Josie and Jack -- Kelly Braffet

I'm embarrassed to admit that I picked this up because the back cover described it as a "suspenseful debut novel in the tradition of Patricia Highsmith".  Yeah.  I need to work on reminding myself regularly that back cover blurbs are not always very accurate. 

Josie and Jack is less Patricia Highsmith and more an unholy combination of Flowers in the Attic and a Lifetime Original movie.  I do have to credit the author here -- she was clearly aware of the V. C. Andrews similarities:

She gave me a sympathetic look.  "Jack told me all about your father, keeping you locked up in that crazy old house all by yourself.  It's so Flowers in the Attic.  And I thought my childhood was creepy."

While the first two-thirds of the book felt pretty organic, the last third really struck me as contrived and kind of annoying.

And yet.

And yet, I couldn't put the darn thing down.  I read it in one sitting.  Even when I was hungry, I wandered around the kitchen -- still reading -- and foraged one-handed, using only my peripheral vision to find the (hideously stale) mellowcreme pumpkins.