Still Missing

Starred review from May 3, 2010
Stevens’s impressive debut, a thriller set on Vancouver Island, pulsates with suspense that gets a power boost from the jaw-dropping but credible closing twist. In psychiatric sessions, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old realtor with a nice boyfriend and a demanding mother, describes her year-long ordeal as the captive of a rapist. Annie was about to close up an open house for a property when an affable guy who introduced himself as David showed up. In short order, David kidnapped her and held her hostage in a remote mountain cabin. There, he raped her daily, regulated every moment, and forced her to “play house.” The intense plot alternates between Annie’s creepy confinement, her escape, and her attempts to readjust to real life, from going to the bathroom when she wants to managing her own meals. Still, Annie knows that a large part of her soul is “still missing.” Her transformation from victim adds to the believability of the enthralling plot. 150,000 first printing.

Starred review from June 1, 2010

Stevens's blistering debut follows a kidnap victim from her abduction to her escape—and the even more horrifying nightmare that follows.

One moment, Vancouver Island realtor Annie O'Sullivan is taking one last client, a quiet, well-spoken man with a nice smile, through the property where she's holding an open house; the next moment, she's being marched out to a van at gunpoint, unaware that it's the last time for months that she'll see the sky or breathe the open air. The man who's taken her calls himself David; she calls him The Freak. And her ordeal over the next year, described in unsparing detail in a series of lacerating sessions with her psychiatrist, indicates that her name is a lot more accurate than his. Annie is fondled, beaten, raped and starved by a man whose troubled background has evidently convinced him that she wants him to treat her with exactly this combination of brutality and solicitude. Worse still, she internalizes his obsessive rules (meals and bathroom breaks on a strict schedule, ritual baths and sex, complete control of every word she speaks and her tone of voice) so completely that she remains terrified of breaking them. Months after her miraculous return to the world she wondered if she'd ever see again, she's still cowering every night in her closet, unable to hold her own in anything like a normal conversation with her flirtatious, irresponsible mother, her best friend Christina, her restaurateur boyfriend Luke, or any of the dozens of interviewers who stalk her, "just sadists with a bigger paycheck" than The Freak. Worst of all is the dawning realization, fostered by sympathetic, no-nonsense Staff Sgt. Gary Kincade, that The Freak had at least one accomplice who helped him select his victim—perhaps an accomplice who had a particular reason to wish Annie ill.

A grueling, gripping demonstration of melodrama's darker side. As Annie tells the cops who insist that everything's OK because she's safe: "I was never going to be okay, or safe."

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from May 1, 2010
On a sunny August afternoon, realtor Annie O'Sullivan is just about to end an open house showing when a friendly, nicely dressed man appears. What seems to be a lucky break is really just the beginning of Annie's yearlong ordeal. During sessions with her psychologist, Annie takes the reader back to her abduction and narrates how she struggled to survive during and after the horror. Since the reader is reliving the events through Annie's own retelling, the material can be tough to take. That emotional challenge is alleviated by Annie's flashes of humor and defiance. In her mind, once a victim does not mean one forever. VERDICT While there is physical danger in what Annie experiences, the suspense is in her psychological struggle. Author praise of this highly touted debut includes comparisons to Karin Slaughter and Lisa Gardner, and those authors' fans will like this thriller. While this may be a stretch, the "what would I do" aspect of the reading experience may make this a match for some Jodi Picoult readers as well. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/10; 150,000-copy first printing; library marketing and prepub author tour.]Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2010
This may be Stevens debut novel, but it sure doesnt read like a first book. In fact, its a knockout, a psychological thriller that pulls no punches and has a title that couldnt be more apt. If Annie OSullivans mother isnt exactly a warm and fuzzy parent, everything else in Annies life is great: she has a handsome, attentive boyfriend; loyal friends; and a real-estate career on the upswing. All that comes clear in the first few pages. Then, at an open house one sunny afternoon, a stranger with tousled blond hair and a pleasant manner kidnaps her, takes her to a remote cabin, and rapes and enslaves her. In an angry voice that unsuccessfully tries to mask her fear and pain, Annie gradually reveals, to her unnamed shrink, what she endured during her captivityand how she is coping since her return home. People tell her she is lucky to be back, but fragile and stripped of her dignity, Annie makes a compelling case for the idea that she is really still missing. Relentless and disturbing, Stevens dark, mesmerizing character study follows a twisted path from victimhood toward self-empowerment. Sure to leave readers looking over their shoulders for a smiling stranger.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

November 29, 2010
Angela Dawe gives a bravura performance in her reading of this excellently plotted physiological thriller. Annie O’Sullivan has a job she’s good at, a dog she adores, a boyfriend who makes her happy, and a mother who makes her crazy; in other words she’s living a perfectly happy ordinary life. All that changes in an instant when she is abducted and held captive for more than a year in a remote mountain cabin. Through a series of intriguing, suspenseful, and heartbreaking sessions with a therapist, the book follows Annie’s year of captivity, and her difficult adjustment to life once she escapes. Dawe expertly handles what is essentially a one-woman monologue. She easily moves through Annie’s emotionally charged story, fully expressing the woman’s pain, anguish, and terror, yet she never falls into melodrama and keeps the character grounded. Her rich, fully realized characterization pulls the listener deep into the story. It is a finely tuned, multilayered performance that will keep listeners enthralled to the very last disc. A St. Martin’s hardcover (Reviews, May 3).