***Uhinge by Calia Read***

Unhinge

Calia Read

Publication: January 12, 2016

Hold your breath and count to ten. Soon it will be over before it ever began.
 
No matter how many times Victoria Donovan repeats that phrase to herself, she’s still trapped behind the walls of a mental institution. Once upon a time, her life was like a fantasy: Wes, the handsome fiancé, followed by a storybook wedding and a white picket fence. But then a picture-perfect marriage twisted into something sinister. And as Victoria’s world warped from dream to nightmare, her husband’s obsessions pushed her beyond the breaking point.

At first Fairfax Mental Health Institute seems like a safe place for Victoria to heal with her baby, Evelyn, and to hide from Wes, presumed dead by everyone except Victoria. Her husband is still alive, she has no doubt: He slips into her room at night to torment and tempt her. One smoldering kiss and she’s powerless. Of course, no one believes her about these visits. When she meets a sexy, mysterious stranger intent on helping her recall her past, Victoria isn’t sure she can trust him. But deep in her heart, she also knows that the only way out of Fairfax is to remember the way she came in.

So.  Unhinge.  Holy-freaking-wow.  From the very first words of the prologue to the very last word, I was completely entranced.  There are so many things this book is and for the life of me, my brain still cannot get a grip on the words I want to use for this review.  The fact is that Calia totally flipped me on my head when I received an ARC.  This book has given me the biggest book hangover of the past year.  I didn’t pick up anything for quite some time after I finished because I couldn’t get the twisted story out of my head.  In fact, I have gone back through passages and reread parts of the story to see if I can pick more things up that I might have missed previously.

Unhinge is Victoria’s story. If you read Unravel, then you remember Victoria from Fairfax.  She is in the mental institution, and she cannot remember the circumstances that put her there, she can’t even remember how long she has been an inpatient resident.    Victoria is haunted by her presumed dead husband Wes during the night.  She believes he is real, and everyone else knows he is dead. She wants out, and she knows the only way to leave Fairfax is to move back through her past.  When a mysterious stranger slips through the list of people she is not supposed to be visited by, it seems as Victoria is catapulted into action to find out what happened to her that put her in this place in the first place.

Unhinge is an epic, rollercoaster of suspense.  When you think you know what is coming, think again.  Moving back and forth through the past and present, I found myself on more than one occasion saying, “Wait a second, did this really happen?  Is this real?  No freaking way?”  Calia’s writing is simply poetic, and the words in the pages of this novel are intoxicating.  You want to move on but there is something that just keeps luring you back, to reread. 

Victoria’s story is one that I have been waiting for since I finished Unravel and let me tell you, this story was worth the wait.  It is perfection.  It’s the story of a fairytale life that turned dark.  It’s a story of love, loss, perseverance, justice, and ultimately a second chance.

Grab this book if you haven’t.  I dare you not to be entranced with the Fairfax world.  So epically twisty and turny.  A psychological book that will have you questioning everything you think you know for sure, who will you believe?  Victoria?  Or everyone else?

**Note:  Unhinge is the second book in the Fairfax series, but in no way do you need to read Unravel to understand what is going on in Unhinge.  The ONLY connecting factor to the two stories is Fairfax mental institution.