The Man in Cabin Number Five

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Annie Parker ignores the disapproval of her parents and gets married to the man she has her heart set on. Unfortunately, her decision leads to a painful divorce, after she finds out about her husband’s affair. Annie doesn’t let the heartbreak bring her down but decides to move to the cabins in the mountainous town where her family used to spend summers in Lake Arrowhead, California.

Thirty years after her father’s demise, Alyce Murphy discovers that her father died of murder-suicide and not a heart attack, like she was told. In The Man in Cabin Number Five, Chrysteen Braun narrates a deeply compelling, inspiring, and adorable narrative about the mountainside cabins of Lakewood Arrowhead, shocking secrets, and two women that are linked to the cabins in different ways—one by a buried past and the other by optimistic plans for the future.

The aesthetic, calm, and sometimes chaotic atmosphere of The Man in Cabin Number Five drew me in right from the beginning, and I wished it wouldn’t end. Different aspects of the story contribute to its addictive and pleasant feel: falling in love, building a family, visiting one’s family with a lover, renovating a cabin in a mountainous environment, and more. Chrysteen Braun does a mind-blowing job of building the characters and making them lifelike and easy to relate to. The first-person narrative is done to perfection as it reads like the narrators are speaking to friends—natural, lively, and jovial. I laughed out loud when I read the part where Anne claims that a bag of chips and a soda are “just what the doctor ordered.”

You can’t read The Man in Cabin Number Five without feeling the strong emotions of the characters—like betrayal, shame, disappointment, excitement, hope, and loss. I found the events quite relatable and realistic. The part where Anne disagrees with her parents, regarding her choice of lover, reminded me of an experience I witnessed with a friend. A good number of themes are explored and adroitly woven together in The Man in Cabin Number Five, including real estate, family, infidelity, romance, PTSD, war, sexual assault, substance abuse, and divorce.

The Man in Cabin Number Five inspires anyone recovering from betrayal and infidelity to keep living and working towards a better future. The picturesque descriptions of the scenes and characters will appeal to readers who wish to get completely immersed in and escape into a fictional world. Chrysteen Braun creates a masterpiece with smooth storytelling that juxtaposes the serenity of the mountains with the eruptive chaos of dangerous secrets and ends with a bang. What a terrific story! What a talented writer!


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Author
Star Count 5/5
Format eBook
Page Count 313 pages
Publisher Marble Creek Press
Publish Date 10-May-2022
ISBN
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue May 2022
Category Mystery, Crime, Thriller
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