As She Walked Through The Shadow Of Death By Pamela B. Woods

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Recommended: Domestic violence and its effects

As She Walked Through the Shadow of Death is a psychiatric thriller about the Winslow family. Annabel Winslow has what seems like the perfect life. She is married to a prominent psychiatrist, lives in a nice house, and has three beautiful children. In his practice her husband, Dr. Winslow, treats patients that have been involved in abusive relationships. This should make him the perfect husband, right? So why does Annabel feel so much anxiety when she is around her husband? Why does she end up with so many bruises and unexplained injuries?

We the readers find out that her husband has abused her. Even more shocking, he has hypnotized her to cover it up. She gets glimpses of memories here and there, but Dr. Winslow is an expert in manipulating her and hypnotizing her into forgetting the abuse and remembering only that she loves him. Will Annabel find the courage to leave her husband or will Dr. Winslow make the changes necessary to save his marriage?

I was really looking forward to reading this book as I enjoy reading a good psychiatric thriller. Even more than that, the thought of getting a glimpse into the mind of an abuser was interesting to me. Unfortunately, I was highly disappointed. The premise behind As She Walked Through the Shadow of Death is a good one, but it is …show more content…

Woods, decided to write this book in the third person omniscient point of view. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with this, it does get confusing for the reader as Ms. Woods hops from the mind of one character to the next with no warning. At times it leaves me with whiplash trying to figure out which character is narrating now. Along the same lines the characters are called by multiple names in the space of only one or two sentences. For example, Dr. Winslow is referred to as Robert, the Doctor, and Dr. Winslow all in a short time. I don't know if the author was trying to achieve variety, but she failed instead leaving us again confused as to who she was

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