Anonymous follows the story of Debra, a young woman whose tragic and subliminal past continues to haunt her. After she and her husband purchase a very old farmhouse to renovate, she begins to question her own sanity after experiencing questionable bizarre episodes that leave no evidence of its occurrence. Are the events real, or are they created by a troubled mind? Living in the shadow of her mother’s violent schizophrenia, Debra is fully aware and forever in fear that it can and possibly has been passed on to her via heredity. It doesn’t help that her husband tries to find a logical conclusion for any and every illogical event.
For the first time in her life, Debra has a friend, a real friend named Julie whom she recently met. Julie, a married woman in her mid-thirties, who lives down the road and has a painful past of her own, also complicated with a distant, yet jealous husband. Julie has confided in Debra that a stalker has been leaving her letters, letters where this individual confesses his undying love to her, along with his sexual fantasies. Letters that enrage her husband and caused him to blame Julie, though it is to no fault of her own.
While Debra struggles with what is real and possibly unreal, the mystery of Julie’s stalker heats up. If that’s not enough, someone’s been killing cats out in the old barn, grisly killings done by a demented mind, and now this someone is focusing on Debra. Will the cats be enough to satisfy his blood lust, or will he need more? Is Julie’s stalker truly harmless and simply smitten, or is he obsessed and dangerous? The house with its rumors of being haunted, with the scratching in the walls, as well as the bumps and creeks, are these actual incidents or are they all in Debra’s mind? Has her deepest fear of truly becoming her mother’s daughter come true, or is there a darkness there waiting to consume her?
While this book starts out slightly awkward at first, by chapter 2 it is engrossing, and you become drawn into Debra, and the events in her life, both past and present.
Christine Benedict touches on many of our greatest fears. Fear of the unknown, fear of the supernatural, fear of mental illness, and fear of an unhinged stalker. Her descriptions touch on all of our senses, and at times you can actually hear the insects buzzing by your ear, and at times, the pungent smell of freshly laid farm manure.
She does a good job of character development over time, divulging bits of backstory here and there in a way that draws you closer to the characters, and helps you to understand their reactions to what’s going on around them.
idtrythat 