The Collector

This was the very first thriller book I read, and it terrified me. I  was 11 years old when I picked this book up and delved into the world of Fred (who calls himself Ferdinand) and his kidnap victim, Miranda. Approaching this from a young mind, I saw something of romance in the obsessive tale, but that romance soon revealed itself to be a terrifying story of abduction, stalking, and murder.

Why do I still love this book? Maybe it was the first time I realized I wanted to be a writer. But it was stunningly written, provocative, and left… show more.

It’s scary enough to read a story from the third-person point-of-view in which the protagonist gets kidnapped. You feel like a voyeur witnessing something perverse.

In John Fowles’ classic novel, we are subjected to a kidnapping and abduction through the eyes of the kidnapper and his victim. It’s traumatizing to read the section of the story from the victim’s perspective, but it’s downright haunting when the same tale is told through the lens of the villain.

Why? Because Fowles so expertly crafts a realistic psychopath in the character of Frederick, one we can relate to and even sympathize with at… show more.

The Collector is not a romance book in the traditional sense because there is no HEA, it is based on a certain kind of love—obsession.

The protagonist kidnaps the victim, and as he tells his story, the victim has already died, so the story is told by an unreliable narrator, very much a gothic ploy. This book had a profound influence on me. I read it in my early twenties while attending Moore College of Art & Design.

As an art student, I felt a connection with both Miranda and Frederic. Miranda because she was an art student, and Frederic… show more.