Who's The Killer?

Ten is 294 pages filled with thrilling twist and turns. This horror and mystery novel written by Gretchen McNeil has exciting and unique characters. This book will make your heart race, when friends turn on each other and people die one by one. Who will catch the killer before they strike again?

This novel starts off when two best friends Meg (the main character) and Minnie arrive on Henry Island to attend the weekend of their lives filled with friends, fun, and boys. Ten people are attending this house party. Vivian is an annoying know-it-all. Lori, she is quiet and just came to hang with friends. Nathan, Gunner, Kumiko, Kenny, and Ben are all good friends that wanted to have some fun. Minnie is funny and “the little one” in the group. Meg is constantly protecting her (you’ll find out the reason why later in the book). It’s hard for Meg to speak for herself, but has many opinions. T.J, the typical perfect high school football boy. All of them came together to have fun as high school friends.

Strange things start to occur as soon as they arrive. Ben eats an almond that is slipped in the salad at dinner and has an allergic reaction, followed by an epi-pen to the leg. They find a weird DVD later that night. The video has eerie music, puzzles, clues, a countdown from ten to one, and an evil message: “Vengeance is mine.” Everyone in White Rock House is confused and lost as to what the DVD could mean. Everything is off and didn’t seem right like pieces are missing from a complicated puzzle. But these events were nothing compared to what was waiting for them the next morning in the foyer.

Everything the characters are feeling you can feel too.

Thats one of my favorite things about this novel. You can feel

the pain that weighed on their hearts heavily when someone

dies but you can feel the terror when they realize they need

to do something quick before people closer to them

start to die. The raging storm. outside really pulls this book together and adds effect, so you can get a feel of what is happening. Everything starts to make more sense when more deaths occur but the questions that keeps getting asked is “Why?”, “Why is someone killing all of these innocent people?” They come to find out that that the ten people in that house aren’t all that innocent.

When horror arrives friends start to turn on each other. “Who can I trust?” Is what every character is asking themselves. How can you know if you can trust someone “Everyone is a suspect.” I think it is important that readers understand the trust aspect of this book and it is very hard to trust the closest people to you when things like this are happening. Readers will find that the complicated relationships between the characters is what makes this book more dramatic and interesting.

The style of Gretchen McNeil’s writing in this novel is suspenseful, exciting and descriptive. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys mystery/horror novels and feeling of empathy. I give this book a rating of 10/10 because I enjoy all of these things, especially feeling empathy for each character. Ten is a book about loss, friendship, death, relationships and most importantly, trust.