Title: The Woman in The Cabin
Author(s) Name(s): Becca Day
Published in: October, 2024
Why You Might Like This Book: Read this book if you enjoy
- dark mysteries,
- unexpected twists and turns,
- even-paced narration, and
- unsettling, dark fiction.
Who Should Avoid This Book: Avoid this book if you are triggered by or dislike
- domestic violence,
- abuse,
- violence,
- sexual abuse,
- torture.
“The Woman in The Cabin” is a psychological thriller written by Becca Day, published in 2024. It doesn’t seem to be such a popular book but some thriller readers seem to have enjoyed this one, so I choose to read this book this weekend. How is it going to be? We’ll know soon enough.
Yet another husband-wife, marriage-going-wrong crime story in an isolated setting with a compelling mysterious angle? Reminds us some other book we have recently read? Ah yes!
If you are worried that this might be yet another Scottish highlands story and you are getting bored of that trope, don’t give up already. Do give this one a read because this is not like most of those other familiar stories; this one is different.
While most books can take a few initial chapters of boredom, where the author attempts to set up a solid foundation for the plot for the story to then pick up pace, this is not one of those. From the very beginning, the narrative is engaging. Given what’s on the blurb, the contents of the first few chapters already capture your interest successfully to try and get to know the characters. That’s some skill – hooking the reader’s attention right away!
Mary is a woman in her early 30s. She spent most of her childhood living in an area where girl children couldn’t feel safe and there were dangerous men around, so she used to dream of moving to some place far away and leading a quiet, peaceful life where nobody might disturb them, or so we are told. And today, she’s living in such a place, in a cabin on a hill far away from most other people, for around ten years now, and this is not the childhood dream she had. Her husband Cal is a conservative, controlling man who expects his wife to be a caring, loving, devoted homemaker; his ideas are clear: a man’s duty is to earn and provide and a woman’s duty is to serve, always please, and never upset the husband. Cal’s idea of the perfect wife is someone who would look perfect, curvy, sexy, forever young, someone who would always stay obedient, and take full responsibility for cooking, cleaning, and maintaining the house, someone who won’t ask questions. The controlling, religious, old school husband that no woman would want, really.
After doing nothing but serving Cal all this time, Mary begins realising that she has a life of her own and wants more. He dictates what her life should be like, what hobbies she can have, what is forbidden for her – anything like going out on vacation or having any fun on her own or as a couple. She admits that if it wasn’t love, then it must have been lust when they first met. And today, forget love, she can’t even seem to feel lust. All he does after they have rough sex is fall asleep immediately. And these days, he’s also a bit unhappy with her or less attracted to her. Because signs of aging, wrinkles start showing up on her face. So he commands her to try to look better in his old-school, misogynistic, bullying way. The truth becomes clearer and clearer to Mary that she feels caged, she feels lonely and yearns for love and companionship, and this life is weighing her down.
Sometimes, the author makes you wonder if this story is supposed to be some kind of dark comedy: “Cal would probably die if he knew I used to keep a well-read copy of Fifty Shades of Grey tucked under my pillow in my dorm at university.” A grown woman experiencing lust is shamed for committing such a “sin”! (If only you would ignore the exaggerations at such points, how many married women can relate!) What reads like drama or dramedy initially also has that consistent touch of mystery, as the author unravels little at once, keeping the mystery alive.
After six chapters of drama sprinkled with the right amount of suspense, the thriller truly begins, connecting with the opening chapter. Mary accidentally gets hold of the handwritten letters Gemma, the woman who was in Mary’s position earlier, left for her, the future wife of Cal to read. Of course, Cal wouldn’t let her read all those, he destroys them right away, and he begins acting unusually nice, but Mary secretly has Gemma’s last letter. This is where Mary confesses to the readers that she has always wanted to leave this man, and at this point, now that she knows she might be pregnant, she realizes that she should leave him. After all, he’s an abusive, scary husband with a mysterious past, a man who won’t even let her step out of the cabin or talk to another human being for ten years, a man she has sex with on most nights, yet she does not know anything about him or his family or who he really is. “This isn’t a house of love. It’s a cabin of fear.”
This book is not one of those where some parts get your heart racing and some other parts make you yawn. The writing maintains the same tone throughout the book, and this one is a definite page-turner. At every point, you find yourself so interested in that moment of the story that you don’t care to pause to even guess any of the plot twists. I can’t imagine any real-life character who resembles Mary even remotely, and the author doesn’t force us to believe that there is anything special about Mary either, yet in every chapter, I could relate to all her feelings, even when none of those incidents are imaginable. That’s really good writing at work!
From part two, the gets even better, and becomes progressively more engaging. Towards the end, you can guess what the rest of the story would be like, but that still doesn’t make you want to put the book down either. At no point did I find the book boring. I’d gladly give this one a 4.2-star rating, mainly for Becca Day’s style of writing. This is a really good crime fiction novel, better than most other books in this genre. I could finish reading this one in half a day.
