Blog Tour: The Second Captive (Maggie James) @Bloodhoundbook @mjamesfiction

Welcome to my stop on the Bloodhound Books blog tour for The Second Captive by Maggie James! I am thrilled to have read this book and to be able to provide you with a review!

I am a complete sucker for an abduction thriller; anything where people are held captive and live to survive the tale. Books like Room, Baby Doll, Method 15/33, and The Doll House stick with me long after I have read them. Now that I have finished The Second Captive, I would say this title would need to be added to that list! Fast paced and binge reading worthy; I finished this novel in a single afternoon.

When eighteen-year-old Beth is abducted, she tries continuously to escape. And then something changes. Her relationship with her captor begins to develop and her feelings become complicated. When she is able to escape, she has more than enough evidence to prove his guilt, but, she is unable to.   A story of the human condition and Stockholm syndrome, The Second Captive delivers a snapshot into trauma and psychological manipulation.

Told through multiple perspectives and through two separate sections, James weaves the story, in the first section, through the eyes of the captor and the captive. The second section introduces the matriarch of Beth’s family that has changed forever. I loved the multiple narrations and found the story to be easily followed.

Although I found this one to be completely entertaining, I was a little disappointed with how linear the story felt and how one-dimensional the plot became. I did feel like this one ended a little too neatly for my own liking and that a lot of the story was left untold.   At times, I felt this novel was a little too “surface” and I wished that the author had delved more.  To be fair, this story focused more on the after effects and trauma of Stockholm syndrome and captivity, but I still would have liked some more details.

Overall, I feel like any fans of the abduction thriller will really appreciate this book; I know I did!

Thanks to Bloodhound Books and the author for a digital copy of this novel. It was my pleasure to provide an honest review.