Deadly Little Secret Laurie Faria Stolarz

It was a dark and stormy night... wait, no. No it wasn't. It was just dark. Clichefail. And, what book does Medeia choose off of her (growing) pile of books? Well, if you read the title of this post then you know it was Deadly Little Secret. If you've read any of Laurie Faria Stolarz's other books, then you also know that reading one of them at late o' clock at night when you're alone in the house is a BAD IDEA.

This one starts out eerily Twilight-esque. Camelia is walking along, minding her own business, when suddenly a car comes hurtling out of nowhere! *cue dreamy grey-eyed stranger* In a very Cullen-ly move, he pushes her out of the way of the speeding vehicle of death and then they stare into each other's eyes for a while. Camelia doesn't catch his name before he races off (to save more damsels in distress or something) and before she could thank him for saving her life.

{Fast forward three months}

There's a new kid at school who (allegedly) pushed his girlfriend off a cliff. Guess who it is. Just guess. Yeah, it's the dreamy grey-eyed stranger. Camelia tries to thank him, but he waves it off and says that she's probably mistaken him for someone else. As Camelia tries to get closer to Ben (aka grey-eyed stranger) she starts to find pictures in her mailbox. Of her. With increasingly hostile messages written on them.*shudder* Who could be stalking her? Is it the kinda creepy boss at the pottery studio where she works, who's given her an invitation to come in any time? Or could it be the super yummy star jock who keeps running into her? Or... is it Ben, who keeps touching her and can't seem to let go?

I repeat: bad idea to read this at 11 at night. What really freaked me out were the passages written by Camelia's stalker interspersed every couple of chapters. Halfway through I had to switch to Wildwood Dancing. Though some of the the elements of this piece of scary seemed recycled, they still combined to form a chilling read, which is something that we've come to expect (and love about) Laurie Faria Stolarz. Deadly Little Secret gets a 5 out of 7 from yours truly.

[side note: I had to read through the first fifty or so pages of this one before I was 100% sure Ben wasn't going to turn into a vampire. This is what Twilight similarities do to me.]

Closing all the curtains and hunting up a blanket (make that several blankets),

P.S. The winner of the Fiercely Fawesome First Contest is posted below.