I was really intrigued by this story. It pulled me in from the start. I enjoyed how Reyes structured the telling of the story. There are both past-and-present timelines, as you slowly piece together what happened between Maya, Frank and Aubrey that summer and how that has impacted Maya's life ever since. Exactly. That's definitely what I was going for, that dark side of nostalgia. - from the Salon interview on a positive note, i did eventually find myself somewhat invested in the story, but mostly because i hoped to be proved wrong with my suspicions. it was atmospheric and i enjoyed the scenes at the cabin (wish we would have gotten more of that). i also appreciate that the author went a little out of the box with the plot

Frank knows just what to say and it seems they have similar interests. Before too long though, Maya begins to notice certain things about their time together that make her greatly uncomfortable. In fact, she becomes so ill at ease around him, she actually begins to fear him. During their last year of high school, Maya's best friend, Aubrey dropped dead while in the presence of Frank, a man they had been spending time with over the summer. Seven years have passed, and Maya has a secret addiction to klonopin which she has been keeping secret from her boyfriend, Ben. Once Maya finally admits to Aubrey the truth behind her relationship with Frank, Aubrey surprises her. She's afraid of him too. Just as the two girls begin to make connections, on that very day, Aubrey ends up dead.Reyes’ thriller, published Tuesday by Dutton, tells the story of a woman who believes that a friend’s death years before was the result of murder—and discovers that the friend’s boyfriend at the time has been linked to other mysterious deaths. Professional Book Nerds - Talking The House in the Pines with Author Ana Reyes by Joe Skelley - audio – 40:00 Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they'd been spending time with all summer. Thanks to the author, Penguin Group Dutton and NetGalley for the ARC. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review* Powerfully eerie and atmospheric, The House in the Pines is a compelling mix of psychological thriller and dark fairy tale. By focusing not on whodunit but how and why, Ana Reyes’s stellar debut explores the many ways our memories can fail us—and how they can set us free.”

Ana Reyes said of The House in the Pines, “The idea of home, though always important to the story, emerged as a theme in ways I hadn’t expected.”Was this a “meta” thing where I was supposed to be as confused as main character Maya, a pill-popping, gin-swilling Gen Z who is convinced that a mysterious older guy she was involved with as a teen caused her best friend to drop dead for no apparent reason seven years ago? I want to thank the publisher "Penguin Group Dutton" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this novel and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone! The only part of the story I really didn’t get was the connection to the book that Maya’s father had been writing. This seems to be really symbolic, both in the synopsis and throughout the story itself, but I couldn’t make the connection between that story and what was happening to Maya. After seven years later, she has Klonopin withdrawals, hiding the truth from her boyfriend Dan she’s living with, suffering insomnia and obsession about a YouTube video that shows a young painter named Cristina dies behind her boyfriend’s eyes as they sit at the dinner. That boyfriend is the same man haunting her for seven years, who might be responsible for her best friend’s Aubrey’s death.

Now, another woman from Maya’s hometown has died in the same strange, unexplained way, and Maya believes only she can save the next innocent girl. Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer. You will find how Frank did murder people (if he did) but the answer is head-scratching and, as I argue above never seemed to me like the main driver of the book’s plot and theme.The central mystery (well, there are two, the first one is whether Frank actually killed those two women, and if so how, and) what is the deal with the strange house in the woods that haunts her dreams, the House in the Pines of the title. If guilty pleasures could come in book form...side by side with Ben and Jerry's, trashy TV, and belting out show tunes in the shower, this one could hold its own...in the BEST possible way! 😉 Maya has no idea the can of worms she opens will bring about more questions than answers and she must face that there were many things she can't remember about her relationship with Frank when she was a teenager and if she does confront him again it could be her life at stake this time and there won't be anyone there to save her.

At this point, the prescriptions have run out. She needs to stop. It's going about as well as would be expected, which is to say, not well at all. Then Maya makes a disturbing discovery.A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. Of course, if you are one of many readers who is OVER the pill-popping 'can we trust her' trope...you might want to avoid this. It only tends to annoy me on a case-by-case basis (and didn't here, although her habit was mentioned more than it needed to be) and I don't feel it detracted from the narrative too much, but if you are fed up with addicted protagonists, this won't be the book for you. The House in the Pines is an excellent mystery/thriller that kept me intrigued from the beginning. What happened wasn’t what I’d expected, which is always a treat. The main character struggled with very real, relatable things in her life, which made her feel close the entire time. And her curiosity fed my curiosity. […] I also enjoyed the twist on present and past tense. In the present timeline the author wrote the book in past tense. In the past timeline the author wrote in the present. It was a very clever way to give an immediacy to the past (especially as the character began to recall events).” I felt the book is really about the relationship between Maya and Frank (a creepy older librarian who tries to get Maya to abandon her plans for college and live with him) and how their relationship casts a dark shadow over her life in the present. That aspect of it reminded me quite a bit of My Dark Vanessa, another book about abuse and trauma. And this is what I think The House in the Pines is really about. Maya has struggled with addiction since the death of her best friend, has been labeled “crazy” by doctors and even her loving mother, and is fearful that her boyfriend will leave her if he ever finds out the truth. She is an exceptionally powerful character who is so dysfunctional and human, I couldn’t help but root for her. Right from the start, there is something not quite right about Frank but Reyes keeps this secret hidden until the deliciously twisted ending, which was unexpected yet still extremely entertaining.