer all questions posed in Behind the Red Door. Rather, once Fern uncovers the whole truth about not only what happened twenty years ago, but also recent events, she faces difficult decisions that will have far-reaching consequences. Collins leaves it to her readers to imagine what Fern chooses and supply their own resolution to her story.
Behind the Red Door is both horrifying and poignant, populated with fascinating, well-developed characters, and featuring a fast-paced plot surrounding a decades-only mystery. It's a captivating and emotionally layered family drama that will haunt readers long after they finish reading it.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
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