Blurb
Seventeen year-old Daphne Janus is floored when her parents agree to let her accompany her best friend to a getaway resort on an island off the coast of California. She doesn't know her parents have sent her to the Purgatorium as a last-ditch effort to save their child.
Her best friend and life-long neighbor takes her to a mostly uninhabited island with a wildlife preserve on one side and Chumash Indian ruins on the “haunted” side. The resort might be beautiful, the beach pristine, and the views from the headland amazing, but strange things begin to happen that soon have Daphne running for her life. At first she finds the therapeutic games thrilling: the ghosts that visit her room, the dropping elevator, and the kayak incident are actually kind of fun once she recovers from them. But when her horse bucks her off during a trail ride and she becomes lost on the haunted side of the island, it’s not fun anymore, and she wonders if her parents have sent her there to help her or to punish her.
Links
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Review
OH WOW! This book is by far the best book I've read in years! This book was like a really good therapy session for me. The end was just, OMG, I was bawling hysterically. I wish this kind of place was REAL! The weird stuff that happens, it can be confusing, but by the end you will understand why it was necessary. The end, it's just amazing. I can't praise this book enough. I knew Eva was an awesome person before reading this book, and as you may know, I've read several of her books in addition to this one. After reading this book though, I know I have to read everything she writes. Even her lesser known titles. If you haven't picked up a book by this awesome lady yet, you're seriously missing out. Go buy this one ASAP. If you have any kind of family dysfunction at all, you will be able to relate to Daphne, and may find this book as healing as I did.
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Bio
Eva Pohler writes fiction and teaches writing and literature at The University of Texas at San Antonio, where she lives with her husband, three teens, and two dogs. She is the author of The Gatekeeper's Saga, The Purgatorium Series, and The Mystery Box.
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Excerpt
Before they reached the main level, the elevator jerked and stopped.
“What’s going on?” Daphne asked, as her brain fogged up with fear.
The lights blinked off. They were enveloped in darkness.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Stan said.
“What’s happening?” She couldn’t think. Her hands flapped beside her like the wings of a jarred moth.
“It’s okay, Daphne,” he said in a soothing voice. “We’re going to be fine. I’m trying to find the emergency switch. Someone will get us outta here soon.”
Tears ran down her face and her stomach dropped out from under her. She felt like she might be sick. Then it occurred to her that this might be the exercise Cam had agreed to set up for Hortense Gray.
“This better not be an exercise. This isn’t one of their exercises, is it?” She felt along the wall of the elevator for the rail, and when she found it, she held on tight.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, therapeutic games? Cam knows I’m scared of elevators. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on here. They’re making me face my fear. Well forget this! Do you hear me out there? I don’t like this one bit!” She hit her fist against the elevator wall.
“Calm down, Daphne.”
“I thought therapeutic games would be like relay races and rock climbing. Scaring the crap out of me is not why I came!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry, Stan. This isn’t your fault. Oh, God, oh my crap, I can’t breathe!” She felt helpless, out of control, at the mercy of this stupid elevator and the way it was closing in on her, stifling her oxygen, trapping her, not letting her out. “Let me out!”
“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms with a tight grip, forcing her to hold still. “Relax. It’s okay,” he said softly.
The lights flickered and then came on. The elevator dropped a few more feet to the bottom floor.
“Ahhh!” Daphne cried, catching against the wall.
The doors opened, and Daphne leapt out, trembling and angry and amazingly relieved. She avoided the eyes of the others in the foyer as she tried to regain control of her breathing and rushed from the building.
Stan caught up to her and put a hand on her shoulder just outside the main building. “You okay?”
She caught her breath and then said, “No.”
“Let’s head back to the rooms.” He slid a hand behind her back and nudged her down the sidewalk.
“So are they scaring the hell out of you, too?” she asked, after her breathing had returned to normal. “Any games as crazy as that?”
“What do you mean? What games?”
“Isn’t Dr. Gray putting you through therapeutic games?”
“I’m here studying the Chumash Indian ruins and archaeological sites for a paper I’m writing.”
Daphne stopped on the sidewalk near the pool, where the underwater lights had turned on, making the water glow in the dusk falling around them. “I don’t understand.”
Stan put an arm around her waist and pulled her onward. “If you ask me, Cam’s just teasing you.”
“No. Dr. Gray said so, too.”
“Therapeutic games? What does that even mean?”
Daphne shrugged. “I don’t intend to stay and find out.”
They reached her unit.
“You just got here and made my trip one hundred percent better. I hate to see you leave.”
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