Review: Stolen Life (Scary Mary #7) by S.A. Hunter

Title: Stolen Life

Series: Scary Mary #7

Previous books in this series: Scary Mary (#1) | Stalking Shadows (#2) | Broken Spirit (#3) | Strange Girl (#4) | Scamming Death (#5) | Mr. Conjure (#6)

Author: S.A. Hunter

Genre: YA, paranormal

Publication date: July 2019

Published by: S.A. Hunter

Source: Purchased ebook

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Synopsis: A few months ago, Mary didn't know she had any living relatives until Jake contacted her. He may live a few states away, but distance means nothing to him. He can go wherever he wants with his mind's eye, except one place. It's a place of death and shadows, and their relative Tracy Rathbone has been trapped there for nineteen years. Jake needs Mary's help to bring her home.

Mary wants to help, but she's cautious. Tracy is in the land of Shadowmen, the terrifying creatures that slip through cracks and take a person's life force. Mary has only ever gone up against one Shadowman at a time and each time she has only barely won. Going up against an army of them would be impossible.

She doesn't need to worry about the Shadowmen though. Tracy has a plan. She just needs Jake to bring Mary to her. She'll take care of the rest. Mary really should've asked more questions about the plan. Because it isn't so much an escape plan as a trade, and Mary's the one being traded.

Abandoned, alone, and scared, Mary must figure out how to get home and take back her stolen life.

My rating: ★★★★☆

This book was really interesting and gave me SO much anxiety! But it was good! So Jake asks Mary for help in rescuing a relative from the Shadowlands, but everything that could go wrong does. Super yikes 😬 And, surprisingly, Vicky is kinda dragged into all this too!

“But she scares me.”
“Join the club.”
“What club is this?” Rachel asked.
“The Vicky Scares Us Crapless Society.”
“Ah, yes, Vicky SUCS. I’m a founding member.”

😂 I love Mary and Rachel’s banter... it’s so much fun! And I just love their friendship in general.

It used to be just her and Rachel. Now they both had significant others and they’d adopted a freshman. They had a nice little family.

I just love that they welcomed Eddie into their weird little group. Lol. I also like Taryn, Rachel’s girlfriend, and how she just sort of goes along with things. It's really cool. Lol. I love the little found family they have going on 🖤

One thing that keeps surprising me as the books go on is how much less I dislike Vicky. I just love the banter between her and Mary.

“We need to be ready to take care of the leftovers!” Vicky yelled. She did love bossing people around, but at the moment, that was a good thing.
“Aye, aye, Captain Delinquent,” Marvin said.
“That’s Captain Scary Bitch to you.”

😂 I don’t know, Vicky is sort of great... except for the whole being-with-Cy thing 😒 And since I brought it up, let’s get to it real quick—The thing we always circle back to and talk about to death... The romance. And by 'we' I mean me cause I don’t like it! I'm sorry, but I just can’t! I have to vent! Luckily, this is the latest book in the series and I have no clue when the next book will come out, so you won't be hearing me complain about this (particular) romance for a while. Lol.

So in this one, Mary theorizes that Vicky used her weird dream power to seduce Cy in his dreams and omg, that would make so much sense! Why else would he do a complete 180 and start dating a girl he absolutely did not like??? However, in the last book Mary said that if Cy were to come to her wanting her back, that she not only would close the door in his face, but she would slam it! SLAM it! So my question here is, why does she care if Vicky did this? I may still be into him and would be absolutely DELIGHTED if they got back together, but Mary doesn’t care about him like that anymore. Soooo what is happening? She actually seemed visibly upset when she confronted Vicky, rightfully accusing her of cheating to get the boy. But seriously! Why does she care now? Don't you go getting my hopes up when nothing is going to come of it 😭 She also said that she’s growing to detest Cy, which EXCUSE ME?! That’s kind of a strong word there, friend. If you detest him, why all the fuss over Vicky, huh?? Stop messing with my emotions! 😭

Anyway, now that all that is out of my system, one thing I’ve noticed that is honestly kind of dumb is that when Mary first comes upon a case, she always hides it from her Gran and friends. And I don’t know why, since she always ends up telling them! Just tell them right away! Good grief!

And this recent case, about 1/3 of the way into the book, I knew something was off with the plan. Something weird was going on and I had a feeling a betrayal was going to happen. Well, guess what? It did and it gave me MAJOR anxiety!

And I feel so bad for Jake because he didn’t know that Tracy was gonna be a psychopath. He just wanted to help! But I totally get Tracy and her wanting to be alive after being in the Shadowlands for YEARS! However, it still doesn’t make it right that she tricked Mary and trapped her over there. The whole thing—her trying to get out of there—was very claustrophobic and gave me some major anxiety. It was great though! Not the anxiety... the writing 😅

I really enjoyed this one! It was anxiety-inducing, but it was a great story! I love the characters even though they give me whiplash sometimes, and little Jake and the newcomer Eddie... They are so cute! And I still hate the romance, so excuse me while I go cry in the corner over Cy cause I’m still not over him 😭

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊