The Cellar

by Natasha Preston

YA Contemporary Thriller

Book Description

When sixteen-year-old Summer Robinson goes missing one night, her family, friends and boyfriend are devastated. Nothing ever happens in Long Thorpe, so the disappearance of a school girl shocks the whole community. The police waste no time in launching a search and investigation, but with nothing to go on and no trace of Summer, hopes of finding her quickly fade.

Colin Brown, is a thirty-year-old solicitor living alone after the death of his mother. He suffered a traumatic and abusive childhood, and is left with no sense of right or wrong. Desperate for the perfect family, Colin, referring to himself as Clover, turns to drastic measures to get what he wants.

MY THOUGHTS: 3 OUT OF 5 FLEURS DE LIS

The Cellar by Natasha Preston

I think it’s pretty cool now that there are places such as Wattpad that allow budding authors to showcase their work and get it out there to broad audiences. The Cellar was first published on Wattpad, but has been picked up by Sourcebooks. 

The story is about 16 year old Summer, who is kidnapped by the deeply disturbed man who calls himself Clover. Summer is renamed Lily, and is thrown into Clover’s cellar along with three other girls he calls his “flowers”: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. Clover considers these girls his family and they must always be perfect and at his beck and call–even if that means cleaning up after his murders.

Summer has left behind a family that never stops searching for her, including her devoted boyfriend Lewis. Lewis will leave no stone unturned to find even the tiniest clue. Little does he know his girlfriend is so much closer than he imagines.

Although the action kicks off very quickly, the rest of the book kind of fell flat for me. I did like the way the book changed chapters so we could see from the perspective of Clover, but I didn’t think the chapters from Lewis were all that necessary.

I can’t imagine having been in the situation that these girls were in, but the decisions they made were sometimes questionable. I see that the original story was something like 87 pages long, so it would seem that the author added extra content to make the book a more common length. This is obvious, because the middle of the book just hangs and the content feels bloated.

I’ve read a couple of other “kidnapped and kept hidden” books, and this just didn’t compare to the likes of Room and Above. The end felt quite rushed, and I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see it from Summer’s point of view.

If you haven’t read any other books from this genre to compare it to, you might enjoy The Cellar more than I did. I do applaud the author for getting professionally published!

View all my reviews

About the Author

My name is Natasha Preston, but most people call me Tash or Tasha. I don’t mind either. I was born in England and have lived in small towns and villages out in the countryside ever since.

My fiance, Joseph, is the most supportive person in my life. Without his love, help and patience I wouldn’t be where I am today. And this website wouldn’t exist! I’m a proud mummy to an amazing little boy who is my whole world.

At school I drifted through, achieving average grades. I fell into administration and receptionist jobs, thinking that I couldn’t really do anything else.

In 2010 I stumbled into writing completely by accident. I was searching the ‘app store’ and came across Wattpad, an amateur writing site. For the first few months, I just read, but then decided to type up some of the ideas I had floating around in my head. I’m so glad I did because I absolutely love writing.

Writing gave me an escape, and Wattpad gave me the self-confidence I lacked.

I’m having a lot of fun writing my books, so I hope you enjoy reading them.

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