I must take a deep breath before I begin this review. I will share with you why, I must take this pause. Only a couple of days ago I finished reading another book (see below, 11/20/14) and it was awesome. Straight off the heels of that read, I pick this one up and I didn't put it down until I'd completed the ENTIRE read! This book, A HOUSE WITHOUT WINDOWS, has been on my TBR list for a very long time. Now, I have to honestly say, I hate it took me so long to get to it. Authors come to me for reviews because they KNOW that they will get only honest ones. That's evident, because every book you see sitting in my que, does not make it onto this page. Some don't even make it onto Amazon, as the review I might give, would hurt them so much more than me not posting a review at all. So, I don't know what you've heard before, but let me tell you the "truth" about A HOUSE WITHOUT WINDOWS.

When I began this read, the first thought that came to mind was the Ariel Castro kidnappings. As I watched that horrid story unfold back in early 2013, I felt the same tightening in my chest with every page turned in this book. It was unreal! Why? Because this story about a kidnapped young woman and her daughter who were held hostage for almost a decade, in a tiny room without any windows or sight of the outside world, was beautifully crafted and so well-told. While driving, I found myself "still" thinking about this book, wondering how a writer could tell such a tale, in the most marvelous of ways, without having experienced the actual pain. Readers have asked me the same question about my own novel, Daydream's Daughter, Nightmare's Friend, wondering if any of it were true. As my novel is all fiction, and if this one is all fiction, too, Stevie Turner is a writer for the ages! To be able to create a story of this magnitude, the author has to be extremely gifted and talented! This author is! Someone asked me to tell them what I found wrong with the book, if anything. Well, I did come across a couple of punctuation hiccups that were so small, I don't feel the need to share it while raving about this FAN-TABULOUS BOOK! And RAVING about it, is what I plan to do for a very long time! RRBC members often email me and ask "Nonnie, what's a good book to read?" I always respond with "Any that are sitting on NONNIE'S "RAVE" REVIEWS page." Isn't that where this one is sitting? Well, I guess you better go get the book so you can RAVE about it yourself! Books like this make me want to read nothing but INDIE books all the time! Kudos to the author!

The first half of this book when Beth is kidnapped and help prisoner for 8 years is very cleverly written and the inclusion of the references to Enid Blyton's writing was very imaginative. Once I started reading I couldn't put the book down and you really feel the emotions of Beth and her daughter, held prisoner in a small room with no help of escape. I loved the descriptions of Beth's daily life and how she tried to educate and bring up a child in impossible circumstances.
The second half of the book jumps to the future and to avoid spoilers I will just say it is a great read. The characters, especially the evil kidnapper are very vivid and realistic.
All in all, a well written and suspenseful story that grips you from the first few pages.

It was hard to put down!! I usually like to casually read my books throughout the day- a chapter here, a couple of pages there. I finished this in less than 24 hours. I couldn't put it down! Good story, full of heartache and happiness, and well written. I will definitely have to read another Stevie Turner book in the future!

I read this book in just two days. I was so carried away with it, that I had to finish it, and I did. I had to know how the story ended. What a sad, sad experience Beth was subjected to, and Amy too. This was an extraordinarily vivid story about the fear, agony, and deprivation abduction inflicts on those who experience it.

One day Beth was a young, happy, and carefree doctor with everything going well for her. Then abduction hit her. How can this happen? Yet we hear that these things are still happening as we speak. Fully grown women, not just only children anymore, are being abducted every day, and imprisoned for decades against their will. Who knows how many more are languishing in dark holes hidden away from prying eyes, and from the public. Who knows how many of them will never be found.

Beth and Amy’s story is sad, and unnerving. It is hard to take. It is even harder to think that the perpetrator is unrepentant and spoiling for revenge. Edwin believed that he was the wronged party after all he put Beth and her daughter through. People that mad should never be allowed to see the light of day. This was a hard story to read, very interesting though, as I already said. I couldn't put it down until I finished it. A must read!

At first I didn't know what to expect with the title but the way Stevie Turner writes allowed me to ease into the horror gently. I felt as if I had woke up into a dark room without knowing where I was. The writer brought me right into the story and I felt like it was me being imprisoned. A good writer can make you feel like you are in the story. I was held hostage all the way through. And so I was happy to learn that everything turned out for the best while getting into the mind of a mad man. Stevie you did a superb job with this one. I'm sorry it took me so long to get to it. Fantastic Job!

Stevie Turner's writing sparkles in A House Without Windows. The author succeeds at smothering the shocking story of years-long kidnap in prose that takes the reader gently into the maelstrom of mental illness and leads the reader to the reality of a bright young woman's nightmare experience. Ordinarily this type of story would frighten me, but Turner deadens the shock with the mundane. Often seen through the eyes of a child born in the cellar prison, who knows no other experience and must live life vicariously through descriptions in a single book, the strength of the kidnapped woman takes center stage not the sordidness of her years-long ordeal.
Masterfully written with an unexpectedly positive tone, especially considering the scenario presented, the author adds cultural nuance using right-on-the-mark language and expressions in the mouths of children on both sides of the 'big pond'. Having lived in both the UK and Canada, this reader can attest to the author's careful attention to detail. The 'Beaches' in Toronto feels and looks as real as the train station in Croydon. Remarkable tension builds in the ordinary if being imprisoned in a cellar could be by any stretch of the imagination considered mundane. Suspense, carefully stitched into the plausible reactions of a son wanting to meet his estranged father despite the fact that the older man is suffering from delusions in a mental institution, carries the reader forward with trepidation to an unexpected ending.
A House Without Windows goes one layer deeper though. Not only a human drama, the story displays the underside of a penal system infatuated by its own good intentions. Despite frightening his parole 'cum' social worker with empty cold eyes above smiling lips, the kidnapper wheedles his way back on the street again and bides his time to strike again. Remarkably, this social realism doesn't bog down a beautifully crafted story, instead the reader is left to judge or not on his own. In the same way that English character triumphed over Hitler, Stevie Turner enlivens and celebrates the strength of the human spirit particularly in the person of the protagonist but all of her people ring true.