Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Are they labels or a warning? The answer could cost Sera everything.
Murder, justice, and revenge were so not a part of the plan when Sera set out on her senior camping trip. After all, hiking through the woods is supposed to be safe and uneventful.
Then one morning the group wakes up groggy, confused, and with words scrawled on their wrists: Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Their supplies? Destroyed. Half their group? Gone. Their chaperone? Unconscious. Worst of all, they find four dolls acting out a murder—dolls dressed just like them.
Suddenly it's clear; they're being hunted. And with the only positive word on her wrist, Sera falls under suspicion…
One Was Lost by Natalie D. Richards
Pagecount: 320 pages
Expected Publication: October 4th 2016 by Sourcebooks Fire
ISBN: 1492615749
This review of One Was Lost by Natalie D. Richards contains spoilers. You have been warned.
It has been a long time since I read a book that so quickly sucked me in, the stakes high from the beginning.
Sera, her classmates and two supervising teachers, in the middle of their middle-of-nowhere senior hiking trip have reached the mid-point of their journey, with several days’ hike back through the mountains or several days’ hike forward to the nearest road, civilisation, and help should they need it.
And when the river they are crossing floods and the bridge breaks, the party is battered, bruised and split in two with no way across the raging river to join up again.
To make matters worse, upon waking the next day, Sera, Lucas, Emily and Jude find their campsite has been ransacked, survival supplies, food and life-saving water destroyed or missing, their teacher won’t wake up, and their classmates on the other side of the river are deathly silent.
In One Was Lost, not only are they lost in the wilderness with no one looking for them, not only is there a killer stalking and torturing them, pushing them forward into their carefully calculated trap, but without shelter, food and water, walking into a trap is the least of their worries: dehydration, exposure, wild bears entering their campsite and easily obtained injuries are more immediate threats.
But who is out there, hunting them, and why?
Sera, her classmates and two supervising teachers, in the middle of their middle-of-nowhere senior hiking trip have reached the mid-point of their journey, with several days’ hike back through the mountains or several days’ hike forward to the nearest road, civilisation, and help should they need it.
And when the river they are crossing floods and the bridge breaks, the party is battered, bruised and split in two with no way across the raging river to join up again.
To make matters worse, upon waking the next day, Sera, Lucas, Emily and Jude find their campsite has been ransacked, survival supplies, food and life-saving water destroyed or missing, their teacher won’t wake up, and their classmates on the other side of the river are deathly silent.
In One Was Lost, not only are they lost in the wilderness with no one looking for them, not only is there a killer stalking and torturing them, pushing them forward into their carefully calculated trap, but without shelter, food and water, walking into a trap is the least of their worries: dehydration, exposure, wild bears entering their campsite and easily obtained injuries are more immediate threats.
But who is out there, hunting them, and why?
Everyone Is a Suspect
Is it one of their own sabotaging, drugging, and putting them in peril, or is it someone else out in the woods, a stranger with ill-intentions and unknown motivations?
It is fascinating watching these classmates, but not really friends, turn on each other one by one, as you would anyone you don’t know well or trust. Every reason is valid, the paranoia understandable, the truth of their situation is inescapable: even if one of them is the culprit they won’t make it out of these woods alive unless they stick together.
It is fascinating watching these classmates, but not really friends, turn on each other one by one, as you would anyone you don’t know well or trust. Every reason is valid, the paranoia understandable, the truth of their situation is inescapable: even if one of them is the culprit they won’t make it out of these woods alive unless they stick together.
The Characters Are Complex
Each of the four main characters have interesting backgrounds and unique family lives that have shaped who they are, the decisions they make and, for better or worse, the actions they take to ensure their survival.
The characters are complex, with Sera’s fraught relationship with her now long since left mother affects how she forms relationships with others, depicted in her relationship with Lucas. Desperate not to follow in her boy-crazy mother’s footsteps and throw her future away for a simple kiss, Sera seesaws between shame-fuelled detachment and hostility toward Lucas, the boy she kissed 64 days ago and never spoke to again. Lucas’s dangerous reputation that is perhaps unfounded, Jude is overly guarded, fiercely private as his classmates speculate, and Emily, with bruises on her arms and calm in the face of danger clearly faces a challenging home life.
The helplessness of being surrounded by miles and miles of woodland with no one even aware that they need rescuing makes for an unsettling story in itself. Though on the run, the group did spend extended periods in one place, and I would have very much liked to see more survival skills used (or at least attempted), would have liked to read more about their attempts at building shelters when on the run and night fell, or looking for berries or nuts, failed desperate attempts at catching squirrels or birds as the group became weaker.
That said, what was written kept me riveted and eager to read more. If you like survival thrillers with the added layer of a lethal stalker in the forest, then I highly recommend One Was Lost.
The characters are complex, with Sera’s fraught relationship with her now long since left mother affects how she forms relationships with others, depicted in her relationship with Lucas. Desperate not to follow in her boy-crazy mother’s footsteps and throw her future away for a simple kiss, Sera seesaws between shame-fuelled detachment and hostility toward Lucas, the boy she kissed 64 days ago and never spoke to again. Lucas’s dangerous reputation that is perhaps unfounded, Jude is overly guarded, fiercely private as his classmates speculate, and Emily, with bruises on her arms and calm in the face of danger clearly faces a challenging home life.
The helplessness of being surrounded by miles and miles of woodland with no one even aware that they need rescuing makes for an unsettling story in itself. Though on the run, the group did spend extended periods in one place, and I would have very much liked to see more survival skills used (or at least attempted), would have liked to read more about their attempts at building shelters when on the run and night fell, or looking for berries or nuts, failed desperate attempts at catching squirrels or birds as the group became weaker.
That said, what was written kept me riveted and eager to read more. If you like survival thrillers with the added layer of a lethal stalker in the forest, then I highly recommend One Was Lost.
I received an e-arc of One Was Lost by Natalie D. Richards from Sourcebooks Fire in Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, this has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.
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