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3 Local Warehouse Literature- A to Z

Don't Breathe a Word

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Don't Breathe a Word Cover

ISBN13: 9780061689376
ISBN10: 0061689378
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

“Dont Breathe a Word is a haunting page-turner that kept me up, spine shivering and enthralled, way past my bedtime.”
—Joshilyn Jackson, author of Gods in Alabama and Backseat Saints

“Jennifer McMahon never flinches and never fails to surprise…as [she] weaves a young couple into a perverse fairyland where Rosemarys Baby could be at home.”
—Randy Susan Meyers, author of The Murderers Daughters

Two young lovers find themselves ensnared in a seemingly supernatural web that ties them to a young girls disappearance fifteen years earlier in this dark and twisty tale from the New York Times bestselling author of Island of Lost Girls and Promise Not to Tell. Jennifer NcMahon returns with a vengeance with Dont Breathe a Word—an absolutely chilling and ingenious combination of psychological thriller, literary suspense, and paranormal page-turner that will enthrall a wildly diverse audience including, among others, avid fans of Keith Donohue (The Stolen Child), Laura Lippman (Id Know You Anywhere), and Tana French.(In the Woods).

Review:

"Family secrets and fairy lore create a shifting reality in McMahon's unsettling novel about the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl who longed to become Queen of the Fairies. Fifteen years after Lisa goes missing, her younger brother, Sam, gets a strange phone call that leads him and his girlfriend, Phoebe, to discover a book, supposedly written by the King of the Fairies, that Lisa used as her bible to cross over, and which prompts Sam and Phoebe to meet up with Sam's cousin, Evie, to see if they can figure out what happened to Lisa. Nothing is as it seems from that moment on, and Phoebe's longtime fear of a dark man in the shadows seeps back after she discovers, in true woo-woo fashion, that she is pregnant. McMahon (Promise Not to Tell) alternates between the past and present with loads of portent and foreshadowing, creating a rural Vermont chiller with a Rosemary's Baby vibe, but even after a surprising villainess emerges and more than a few disquieting passages about Lisa are burned through, many readers will remain in the dark. (May)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)

Review:

"Don't Breathe a Word is a haunting page-turner that kept me up, spine shivering and enthralled, way past my bedtime." Joshilyn Jackson, author of Gods in Alabama and Backseat Saints

Review:

"Jennifer McMahon never flinches and never fails to surprise…as [she] weaves a young couple into a perverse fairyland where Rosemary’s Baby could be at home." Randy Susan Meyers, author of The Murderer’s Daughters

Synopsis:

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.

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About the Author

Jennifer McMahon is the author of Dismantled, the New York Times bestseller Island of Lost Girls, and the breakout debut novel Promise Not to Tell. She lives in Vermont with her partner, Drea, and their daughter, Zella.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
Silvers Reviews, January 1, 2012 (view all comments by Silvers Reviews)
I don't know exactly, but the book warns not to cross them. The fairies can grant wishes, bring good luck, but if you get on their bad side...." Page 219

Phoebe received a phone call asking to inform Sam to look in the attic in the crawl space. When Phoebe delivered the message, Sam knew what he would find.....the book his missing sister of 15 years had left there before she disappeared.

More strange happenings occurred after the phone call and after finding the book. When Sam and friends went on a camping trip....someone resembling Lisa appeared at their door singing a familiar song; then that same person broke into the cabin even though none of the doors or windows had been tampered with.

The camping trip then turned into a true nightmare....the campers were being accused of holding someone hostage and of not actually occupying the cabin. To make matters worse, a note on their car had the same picture that was on one of their camping companion's legs.....it was of Teilo, The King of the Fairies.

When Sam and Phoebe arrived home from the camping trip, their house had been ransacked, but nothing had been taken....were they looking for the book? About a week later, Teilo also ransacked their friend Evie's place.
As Phoebe found things out about Lisa's disappearance in Reliance, a town that has nothing left but foundations, more strange facts surfaced about the disappearance and of Lisa and Evie's childhood friendship. She even found things out about Sam that she really didn't want to know. Another phone call came from a girl/woman that urged Sam to meet her in the woods at their usual childhood place in Reliance. Things got a lot more involved after this most recent phone call.

The book went back and forth from present-day events to events that took place 15 years ago when Lisa disappeared. The book was intense and mostly about changelings, how fairies live, and the puzzle that needed to be solved....the puzzle was: Where had Lisa been for 15 years, and were there really fairies doing all this damage and mind control?

Even though this isn't my genre of choice the book's premise did get you hooked as you continued reading.

You will find out that fairies are not a very nice sort of people. The book was somewhat “creepy.”

This is one of the last entries in a Book of Fairies…it will show you the eeriness of the book.

“If you have read this book all the way to the end, you know the truth. We are here, walking among you. We are stronger, faster, smarter. We walk with silent footsteps. We can see into your dreams. And we lie. Always remember that we lie.” 4/5
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kabouel, January 1, 2012 (view all comments by kabouel)
loved this book@ couldnt put it down and thats saying a lot@
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Tammy Dotts, June 15, 2011 (view all comments by Tammy Dotts)
A young girl disappears in the woods, leaving no real clues where she’s gone or who might have taken her. She told her brother and cousin she was going to live with the King of Fairies. It couldn’t be true, could it? Except her brother had chased after fairy bells in the woods, too.

Fifteen years later, Lisa is still missing. Her brother, Sam, hasn’t gotten over her disappearance. His girlfriend, Phoebe, has her own suspicions about fairies. When they receive a mysterious call that leads them to Lisa’s Book of Fairies, they reunite with Sam’s cousin, Evie, at a remote cabin. Evie “knows” things, including that Phoebe may be pregnant. An old woman shows up at the door, singing Lisa’s childhood songs, only to stab Evie and run off, stripping off a disguise and revealing she’s a young woman. Phoebe and Sam give chase, but the young woman tells police the couple abducted her. Back at the cabin, there’s no trace Phoebe and Sam stayed there and no sign of Evie.

Once home, Phoebe and Sam discover the Evie they met at the cabin isn’t the real Evie. They find themselves drawn deeper and deeper into the mystery of Lisa’s disappearance. Was she taken by the King of the Fairies? Or was a more sinister, all-too-human villain behind her disappearance?

The bones of a good story lie beneath Jennifer McMahon’s Don’t Breathe a Word. What starts off as a young teen’s desire to believe in something magical, to be something more than ordinary pick up a sinister undertone as the plot progresses. As McMahon writes, “What if things happened to you -- 'special, magic things' -- because you’d been preparing for them? What if by believing you opened a door?”

Chapters flip between Phoebe’s investigation into Lisa’s disappearance and 15 years earlier to Lisa’s attempts to contact the Fairy King. The chapters from Lisa’s point of view are stronger. McMahon does well when writing about the transition to being an adult while wanting to cling to parts of childhood like believing in fairies. Her teen and preteen characters are believable, making mistakes and assumptions that real teens would. The plot in these chapters is a bit muddy at times, but that can be excused by gaps in Lisa’s knowledge of her family’s history.

The Phoebe chapters are more problematic, with some inconsistencies in how characters act and one too many plot twists and reverses. A hint of deus ex machina in the form of a late-introduced character to provide answers doesn’t help.

As those answers come, the end of the novel feels rushed as information is dumped on the reader through a discovered diary. The full scenes McMahon was able to portray of the young Lisa give way to quick flashes and hints of scenes that may have played better if more fully developed.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780061689376
Subtitle:
A Novel
Author:
McMahon, Jennifer
Publisher:
William Morrow Paperbacks
Subject:
General
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
General Religion
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Suspense
Edition Description:
Trade PB
Publication Date:
20110517
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
464
Dimensions:
7.375 x 5.5 x 1.25 in 17.60 oz
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Related Subjects

Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

Don't Breathe a Word Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$6.50 In Stock
Product details 464 pages Harper Paperbacks - English 9780061689376 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "Family secrets and fairy lore create a shifting reality in McMahon's unsettling novel about the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl who longed to become Queen of the Fairies. Fifteen years after Lisa goes missing, her younger brother, Sam, gets a strange phone call that leads him and his girlfriend, Phoebe, to discover a book, supposedly written by the King of the Fairies, that Lisa used as her bible to cross over, and which prompts Sam and Phoebe to meet up with Sam's cousin, Evie, to see if they can figure out what happened to Lisa. Nothing is as it seems from that moment on, and Phoebe's longtime fear of a dark man in the shadows seeps back after she discovers, in true woo-woo fashion, that she is pregnant. McMahon (Promise Not to Tell) alternates between the past and present with loads of portent and foreshadowing, creating a rural Vermont chiller with a Rosemary's Baby vibe, but even after a surprising villainess emerges and more than a few disquieting passages about Lisa are burned through, many readers will remain in the dark. (May)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)
"Review" by , "Don't Breathe a Word is a haunting page-turner that kept me up, spine shivering and enthralled, way past my bedtime."
"Review" by , "Jennifer McMahon never flinches and never fails to surprise…as [she] weaves a young couple into a perverse fairyland where Rosemary’s Baby could be at home."
"Synopsis" by , 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.
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