The Thicket is a spine-chilling thriller that will have your heart racing until the bitter end.

In a place where eerie screams echo throughout the night, how do you make true fear stand out in a life-or-death situation?

Norah can’t stop thinking about the night her brother died. The night she was supposed to stay with him at the Halloween carnival. He begged her to stay but after a fight between siblings. Norah walked away, unknowing that that would be the last time she saw her brother alive. What Norah didn’t know was that there was a real killer hidden in the shadows among the costumes, props, and guttural screams.

I’m not one to be easily frightened, and I’ve read my fair share of thrillers and horror novels in search of one that will have me sleeping with a nightlight. Therefore, I thought, what better chance do I have than to read about a killer at a Halloween carnival? I’ve read all Noelle W. Ihli novels, so I knew what I was getting into…or so I thought. This is by far my favourite novel of hers; I felt uneasy reading this storyline, and after the first couple of chapters, I decided reading it before bed was something I would not continue to do; it was a daytime read for me. For someone who has been to plenty of haunted carnivals, houses, and corn mazes, it was easy to picture myself in the character's situation. Did this happen to me? No, could it have? Yes...will it stop me from going? We will see this October.

This story was so anxiety-inducing that I was filled with worry right from the start. Thankfully, the author considered that, and when the girls were getting ready to go to The Thicket, she told us that the curling iron was turned off before leaving the house because I was also worrying about that. I loved everything about this: the dark atmosphere, the thrill of getting ready for a spooky evening with your friends, the intensity of the horrors that have come to be, and the uncertainty of what’s to come. It will have you on the edge of your seat. I had difficulty putting this book down, not at night, though; it was a forbidden bedtime story. Even the killer brought some heavy anger out of me; how could you do this? On a night of fun? How could you ruin it? I was furious! And then the ending. The ending had me staring at the ceiling silently for far too long.