BOOK REVIEW: The Requiem Red by Brynn Chapman

I spent all Wednesday evening finishing my "WIR"-Wednesday book, The Requiem Red by Brynn Chapman. Here's the review I posted on Amazon and Goodreads:

The Requiem Red by Brynn Chapman

Blurb:

Life for patient 29 is full of medicated daydreams of a life outside the walls of Soothing Hills Asylum. But fantasies are not all that consume her. A monster roams the halls of the sanitarium she reluctantly calls home and three girls have been found dead. The dead girls share one common thread . . . each was 29's cell mate. As the investigation gets under way, she retreats into her mind, listening to the voices that call to her. She is endowed with the cursed gift of perception. Through it, she hears messages carried upon the notes of music, discerns words hidden among the strokes of paintings, and minds pleadings for help from the corn field outside. Could the key to the murders lie within 29's broken mind? Mason, an orderly, does not see 29 as a lunatic and as his belief in her grows so does her self-confidence. The possibility of one day leaving the asylum seems less and less like a fantasy. But the monster has other plans for her. Leaving will not be so easy, at least not while she is alive.

My Review:

A Page-Turning Must Read

The blurb of this book, as well as the beautiful cover, is what drew me to this book. I love books set in asylums, especially those set in times when humanity still performed horrifying acts, such as lobotomies, on people who had nobody to speak for them or defend them from such atrocities.

19-year-old Jane (Patient 29) has no hope for a life outside of the Soothing Hills Asylum. As a life-long resident, the asylum is all she knows as doctors have deemed her insane for the music she hears in her head. The cruel Dr. Frost subjects her to his cruel punishments and experiments and rules over the asylum with an iron fist while kind, compassionate Dr. Grayjoy encourages her music and artwork. Her only friend is Patient Twenty, Kate, who was dumped in the asylum when her husband decided to trade her in for a younger woman. Then Jane meets Mason, an orderly that sees her and not her supposed illness and for the first time, Jane believes there is life outside the asylum. But is Mason her salvation? Or does he have ulterior motives for being at the asylum?

On the outside, 19-year-old Jules Frost lives as just as much of a prisoner as Jane. Her father, the cruel Dr. Frost, dictates every aspect of her life, how she dresses, when she practices her music, and even who she is to marry. She soon is defying her father's orders and helping out at the asylum where she sees the unfortunate side of life where people are sent when the people that are supposed to love them get tired of them. At the asylum, Jules meets the handsome Dr. Grayjoy and she's immediately drawn to him. But could he ever love her?

Dr. Jonathan Grayjoy sees the cruel way that his colleague Dr. Frost treats the patients of the Soothing Hills Sanatorium, especially patient 29, whom Dr. Grayjoy is infatuated with. The closer he gets to Jane's case the more volatile Dr. Frost gets which makes Grayjoy determined to unravel the mystery of Jane's past and the real reason she was sent away to Soothing Hills.

There is a monster roaming the halls of Soothing Hills Sanatorium. Patients have gone missing, never to be seen again, and three were Jane's roommate. Can anyone solve the mystery and stop the disappearances?

The Requiem Red is an amazing novel, I was drawn in from the first page and found myself unable to put the book down. I had to know what would happen next. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a book that grips you from the first page and keeps you going until the very end.

My only question is: is this book going to have a sequel? The ending seems to lead the way to a next installment. Either way, it was an excellent read!

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!