Still Missing - Chevy Stevens

This book has a lot of reviews floating around online (close to 1400 on Amazon). Chevy Stevens is a Canadian author of several mystery/suspense novels.  My friend Erin, who blogs at The PickleBee, got her hands on an advanced copy of Stevens' "Those Girls" (to be released in July of 2015) and declared solemnly, "men are horrible creatures".  Indeed - though in "Still Missing", it turns out that men aren't the only horrible  creatures.

Thirty-something realtor Annie O'Sullivan is abducted by "The Freak", while hosting a open house for a property she is trying to sell.  The Freak keeps her captive in a remote cabin in the woods, where he rapes and tortures her for the first horrifying half of the book.

Annie eventually finds an opportunity to escape, and in the second half of the book we follow her attempt to build a new life, as nothing is the same when she comes home.  Some twists and turns are revealed as Annie works with her psychiatrist and the investigators.

Chevy Stevens revealed that the idea for "Still Missing" came to her while she herself was working as a realtor and hosting an open house.  She began to wonder what would happen to her if she didn't make it back home, and thus, "Still Missing" was born.

Still Missing is dark and at times quite violent.  Stevens has created a true "Bad Guy" in "The Freak".   Though she's a fictional character, Annie's resiliency reminded me of real life survivors Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, and Amanda Berry.

An intensely powerful book.