I’m still not convinced the reveal in Chapter 40 (5 from the end) made a lot of sense. But the rest of the journey was a tense one. And it was light years better than the movie adaptation. ( )

14-year-old Jace Wilson was preparing for an accepted dare. He wanted to be ready. He didn't want to show fear. That afternoon was a nightmare. A nightmare with his eyes wide open as he became a witness to murder.

There's only one way to keep him safe before he testifies. Send him to Montana to participate in a wilderness survival program for teens under a different name. Now Jace's biggest fear is worrying that he'll miss responding to his new name.

Spine-tingling suspense. It was spine-tingling from the first sentence and continued to intensify with the turn of every page. As I finished a chapter, I couldn't imagine the next one being more compelling. And yet it was. Each chapter brought a fresh rush of chills, blood-pumping adrenalin, and electrifying danger. As a reader, I was on the edge of my seat with the author taking vivid, atmospheric writing to the highest level ever experienced within the gripping environmental elements of the setting and being riveted by the characters' raw emotions. And the twists when they came I never saw coming, and not only did I not see them coming, I never even imagined them. A spine-tingling thriller! An intensity unsurpassed by any other thriller I've ever read. It deserves more than 5 stars.

Thank you to Mulholland Books and Novel Suspects for the opportunity to read this novel. ( )

Fantastic book with characters you care about ..... highly recommend. ( )

A couple of good plot twists I didn't see coming ( )

When Jace Wilson witnesses a murder, it is decided that he needs to be protected, but instead of going into WITSEC, Jace is taken to a wilderness camp designed to deal with troubled teenagers. Jace becomes known as Conner and starts his journey with Ethan and Allison Serbin who own and run the wilderness camp. It isn't long before the killers known as the Blackwell Brothers track Jace down and begin to track him into the wilderness, but when the brothers accidentally start a forest fire, Hannah Faber who lost her husband to a fire a year ago becomes Jace's only hope for survival.

Those Who Wish Me Dead uses the wilderness survival trope and adds a couple of unusual killers to the mix. We get very little backstory on most of the characters, but the story does focus on Jace through his thoughts and feelings as he runs from the killers. All of the characters make questionable choices throughout the story, but the plot does move forward with lots of action and adventure. Overall, Those Who Wish Me Dead is a decent survival story, which is very different from the recent movie of the same name based on this book. ( )