Idgie Says:
These are not the types of books for me - I am far too squeamish for them. But I know they are popular with many readers and this one seems to have a very interesting hook to it so I wanted to share, even though I will pass on reading it myself.
This novel has already been sold in 20 countries - It's hot!
Check it out, excerpt below.
_____________________________
NAL
June 2, 2015
Originally published in UK - 2014
Book Description:
It’s
a game more twisted than any Detective Inspector Helen Grace has ever
seen. If she hadn’t spoken with the shattered survivors herself, she
almost wouldn’t believe them.
Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....
- See more at: http://penguindebutauthors.earlyword.com/eeny-meeny/#fulltext
Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....
- See more at: http://penguindebutauthors.earlyword.com/eeny-meeny/#fulltext
It’s
a game more twisted than any Detective Inspector Helen Grace has ever
seen. If she hadn’t spoken with the shattered survivors herself, she
almost wouldn’t believe them.
Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....
- See more at: http://penguindebutauthors.earlyword.com/eeny-meeny/#fulltext
Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....
- See more at: http://penguindebutauthors.earlyword.com/eeny-meeny/#fulltext
EENY
MEENY opens with a compelling and terrifying premise. A young couple
wakes up trapped in an abandoned diving pool without food or water.
There's no escape. Instead there is a loaded gun
with a single bullet, and a phone with enough battery life to receive
one message: to walk free, one of them must kill the other.
When other pairs are given the same orders in increasingly twisted ways, the brilliant but damaged Detective Inspector Helen Grace (reminiscent of Prime Suspect’s Jane Tennison or Stella Gibson in the TV series The Fall) finds herself racing against time and confronting dark chapters of her own past.
____________________________________________
CHAPTER 1
Sam
is asleep. I could kill him now. His face is turned from me—it wouldn’t
be hard. Would he stir if I moved? Try to stop me? Or would he just be
glad that this nightmare was over?
I
can’t think like that. I must try to remember what is real, what is
good. But when you’re a prisoner, the days seem endless and hope is the
first thing to die.
I rack my brains for happy memories to hold off the dark thoughts, but they are harder and harder to summon.
We’ve
been here only ten days (or is it eleven?), yet normal life already
seems a distant memory. We were hitching back from a gig in London when
it happened. It was pouring rain and a succession
of cars had sailed past without a second look. We were soaked to the
skin and about to turn back when finally a van pulled over. Inside, it
was warm and dry. We were offered coffee from a flask. Just the smell of
it was enough to cheer us up. The taste was
even better. We didn’t realize it would be our last taste of freedom.
When
I came to, my head was pounding. Blood coated my mouth. I wasn’t in the
warm van anymore. I was in a cold, dark space. Was I dreaming? A noise
behind me made me start. But it was only Sam
stumbling to his feet.
We’d
been robbed. Robbed and dumped. I scrambled forward, clawing at the
walls that enclosed us. Cold, hard tiles. I crashed into Sam and for a
brief moment held him, breathing in that smell I
love so much. Then the moment passed and we realized the horror of our
situation.
We
were in a disused diving pool. Derelict, unloved, it had been stripped
of the boards, signs and even the steps. Everything that could be
salvaged had been. Leaving a deep smooth tank that was
impossible to climb out of.
Was
that evil shit listening to our screams? Probably. Because when we
finally stopped, it happened. We heard a mobile phone ringing and for a
brief, glorious moment thought it was someone coming
to rescue us. But then we saw the phone’s face glowing on the pool
floor beside us. Sam didn’t move, so I ran. Why did it have to be me?
Why does it
always have to be me?
“Hello, Amy.”
The
voice on the other end was distorted, inhuman. I wanted to beg for
mercy, explain that they’d made a terrible mistake, but the fact that
they knew my name seemed to rob me of all conviction.
I said nothing, so the voice continued, relentless and dispassionate:
“Do you want to live?”
“Who are you? What have you done to u—?”
“Do you want to live?”
For a minute, I can’t reply. My tongue won’t move. But then:
“Yes.”
“On
the floor by the phone you’ll find a gun. It has one bullet in it. For
Sam or for yourself. That is the price of your freedom. You must kill to
live. Do you want to live, Amy?”
I can’t speak. I want to vomit.
“Well, do you?”
And then the phone goes dead. Which is when Sam asks:
“What did they say?”
Credit line:
From
EENY MEENY by M.J. Arlidge published by NAL, an imprint of Penguin
Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright ©
2015, M.J. Arlidge.