Maplewood, Vermont is a picturesque town filled with unique shops, unique homes, and a quaint familiarity all centered around a lake with an unusual history.Legends, old as well as Urban, float around like the mist that hovers above the lake at break of dawn.But they’re just stories, right?Hayden Moore’s life was destroyed when his husband, Malcolm, was murdered. Giving up his job as an assistant … up his job as an assistant district attorney in Boston, Hayden moved to the little burg of Maplewood to recover.
A new life.
A fresh start.
However, something underneath the water is stirring. Something rotten. A deadly secret wakes underneath the black waters of Lake Veronica so disturbing it haunts the nightmares of the local residents.
It’s coming closer…
more
A thrilling page-turner from a gifted author! I read books from F. E. Feeley jr. before and I’ve always been impressed by the author’s strong stories, the amazing ideas and the unique way these ideas are perpetuated on paper.
After Hayden had lost his husband his grief leaves him devastated for an entire year. He knows he needs to start finding back into life eventually, but he cannot do that where everything reminds him of Hayden. He decides to give up his home and his job and moves to Vermont.
When he starts getting more familiar with his new home, meeting new people, he asks for someone to help him freshen up his new house. Tommy is recommended to him. From the moment they meet, they start becoming friends. Hayden has no idea he’ll need every friend he can get soon. And Tommy never leaves his side, not even though what Maplewood will face…
I’m not getting deeper into the story, scared I could give away too much.
But I enjoyed the book enormously. The characters are amazing and well developed, so ist the story plot.
However, suspense is building up after Hayden’s move and the spooky part of the book shook me quite surprisingly.
I was a bit frightened, I admit, the story was too real to be shaken off as ‘just another ghost story’.
This is a fascinating book for someone who is not fainthearted. What a great read!
5 stars- I’m not quite sure where to begin with this review because I don’t think my words will do it justice, but I’ve sat on it long enough now. I’ll lead with this, Closer is easily one of my favorite books of the year, maybe ever. I first read this author a couple years back and he’s been an auto buy for me ever since, especially his mysteries/paranormal books. And yet, despite having this novel on my device since it first released, I hadn’t gotten round to reading Closer until the audiobook release. Happily, that worked in my favor because I was able to simultaneously read and listen to an incredible performance of a fantastically spooky and gripping novel.
Although Closer follows an underlying romance between two characters as well as highlighting the love stories of a number of secondary characters, this book focuses more on the perplexing history and current happenings in a small lakeside town in Vermont. The omniscient multi point-of-view narrative flowed surprisingly well, and I was especially impressed with the narrator’s ability to differentiate the voices of characters so it was as easy to follow along with the audiobook as it was when I was reading. The haunting events left me with goosebumps regularly, which was only amplified by Mr. Bastian’s performance, making this a title that was next to impossible to step away from. I enjoyed all the players in Closer and loved how interwoven their stories became. I especially loved the main couple and their fast but steady romance, particularly the strength of them as individuals and the lengths they were willing to go to in order to protect their love. As I’ve come to expect from this author, the twists and sudden, surprising moments were unexpected and made me jump and my heart race. If you’re looking for something a bit different than the standard romance, Closer is an easy choice.
*Review of audiobook/ebook read simultaneously using Whispersync*
Gripping, creepy, and plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing. I’ll admit that early in Closer, I was worried that was going to be more cheesy than creepy, but I was pleasantly surprised with the direction this one took. As I write this, I also realize that there are enough surprises in the story that almost any details would give spoilers, so I’ll try to avoid that and stick to the basics. The story moves at a good pace with several edge of your seat moments and an intriguing supernatural aspect. We even get a little romance to lighten things up a bit. Of course, this is a horror, so it does turn dark again. As much as I enjoy being totally creeped out by a good scary tale, one of my favorite things about this one was the interesting characters and their interactions with each other. Love them or hate them, and there were certainly a couple who fell into the latter category, they were all interesting, which makes the suspense of who will make it to the end and who won’t that much better. On that note, I have to give credit where credit is due – this one kept me guessing right up until the very end.