Free read ½ PDF, eBook or Kindle ePUB · Damian Stevenson
A nonstop page-turning thrill ride
I came into this book having read Stevenson's 'Ian Fleming files' and expected Solstice to be a professionally-crafted work with excellent characters, well-written dialogue, and a penchant for the cinematic. I wasn't disappointed.
I won't belabor the point: there are a lot of reviews about this book, and some of them will point out all that this short, electric read had to offer more poetically than I. Would I recommend this book to others? Yes. Will I post it on Facebook and my blog? Sure.
Is it perfect? Nearly. I found that, like in the other book, the pacing of action sequences didn't allow for much room to breathe, but here they were clipped down even a little further, until they were at the cusp of being confusing. I didn't mind filling in a few blanks in the rip-roaring, heart-stopping thriller action. It's why I prefer books to movies.
Two big thumbs up. Solstice Excellent Read Damian Stevenson!
I read this instantly gripping page turner in one afternoon. The main character Dana on her way to Oklahoma to live with her sister Zoe seems scattered from the beginning of this fast paced thriller. Her boyfriend is missing from the Motel and there is no sign of him anywhere. She never gives up looking for him in this little community where her sister lives.
Everyone seem to live in complete harmony here, but there are strange things going on in this house and everyone seems a little to happy that Dana has come to live with them.
Thank-goodness she has her cat Alice.
There are plenty of mysterious happening going on all over Oklahoma and with the Solstice just days away who knows what sacrifices will have to be made.
If your after a great non-stop action, page-turning book, I highly recommend reading Solstice and be careful what town you end up in. You never know what sacrifices you will have to make. Solstice This really needs to be a movie!! The whole time I'm reading it I'm picturing it in a movie form. Even knowing how it'd turn out I'd love to see it! I love all of the plot twists and the flow of it all. So great and really could not put it down. Really! I sat here and read the entire thing without even thinking twice. Amazing read from start to finish. Damian Stevenson is an incredible storyteller. Excellent writing, feels like you are in the book with the characters. It kept me on my toes and read for more. Creepy and thrilling. Just enough to keep you turning the page again and again. I give this book two thumbs up and look forward to reading more books written by Mr Stevenson. A must read!
Solstice Horror accelerates from zero to sixty in Solstice. Orphaned at six, Dana struggles with depression exacerbated by her lack of a support system. Dana's only living relative is Zoe, her older estranged sister, married to the leader of a deadly environmentalist commune. Desperate to be loved she heads to Rainbow with Tyler who in reality is party to a chilling end game. On the surface Rainbow and the charismatic Clive seem welcoming and benign but the chills chasing down her spine say otherwise. Lies, sacrifices and murder are par for the course as Dana runs the gauntlet to survival. Solstice Solstice (Kindle Thrillers by Damian Stevenson is an excellent and gripping thriller.
It follows our heroine Dana as she leaves a safe house or mental asylum. When her friend Tyler is missing she goes to live with her sister in a hippie commune. The search for the missing man however unearth some dark findings.
I loved the way Dana is set up as the vulnerable and helpless figure who is thrown into a much more volatile world than she expects. Not only does she undergo some great character development, her alleged 'insanity' is a great tool of reflection on the alleged #sane' people around her.
Written with great psychological mastery and slow burning suspense the story builds up tension nicely to a more action packed climax.
Well written with great observations on human behaviour and a compelling style this is a great thriller that should find a cult following of its own in no time.
Highly recommended to all fans of the genre and those who want to try. Solstice
A Haunting Thriller Which Will Make Your Heart Beat Faster
As I came to the end of this story, I realized that I had been holding my breath. I took several deep breaths. This story will do this to you, too. It's a story that is chilling and intense, and you'll never know what will happen next. So let's begin at the beginning. Dana Barnes is 26 years old, living in Los Angeles. She's had bouts with depression and her therapist suggests she stay at the Expedition House, a psychiatric facility for five days to get a quick-start to erase her depression. Dana had been diagnosed two years earlier as being bipolar. But at the facility they treated her as though she was suicidal. After the five-day internment, she is driven toward Oklahoma by Tyler, who she considers her boyfriend. Her sister, Zoe, lives in an isolated area at an experimental environmental community called 'Rainbow.' Zoe is married to the founder, Clive. Enroute, during a terrible storm, they stop at an outdated motel for the night. The Motel Americana ... well, you'll soon think of it as the Bates Motel. When she awakens, there is no trace of Tyler other than his belongings, wallet, and keys. What has happened to him? The local police feel he just walked away from her ... or, maybe she was delusional about him even being with her. Soon, she decides she best complete her trip to 'Rainbow.' She should have followed her instincts and driven back to Los Angeles. This story is an extremely well written spooky story! At first it reminded me of the chill of reading years ago John Fowles thriller, The Collector. This, too, is a haunting story you will read non-stop. The pace grows more vigorous by the page, the plot is excellent with many twists and turns that will shock you. If you like thrillers, you will love this story; I did!
Solstice This is a particularly clever psychological thriller which completely misleads the reader into believing the main character, Dana is as crazy as she is made out to be!
A wonderfully woven web of false information and doubts leads the reader along several paths thinking Dana is delusional as the narrative draws towards an explosive conclusion.
Once again though, just as you think you've guessed what is going to happen, more twists and turns are revealed which found me reading faster and faster to discover how this tale was going to finish.
The characters are realistic and varied and the detail of the plot is brilliantly conveyed.
If you enjoy a thrilling tale, this is the story for you. Solstice ‘Solstice’ reminded me of a horror movie from the 1970s.
The first half is like a psychological thriller but there’s a chilling twist halfway through the story that takes the narrative beyond suspense into more disturbing territory. It starts off being about an emotionally compromised young lady who may or not be suffering from paranoid delusions when she tells the police that her boyfriend is missing. No one believes that he is real and after much nerve-biting shenanigans the murder mystery is dismissed by the police as a figment of her imagination. But then slowly piece by piece the ‘truth’ as we believe it is dismantled and the story shifts into a story of survival as our heroine, who is shown to be not crazy, has to run for her life. It’s a bit like two stories in one. I would like to have known more about the two sisters, what their lives were like before Zoe joined the Rainbow Collective, and also I didn’t really understand the Clive character fully. But overall this was a thrilling page turner that left me breathless and gave me that intense heart-in-mouth feeling as I read. A very well written suspense-horror novella. Solstice Solstice
Dana checks herself into a mental hospital for a voluntary 5 day stay while suffering from a deep bout of depression. When her time is up and she’s released, she heads out for a stay with her sister, Zoe, at a hippie compound.
From the moment of Dana’s release things are carefully worded so the reader is drawn into the mystery of Dana’s “boyfriend”. Several people encounter her along the way, and there is a hint of a second traveler, but no one including the reader actually sees him. For that reason, when he goes missing no one believes he exists and Dana begins to question her own sanity.
The commune is everything you picture at the word, a ton of people living in one place, living off the land, and a bit free in each other’s state of undress. Right from the first moment of her arrival, things seem strange about the community, and it’s not just the free love. The longer Dana stays and the more she reveals about her boyfriend, Tyler, you begin to wonder what is real.
Is Dana crazy or are the people of Rainbow Collective preparing for the Solstice?
On a personal note, this book was full of suspense and mystery but the most horrific moment for me was when Dana runs through a swarm of gnats and can no longer breathe. Ugh!
Really though, this was an awesome book and totally deserving of 5 stars.
**As with most of my reviews, I received this book in exchange for an honest review**
Solstice If you like mysteries, psychological thrillers, cruel ancient rituals, and lots of unexpected plot turns, this book is for you. You can’t go wrong with this novella. Just don't read too many reviews: they reveal too much of the plot and can spoil the experience for you.
There’s a lot to like about this book. The plot will keep you guessing all the way. Just as you think you have figured something out, the story takes a different turn. The characters are realistic and believable. The main character, Dana, comes across as both vulnerable and determined – and that’s appealing. At the beginning of the story, she is struggling to overcome some serious issues in her life, but the methods she is using to solve her issues are not working. What ultimately helps her solve those initial problems is very unexpected, yet logical.
The language of the book is so vivid that the book feels like a movie is playing in front of you. The author puts just the right amount of sensory details to immerse the readers into the settings: the sounds, the sights, the smells – it’s all there. But you will never feel overwhelmed with details or flowery descriptions. All the details serve a purpose, and all of them pull you more and more into the story.
I love that this story can be read on so many different levels: you can read it as an exciting thriller and mystery and enjoy it just as that. But you can also think about larger issues that the book brings up, from utopian societies to ineffectiveness of anti-depressants. I highly recommend it! Solstice
In this disturbing new eBook novella by thriller master Damian Stevenson, a young woman with a history of mental illness descends into madness when her missing boyfriend is declared by all to be a figment of her imagination.
Dana March is thrust into a game of shadows where nothing is what it seems and she must fight to preserve her own sanity in the face of overwhelming evidence that points to her having made up a story about an abduction.
Dana’s sister recently married the charismatic leader of an experimental rural community, The Rainbow Collective, and Dana was on her way to visit with her new beau ‘Jack’ when he supposedly vanished from a roadside motel. Did Dana invent Jack to impress her sister? There is no trace of him and Dana is unable to produce any form of proof that he is real for the police.
With no one to vouch for Jack’s existence, Dana must fight to preserve her grasp on reality while playing detective in an environment that suggests civilization is a thin veneer over man’s deepest, darkest impulses.
‘Solstice’ is a gripping, provocative page-turner that will leave you guessing the truth until the very end. Solstice