Hidden Pictures
A Novel
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4.4 • 1.7K Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · OPTIONED FOR NETFLIX BY A PRODUCER OF THE BATMAN
GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER
“I loved it." —Stephen King
From Edgar Award-finalist Jason Rekulak comes a wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, for fans of Stranger Things and Riley Sager, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.
Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.
Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.
Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.
Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this dark suburban thriller, Jason Rekulak explores the horror that lies beyond the most manicured lawns. Mallory Quinn is a young recovering addict who’s landed a job as a nanny to adorable five-year-old Teddy in a picture-perfect New Jersey town. But there’s a darkness lingering at the end of the woodsy cul-de-sac, where Mallory suspects a horrifying murder once took place. Rekulak keeps you riveted as sweet Teddy draws increasingly detailed and unsettling pictures of the long-ago crime. As the truth comes closer to the surface, so do Mallory’s past traumas and her seemingly ideal host family’s secrets. Hidden Pictures is a frightening thriller packed with plenty of heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rekulak (The Impossible Fortress) uses horror as a lens to bring the dark underbelly of suburbia into focus in this gripping supernatural thriller. Narrator Mallory Quinn is a 21-year-old recovering addict getting a second chance as a live-in nanny to five-year-old Teddy Maxwell, a sweet-natured young artist whose wonderfully creepy pictures appear throughout the novel. His uncanny muse/model is his "imaginary friend," Anya, whom his erudite, politically correct parents dismiss. Mallory takes Anya seriously, however, especially as Teddy's art rapidly turns darker and impossibly sophisticated and Mallory learns of a long-ago murder in her guest house quarters. How is Anya manipulating Teddy? Could she be the murder victim? And why do Mallory's concerns provoke such explosive emotion in Teddy's parents? The plot unfolds at a good clip, and Mallory's voice is engrossing, if occasionally too writerly for her working-class South Philly roots. There are no shocking twists here, but Rekulak isn't looking to keep readers up at night; he's holding a mirror up to white, affluent Gen X and asking pointed questions about class, trauma, and horror conventions. In that mode, he executes well and sticks the landing.
Customer Reviews
See AllVery good read, very good story
This was a really good read. I was impressed at how easy this was to read and it really flowed from chapter to chapter. It also has a twist that I didn’t see coming. Definitely recommended.
Slow and too much unnecessary information
The plot twist was compelling, but the story lost momentum and became somewhat uninteresting. While I was engaged in the beginning, the pacing slowed down significantly toward the middle and end
Creepy
Couldn’t finish it and I try to finish every book I start