Click Here To Purchase Nightmare At Camp Forrestwood: A Young Adult Whodunit

Author: Kelli Sue Landon
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 978-1432770860

Nightmare at Camp Forrestwood is not something that I would have read, if it hadn’t been for Book Pleasures. It was a surprisingly good read for me with an great ending. It is classified as a Young Adult Whodunit and rightly so, though I feel it can be read by anyone and not only Young Adults. The book is that good.

Holly Jenson is the new kid at school as her mother has moved them out of the town that Holly grew up in. Now she has no choice but to get used to a new school and make new friends. The chance comes in the form of a school camping trip at Camp Forrestwood. Holly’s mom thinks it would be a great idea for her to get to know other teenagers and she agrees. As Holly and the group settle in, few adults and kids start disappearing and end up dead. It is a trip where no electronic devices are allowed. The phone lines at the Camp do not work. The camping trip, as the title suggests, turns to nightmare. Holly and her friends must stay close and yet at the same time, no one can be trusted. The question is: Who will walk out alive from the camp at the end of it?

I am not a mystery reader, however,  of late I have started enjoying the genre. This book touched on Young Adult Mystery which was quite interesting. The reader can definitely go back to his or her teenage years and recollect the camp experience, the feeling of being isolated at a new school or for that matter the feeling of a first crush at school.

Kelli Sue Landon writes with great ease and the storyline is clever, barring for some predictability which is natural when a mystery is being written. Kelli does a fair job of portraying the tension elements in the book and there were times when I caught myself a little shaken. It does make you suspect almost everyone in the book, including the main character and that too me is a good sign of a good mystery book. The only aspect that irked me was that when a dead body is found, there is no sign of panic amongst students. They are as calm as ever and that to me was not real. Besides that, I really enjoyed the book.

I would however recommend Nightmare at Camp Forrestwood to everyone. The good thing is that it can be read by almost everyone – it is not restricted to only young adults. There is some amount of gore involved so it would not be appropriate for kids who have just started reading. Nonetheless it is a good read and I would urge people to read it.