You Let Me In delivers a stunning tale from debut author Camilla Bruce, combining the sinister domestic atmosphere of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects with the otherworldly thrills of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Cassandra Tipp is dead…or is she? After all, the notorious recluse and eccentric bestselling novelist has always been prone to flights of fancy–everyone in town … been prone to flights of fancy–everyone in town remembers the shocking events leading up to Cassie’s infamous trial (she may have been acquitted, but the insanity defense only stretches so far).
Cassandra Tipp has left behind no body–just her massive fortune, and one final manuscript.
Then again, there are enough bodies in her past–her husband Tommy Tipp, whose mysterious disembowelment has never been solved, and a few years later, the shocking murder-suicide of her father and brother.
Cassandra Tipp will tell you a story–but it will come with a terrible price. What really happened, out there in the woods–and who has Cassie been protecting all along? Read on, if you dare…
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
more
When wealthy romance author Cassandra Tipp vanishes, she leaves a considerable fortune for her niece and nephew to claim… provided they meet just one condition. They must read a manuscript she has left, to find a codeword to present to claim that inheritance. Knowing there are horrors in the family history, knowing their aunt was at the heart of them, Janus and Penelope make their way to her house and settle down to read. And what they find is a tale more fanciful than anything their aunt ever penned for publication, a tale of faeries and blood, or mental illness and familial abuse. Reality and fantasy are irrevocably blurred.
The writing is beautiful, the subject matter horrifying any way you look at it. The book needs a stack of trigger warnings, from CSA to mental illness, familial abuse, abortion, bad practice by a mental health practitioner and more. It’s meant to be challenging and uncomfortable, to make you wonder if the tales some children tell of faeries in the woods or strange creatures under the bed might have some grain of twisted truth to them after all. Cassandra is a convincing narrator with an explanation for everything, but the more prosaic truths are there, hovering around the edges, obvious questions to ask for those of a practical disposition. And then at the end there’s just the slightest twist… enough to make anyone pause and wonder, what if? What if it’s real? Is it really worth taking the risk?
This is a gorgeously written debut novel, dark and disturbing, sinister and otherworldly. It’ll leave you with chills and very possibly a wariness of walking in the woods for a while. Five stars for a read which will stick with me for a long time.
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via NetGalley.
This book is an exquisite rarity… nicely original and authentically folkloric: creepy, detailed, entrancing.
Dark, twisted, and as frightening as it was wonderful. I devoured it.
what started as a really interesting read, with twists and turns. For me turned into a guessing game. I wasn’t sure if the child imagined her fae friend as a manifestation of her being abused. At times it was really difficult to read and although i read till the end. I am still left with questions. Read with caution.
You Let Me In is a bewitching, beguiling, and deeply unsettling tale of one woman’s strange life. It will ensnare you from page one and keep you riveted until the end.
You Let Me In is a dark, delicious confection of a novel, a tour-de-force of the unreliable narrator ― or is it? Either way ― I loved every word.
Haunting, and harrowing, You Let Me In is the kind of fairy tale that keeps you up at night because the monsters are real. I couldn’t look away.
Cassandra Tipp has disappeared. Did she just pick up and leave? Is she dead? Has she been murdered? Did she commit suicide?
From the time of her childhood, she has always been different. She has a friend .. no one else can see him. He’s old, ragged, she calls him Pepper-Man because that’s what he smells like. He brings her gifts of rotten flowers, dead twigs .. maybe something worse.
She has a family history of death. Her husband was found disemboweled years ago. Cassandra was though to have killed him … but she mounted a insanity defense with the help of her psychiatrist, who is now also dead.
A few years later there is a murder-suicide … her father and her brother. Was she responsible?
Cassandra has left a note and a manuscript. She has a niece and nephew and it is written that they inherit her entire estate … but first they need to read her story.
Mental Illness? Imaginary Friends? Supernatural Lovers? You will need to read her side of what happened all those years. Is Cassandra an abused child the result of a traumatic childhood, the victim of her cold mother and distant father? The spurned wife of a womanizing adulterer?
When all is said and done, you will need to make a choice. Believe … and be safe. Don’t believe … and be damned.
This debut novel is something is something like I’ve never read before. Told in Cassandra’s voice, there are enough twists and turns that made my skin crawl. After awhile, I began to doubt what I was thinking. Are all her memories true .. or are they representative of something else … something deeper, darker?
Many thanks to the author / Macmillan-Tor/Forge / Netgalley for the digital copy of this fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.