The atmosphere in the abandoned theme park was creepy as hell, and I thought the slow reveal of the baddie was well done for ultimate tension. Further, I promise this is it for complaints, the horror aspects were kept too obscure. I wanted more. I liked the build and tension initially. Hide-and-Seek is the only First Book of Position Words you’ll ever need, and definitely the cutest. Jumping between time periods, Mara seamlessly ties the various timelines of the story together perfectly. She isn’t afraid to delve into some very dark topics in her books and Hide and Seek is no exception.

Thanks so much to the author Andrea Mara, publishers Bookouture and Netgalley.co.uk for the opportunity to read it prior to it's publication on August 4th 2022. Così come Tyrion Lannister era ossessionato dal voler conoscere il motivo per cui suo cugino schiacciava gli insetti con tale ferocia, così io, pagina dopo pagina, volevo capire questo ragazzo. Avevo bisogno di capirlo. Will è una sirena e anch'io, come Maggie, mi sono ritrovata intrappolata nella tela che con maestria lui ha iniziato a tessere fin dalla sua prima comparsa. Che astuto manipolatore! Che sinistro attore! Will Shepherd è questo e molto, MOLTO di più. È un incantatore dalla mente profondamente disturbata che anela disperatamente a essere amato e compreso davvero. Ed è assolutamente divino nella sua pazzia. This book is chef's kiss and I loved reading it. The atmosphere was fab and I was genuinely worried for the kids. It's the right amount of scary I think for children who read, and just a fun ride for the adults who still love their middle grade. Developments happened that really enriched the world and it went beyond what I was expecting.I have a lot of cousins. Dozens upon dozens of cousins. And growing up all I did was play outside with these cousins, sunrise to sunset. I was really looking forward to this book coming out, but it ended up being a big letdown. I first read the blurb and was hoping for something like Fantasticland. Instead, I got something more like Clown in a Cornfield, that took itself too seriously and got rid of the fun . I never saw the ending coming and her ability to make me as a parent think about what it would be like to lose my child was truly terrifying. Any parent will feel their stomach drop when the story unfolds before their eyes! To start out with, there are WAY too many characters (fourteen!) to keep straight. They are first and often identified by their "identities"-ie "intern" "writer" etc. Then we get names and identities sometimes used interchangeably. When I got to the middle of the book, I wished I would have kept a chart from the beginning, but in the end many of the characters were totally throwaway so it didn't really matter. Daka Hermon sets the scene, the fears, the characters perfectly and spins an innocent game of hide and seek into something otherworldly and sinister. Haven’t we all played that terrifying game of hide and seek? Hidden somewhere sketchy and thought well I am not getting out of this or gotten lost while trying to find the others.

year-old Joanna forfeits her career to become a SAHM (girl, 11; boy, 9; girl, 3) when she and her husband, 49, move into a house in a closed community where he grew up outside of Dublin. Joanna is determined to find out more about Lily and the circumstances of her disappearance, not least because Joanna is harbouring secrets of her own that may have some bearing on the unsolved case. One by one, the kids will start having a spiral looking mark appear on the insides of their wrists over the next couple days......and one the one the kids will start to disappear having to play a game of Hide and Seek with 'The Seeker'!!!

Trigger/Content Warnings: murder, blood and gore, suicide, murder of children, loss of parents, loss of a sibling, homelessness, homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, animal death, high-demand religion/cult (mentioned)

The writing was a little wonky for me from the very start, but I was intrigued to see where it was going regardless.Joanna thinks she may be remembering what happened to Lily, and her childhood self may have been involved. I also enjoyed the social commentary, from homophobia, racism, classism, and sexism to generational animosity (boomers using and abusing younger generations for their own benefit and then blaming and deriding them for struggling). Should the contestants hide individually? Form alliances? Something sinister was definitely occurring. Heavy footsteps at a slow deliberate pace...the distant scream of rusted metal...

It's taken me a long time to come to grips with how I feel about this book. I liked a couple things and I really disliked some things. Unfortunately, the bad override the good. Daka Hermon's "Hide and Seeker" was supposedly a book for readers between the ages of 8 and 12....what the hell!!? No way would i ever give this to an 8 year old to read....nope. Daka writes of a game that we have all played and played over and over again growing up and she makes it out to be one of the most terrifying and scary games ever.....how you ask can the game be a terrifying race for your life? Did you ever think, "what if I cheat or break the rules?" These kids do exactly that and their lives will never be the same ever again!Andrea Mara has done it again! Hide and Seek, her fifth novel, is her best yet! Mara is one of the undisputed champions of twisty, gripping thrillers that will leave your heart racing and your nerves shot!