I wanted to like this book, I really did.  It had a lot of potential…that was not achieved unfortunately.  The first chapter and the last chapter were excellent, everything else was confusing and hard to follow.

The book opens on New Years Day 1986 in the basement of a suburban townhouse.  Sam, Remy, and Turtle have been sent there so their parents could celebrate upstairs.  Turtle being the youngest is fast asleep in her sleeping bag when a creepy santa shows up in the backyard.  He slowly comes towards the house, looking in the basement for a minute before coming in and taking Turtle.  Sam and Remy were awake but too scared to do anything while santa was in the house.  The kids assure the police it was Steven Handley, Sam’s older sisters boyfriend.  Then you get to the second chapter, ten years later and the family is moving back to the house where it all happened.  Nothing else really matters until the last chapter.  This could have been a short story and probably been more successful.

The last two pages you find out what happened ten years ago and what happened to everyone when the truth was revealed.  The story was interesting, but it was hard to get through.