#BookReview ‘Dear Laura’ by Gemma Amor

About the book…

Every year, on her birthday, Laura gets a letter from a stranger. That stranger claims to know the whereabouts of her missing friend Bobby, but there’s a catch: he’ll only tell her what he knows in exchange for something… personal.

So begins Laura’s sordid relationship with her new penpal, built on a foundation of quid pro quo. Her quest for closure will push her to bizarre acts of humiliation and harm, yet no matter how hard she tries, she cannot escape her correspondent’s demands. The letters keep coming, and as time passes, they have a profound effect on Laura.

From the author of Cruel Works of Nature comes a dark and twisted tale about obsession, guilt, and how far a person will go to put her ghosts to bed.

My (signed!!) copy of ‘Dear Laura’ was included in my monthly subscription box from The Abominable Book Club and honestly, I am so glad to have found this incredible author.

This novella may be short but it packs a whole lot of a punch in the emotionally charged horror story of the young girl, stalked by the person who, quite possibly, abducted her first boyfriend, Bobby.

It deals with post traumatic stress, grief related depression and feelings of guilt, many of which have been piled onto this 14 year old by Bobby’s mother, and the public at large, as she was the last one to see him. Being young, there would not necessarily have been the impetus for her to have recalled the licence plate and any more than a vague notion of the hulking shape inside the van.

So when the hand addressed letters, all signed by X, begin to arrive on her birthday the following year, a game of cat and mouse starts between Laura, X and the truth of what happened to Bobby. Shot through with moments of pure horror by the requests X makes of Laura and the sheer despair at how she is more or less abandoned by her family and friends, this annual reminder of Bobby’s unsolved disappearance keeps her trapped in a cycle of grief and obsession. As she tries to plot the co-ordinates that X leaves her every year, in return for increasingly personal items,Laura uses the impetus to drive her forward in her search for her missing love. The link between her and X is the key to her staying sane, and , I think it is the possibility of finding out the truth that symbiotically links Bobby’s fate to hers.

No matter what happens (moving, hiding, staying offline) X finds her. The only thing worse than the hand delivered letters, are the years when they stop. The echoing chasm of not knowing threatens to swallow Laura whole, and, eventually, she begins to fill that space with what resembles normality for the rest of us.

Until the letters start again…

It is impossible not to be moved by the lengths to which Laura goes to to find Bobby, this is her only link between her fading memories of her first love and this evil cat and mouse game she is trapped in keeps his memory alive.

Her childish sense of compliance whilst the reader is shouting at her to not do these things contrasts vividly with the actions she takes as a grownup to bring X into view, and the consequences of revealing this dance she has been doing with him are harsh, brutal and immediate.

The fear engendered by the absent X leaves you relying on your imagination to fill in the gaps of what kind of monster would do this to a young, grief struck girl, as well as her image of Bobby which is one you cling to in the hope of redemption. The narrative arc of Laura’s life echoes the way that traumatised women are left to defend, and fend for, themselves, in a society that is quick to blame rather than support. It is left to Laura to be her own parent, and to steer herself to adulthood, marriage and parenthood. And when validation comes in  the form of her own son, her very own Bobby, then there she finds that some things in life are worth laying down yours for.

Truly remarkable, this is one of those stories which leaves you bewildered and in a haze of a book hangover whilst you process what you read. This is what the best fiction, irrespective of genre does-it makes you feel.

About the author…

I’m a horror fiction author, podcaster, artist and voice actor from Bristol, in the U.K.

I write for the wildly popular NoSleep Podcast and various other horror fiction audio dramas. I’m also writing, producing and acting in two shows, ‘Calling Darkness’, and ‘Whisper Ridge’, out in 2019. My first anthology of short stories, ‘Cruel Works of Nature’, was released in 2018, and my next book is the novella ‘Collection’.

I’m heavily influenced by classical literature, gothic romance and magic realism. I am most at home inside a dusty, rundown mansion or in front of a fire with a single malt and a dog-eared copy of anything by Angela Carter.

Links-https://gemmaamorauthor.com/

Twitter @manylittlewords @abominablebook