Ty is so sly that even the reader falls for him. Her dynamic with Ty, her captor, is also finely tuned. We want her out of his clutches by page one. She is the type of heroine we want to succeed in escaping. Her strength and vitality are combined with parental issues and the need for a figure that outwardly shows caring in her life. Gemma herself is a heroine that is vivid and complex.

Many times throughout my reading, I can remember the feeling of my stomach contorting into knots of fear trickling in as Gemma would try and escape, or think about her death. Every word, paragraph, and page is cold and calculated like Ty himself. There is nothing unbelievable about this book nothing left to a simple plot device or character malfunction. Stolen is the tale of a girl and her captor of isolationism and a fear that grows into something indescribable.Ī novel like Stolen is unique in it’s ability to be both horrifying, eye opening, and honest. Along with that eerie feeling that she had seen him somewhere before. He says he won’t hurt her, but the fear is always there. With no cell phone or way to contact her family – or escape – Gemma has to try and survive with Ty. When she wakes up completely, she’s tied to a bed. Something unnerves her, however, and before she knows it, she is drugged. Gemma sits down and shares coffee with him, reluctant to leave with her parents so soon.

His comfortable blue eyes and handsome exterior draw her in. She’s just about to board her plane and leave. In an airport, ready to fly to Vietnam with her parents, Gemma is stolen. The simplistic copper butterfly on a black background was tempting, and on opening the book to the silhouette of a snake on one page, another butterfly on the next, I was enraptured. Picking up Stolen, I had minor fears that you would be one of those unfortunate international authors. I don’t know what it is, but international authors sometimes do not gel with my reading pleasure. I fell in love with author Cornelia Funke, but didn’t really care for the Tunnels series. Books published through the Chicken House imprint are a mixed bag for me.

Stolen by lucy christopher