It's great when you receive a book for a gift and even though it's something you've never heard of you end up really enjoying it! Mallory Quinn is a twenty-one-year-old addict fresh out of rehab. Right at the beginning the novel flashes back to when she's still on drugs and desperate for money. Mallory takes part in a university science experiment for cash and is spotlighted for her ability to sense when she's being watched. This scene is excellent foreboding and sets the reader up for a roller coaster ride of a reading experience!
Now Mallory is sober, and her NA sponsor helps her get an interview to work as a nanny for an affluent family in a New Jersey suburb called Spring Brook. Earnest Mallory is vetted vehemently by the parents of the five-year-old boy and is eventually hired for the job along with given a place to live in the family's cottage in their backyard.
Things start to get strange when the child, Teddy, reveals that he has an imaginary friend named Anya. The parents approach this as a normal developmental stage for some children and Mallory is instructed to treat it as such, and to remind Teddy that Anya is make-believe. Things get even stranger when Teddy produces sinister drawings featuring Anya as being present in their everyday activities. These illustrations become more and more realistic and sophisticated and are deftly integrated throughout the pages of the novel.
When Mallory meets a friend in the neighborhood, Adrian, the two begin an investigation into Teddy's imaginary friend. Anya seems less and less imaginary and more like an actual person from the long-ago history of Spring Brook. Mallory goes against her employers' rules about exposing Teddy to any superstitious activities when the child discovers her, Adrian, and a kooky neighbor holding a séance. Mallory's job is in jeopardy when Teddy's parents find out what she has been up to, and she is accused of using drugs again. But Mallory knows something malevolent is happening especially when the neighbor helping them turns up dead.
This story holds a couple of great twists and the artwork used throughout the story add to the ominous atmosphere and are adept at building suspense. The tension ramps up until the satisfying culmination of this very good thriller!
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