When Catherine meets Lee in 2003 at a local night club, shes young, happy and has been enjoying the wild side of single life, he's beautiful, fit and disturbingly alluring, the sparks between them can almost be ignited and soon the two are exclusive. The relationship escalates very quickly and the sexual intensity almost scares Catherine, but shes never met a man who has brought such passion and tenderness into her life and despite a few warning signs she dives into the relationship with everything she has. When the intensity of new love dies down a more obsessive  reckless persona takes over the charming man Catherine first met. Lee seems to always be hiding something, his long trips for work, his shifting personality  his dark intense behavior truly terrifies Catherine and his mental and physical abuse begs her to ask the question, how did I become this woman trapped in an abusive relationship? However Catherine is not just stuck in a domestic type situation, she is laying next to a serial killer sociopath, who will never let her go. A horrific incident though changes everything and Lee winds up going to prison. Catherine is left to pick the pieces of life and slowly try and rebuild the woman she once was.

Four years later as Catherine is slowly beginning a new relationship with Stuart and working through the baggage Lee turned her into a small light is starting to shine through. Having been unable to trust anyone Catherine is finally at a point where her OCD and PTSD is manageable, with no friends and really no one to lean on, Stuart is the first person and only person she lets in. Happiness is attainable, its right there at the tips of her fingers, that is until Lee is released from prison early and decides his first phone call will be to Catherine and what follows is a goose chase of terror.

From page one this book was hook, line and sinker. Its the fastest moving, well developed thriller I've read since Watson's Before I go to Sleep. The first 75 pages are a tad confusing as you discover how Haynes is building her story, but once I caught on to the flow and figured the present characters name things flew by smoothly. For me the hardest aspect about reading this book (outside of the obsessive murderous creep) was the inability to relate to main character Catherine. She was certainly a dynamic character who boldly walks the reader through Dark's frightening tale, but due to the way the story was told and the constant shifting between past present, Catherine was always a hard to follow combination of two characters, the before and the after.

Her before character irritated me with her flippant attitude about sex and men, her nightly mission to be drunk and have sex with random strangers was a big turn off and easily you could blame her carefree personality for attracting a dangerous relationship into her life, however I think perhaps this was the authors intent, not so much the danger of casual sex but the carefree attitude so many people have about their own safety. The private information we so easily give away and the easiness of which a person can stalk, find and torment another by way of Internet, work or public places. In the after Catherine was 180 degrees different, going from the happy wild woman to the reclusive agoraphobia character we are left with. It was often sad to see what this man did to the vivacious character we meet in the beginning, but it also signified the importance of who we actually let into our life and who we really trust. 

Into the Darkest Corner could be summarized into one word: RIVETING. However I think a more fitting word would be terrifying and not in the sense of a slasher flick horror movie but real world horror, the type that makes you check the locks before bed and makes you think twice about that good looking guy next door.....or that hot man at the gym who always smiles. I think the Miami Herald worded it the best by saying this book was and I quote "A terrifying tale of modern relationships".

Grow your nails out so you have something to bite on cause this tale is one you don't want to miss.

Rating

Into the Darkest Corner is recommended to adult readers 18&up and contains: Murder, graphic violence and torture, graphic sexuality, strong and crass language, disturbing psychological elements, PTSD, OCD disorders.

4/5-Thriller
Thanks to Harper& TLC for review copy