Review: Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

Here’s a word of advice when it comes to Elizabeth Haynes’ Into the Darkest Corner — don’t start reading it to get you settled into bed at night or to cure insomnia when you wake up in the middle of the night.

If you do this, be prepare to not get any more sleep and to not care that you’re missing it. Or that your eyes are becoming drowsy, but you just can’t put the book down.

Haynes’ first novel, written during November’s annual novel writing month, is a first-rate suspense thriller. When Catherine meets Lee as the bouncer of a local club, she’s instantly attracted to him. Sparks ignite between the two and soon their flame is burning brightly. But is Lee too good to be true?

Unfortunately for Catherine, the answer is yes. Lee is controlling, manipulative and doesn’t want to let her go.

Years later, now known as Cathy, she’s struggling to start her life over and fight her OCD urges. These urges are having an impact on her professional and personal life. Cathy also knows that Lee will soon be released from prison and could come looking for her, despite her best efforts to vanish and get away from him.

Into her life comes the new neighbor upstairs, a charming man who is willing to help Cathy with her insecurities and possibly learn to trust a man again. But as before, Cathy and we begin to wonder if he’s not too good to be true.

The story unfolds in both the present and the past as we slowly discover what happened to Catherine and what is happening to Cathy. Haynes’ style carries the novel and she knows exactly how to drop hints and clues to keep not only the reader guessing but also make you want to read just one more chapter. Haynes also does a solid job of delivering twists and turns that feel earned and not like they’re thrown in just to keep the novel’s momentum going. She also avoids several cliches and had me second-guessing some of my assumptions about where events would take Catherine/Cathy in the novel.

If you’re looking for a good way to lose sleep, this is just the way to do it.

I know that I’ll be eagerly looking forward to the next offering from Haynes