Hidden pictures

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Title:

Hidden pictures

Author:

Rekulak, Jason, author.

Staehle, Will, illustrator.

Horner, Doogie, illustrator.

Summary:

Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy. Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body. Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force. Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late. -- Amazon.

General Note:

Includes The art of Hidden pictures, an interview with Will Staehle and Doogie Horner.

Edition:

First Flatiron Books paperback edition

Physical Description:

387 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Genre:

Horror fiction.

Subject Term:

Nannies -- Fiction.

Children's drawings -- Fiction.

Author(s):

Publisher:

Flatiron Books,

Publication Date:

2023

2022

ISBN:

9781250819352

Publication Information:

New York : Flatiron Books, 2023.

Call Number:

REKULAK

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003667840	Adult Fiction	REKULAK Jason	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable
33607003664888	Adult Fiction	REKULAK Jason	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER · OPTIONED FOR NETFLIX BY A PRODUCER OF THE BATMAN

GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER

"I loved it." --Stephen King

From Edgar Award-finalist Jason Rekulak comes a wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, for fans of Stranger Things and Riley Sager, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.

Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman's lifeless body.

Then, Teddy's artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.

Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it's too late.

Author Notes

Jason Rekulak is the author of The Impossible Fortress , which was translated into 12 languages and was nominated for the Edgar Award. For many years, he was the publisher of Quirk Books, an independent press, where he acquired and edited multiple New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Philadelphia with his family.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Rekulak (The Impossible Fortress) uses horror as a lens to bring the dark underbelly of suburbia into focus in this gripping supernatural thriller. Narrator Mallory Quinn is a 21-year-old recovering addict getting a second chance as a live-in nanny to five-year-old Teddy Maxwell, a sweet-natured young artist whose wonderfully creepy pictures appear throughout the novel. His uncanny muse/model is his "imaginary friend," Anya, whom his erudite, politically correct parents dismiss. Mallory takes Anya seriously, however, especially as Teddy's art rapidly turns darker and impossibly sophisticated and Mallory learns of a long-ago murder in her guest house quarters. How is Anya manipulating Teddy? Could she be the murder victim? And why do Mallory's concerns provoke such explosive emotion in Teddy's parents? The plot unfolds at a good clip, and Mallory's voice is engrossing, if occasionally too writerly for her working-class South Philly roots. There are no shocking twists here, but Rekulak isn't looking to keep readers up at night; he's holding a mirror up to white, affluent Gen X and asking pointed questions about class, trauma, and horror conventions. In that mode, he executes well and sticks the landing. (May)

Library Journal Review

In Rekulak's (The Impossible Fortress) sophomore novel, Mallory becomes the nanny to Teddy, a Philadelphia-area five-year-old possessed by a spirit that expresses itself by drawing pictures of its murder. Mallory focuses her narration on the inanities of the mother's passive-aggressive nature or the blandness of the family's furniture or descriptions of the neighborhood bookstore. But when the boy's wealthy parents refuse to believe that a ghost could be possessing their son, Mallory attempts to communicate with an entity she blithely assumes to be benign. Unfortunately, complications like a cute neighbor and awkward advances from the boy's father keep Mallory from fully exploring the supernatural puzzle, let alone her wasted athletic career or struggles with addiction. While Mallory eventually explores her own tragic backstory, it fills a gap more than it drives her character. VERDICT This work offers plenty of commentary about the superficiality and priorities of upper middle-class America, but a more focused novel would have been more compelling.--Aaron Heil