Natasha Preston’s enticing novel, “The Cellar,” describes the life of a young girl kept hostage by a deranged man, attempting to create a perfect family with three other captives.

It all begins the night Summer Robinson was taken by said maniac. Devastated, but not defeated, Summer’s friends and family set out to find her, placing posters throughout the city and calling attention through the televised news. Little did they know she was not lost at all. The beloved daughter was just down the road, trapped in a cellar, surviving on poorly cooked meals and hope in the family’s persistence.

With the overbearing scent of lemon cleaning product and fresh flowers, Summer can only dream of one day breaking through the cellar doors and returning to her family. However, she’s forced to decide if taking the chance of escape is truly worth it since she’s seen the consequences far too often. Cleaning the blood of this maniac’s victims was too much for Summer to handle. Death was the ultimate price, but what was living if she was trapped anyway? 

Preston is able to keep the reader interested during this demeaning representation of what the “perfect family” should be, and it’s quite disturbing how she achieves such a difficult task. This page turner leaves the reader wanting more, but also wanting the suffering of the hostages to end all in one.

The reader will be left on edge as the three captives initiate the plan of escape, questioning whether or not the escape will succeed. When the slightest glimmer of hope sparks within Summer, it is always crushed by the maniac’s murderous ways and deception.

However, with persistence and sleepless nights, anything is possible. Never give up. Never surrender. What’s around the corner could be what we’ve always been looking for.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars