Fraidy Hole

By: Staci Andrea

Narrated by: Hana Lass

The mind is a curious thing. It allows us to reach back into our memory banks and retrieve emotions, thoughts, smells, and feelings that can act as filler for our sometimes empty lives, warming the spaces in our hearts that are sometimes left void and broken. It can also completely drop memories, forcing us to forget the painful chapters so that we are able to cut ties and move on.

What happens though, when the lines are blurred . . . when reality and the nightmares of your past collide? Can the mind make sense of it all? Can the brain and heart sort out the drama and the subtext? What happens to the soul when the mind cracks, even just a little? Fraidy Hole, the fictional dark suspense thriller that centers around a grandfather trying to save his granddaughter from herself, plays upon exactly that line of questioning.

Told from a Grandfather's perspective, Fraidy Hole follows the unconventional life of his Granddaughter, Arlo, as she navigates the pitfalls of adolescence into adulthood, paired with the unfortunate events that unfold while she is being influenced by an unusual leader into her darkness, her best friend, Bast. Together, they are torn between hiding in and trying to escape the Fraidy Hole.

©2023 Staci Andrea (P)2023 Tantor

Not at all what I was expecting.

At first I thought this was going to be just a very descriptive narrative and I was confused about what was and wasn’t happening. After a couple chapters I started thinking I knew what was going on. WOW is all I can say. Everything makes sense now and it is not at all what I expected.

Cool idea but missed the mark

I struggled to finish this book, even at 1.5x speed. The repetitive descriptions and over use of “arthritic hands”, “emerald green eyes” and others that I’ve thankfully forgotten, seemed unnecessary and as if the author was trying to meet a word count. Once the plot twist was revealed, there was some holes in the plot that were never explained. While the book did paint the firsthand reality of cognitive decline, the writing made it painful to work through.