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I love to know where books take place.  To me, reading the description of the setting sets the mood.  Sometimes, there are places that are unusual to me and sometimes there are places that make me comfortable.  I really like it when a setting is described very thoroughly, and in this book it was.

There were some places in this book that were unfamiliar to me.  For example, I have never been to a large estate house.  Kate, the narrator, describes the house as she comes into it.  There are iron gates around the estate that lead into a small wooded area.  There are massive vines and dripping black branches that crowd very close to the road.  The woods then lead to an open, well taken care of, lawn. (251)  I have never been to a house where they have a private road through woods, just leading up to a house.  Later on, Kate describes the rest of the estate.  There are formal gardens, an orchard, a pond, and a barn.  Also, there is a row of employee cottages near the horse barn. (284,285)  This is very unfamiliar setting to me because there are not many places around here that have this type of extravagance.

On the other hand, there are some places in this setting that I am comfortable in.  When Kate goes to the riverfront, I can picture what she is talking about exactly.  Since we live near a river and I have been to many other rivers in my life, I was immediately comfortable here.  “A large wooden platform with pilings for temporary docking” is how Kate described the public dock on the riverfront. (354)  When Kate described this, it really helped me visualize the book better because I am comfortable in the setting.  Another comfortable place in the setting for me is when Kate, Sam and Patrick are playing in the snow.  They spend the afternoon throwing snowballs and making a snowman. (434-436)  When I was younger, I played in the snow all the time.  I had so much fun and I believe that’s why I felt comfortable here.

The setting in this book is very important to the plot.  You really need the big estate and the small town to go with the plot.  I mean, you don’t see a large estate like this in New York City!  Also, if a death occurred in a public body of water, there would have been people around that may have seen things.  The mysterious death of a child worked well with a private pond. (575)  If that hadn’t been possible, there would not have been a story.

I really liked how the narrator described the setting in this book.  From those descriptions, I could find which places in the setting that I was unfamiliar with.  I also could find where I was comfortable.  The setting helped set the mood and helped me to visualize the book more than I would have without it.

Chandler, Elizabeth.  Dark Secrets 2- The Deep End of Fear.  New York.  Simon Pulse 2003 print

I really enjoyed the book The Deep End of Fear.  One of the things that I liked the most about this book was that the author intrigued you by revealing bits of information, little by little, to create suspense and keep you interested.  One way that the author did this was when Kate questioned Patrick about Ashley.  Kate says, “I guess Ashley is your imaginary friend,” and Patrick replies that she’s not imaginary.  He describes her as having very pretty, brown and curly hair.  She wears a pink coat and she always wants to wear her purple shoes (286).  Kate, the narrator, had previously informed us on Ashley’s appearance.  Now, when she has this conversation with Patrick, it is as if he has somehow seen Ashley too, even though she died years ago.  When I read this part of the book, I was mesmerized.  I needed to see what Kate would do in response to this statement.

 Another way to show how the author created suspense in this book takes place when Kate and Patrick are driving home from school.  Patrick, wanting Kate to play with him says “Ashley says you can ride Silver Knight.” (299) No one knew the horse’s name except for Kate and Ashley.  So how does Patrick know the horse’s name?  This part had me hooked; I was dying to know what would occur next because the author withheld certain pieces of information that are important to understanding this situation.

 Another example of the author only telling us the partial story is when Kate is awakened in the night to the sound of the piano.  The simple tune sounded familiar to Kate, even though she knows that it couldn’t be Patrick-he isn’t capable of playing songs on that level for another two months.  Then, a wrong note was struck.  “Ashley had delighted in playing that note incorrectly; she had played it repeatedly to frustrate [our tutor].” (399-401)  Kate finds Patrick playing a song on the piano in the middle of the night that he should not be able to play yet.  Also, Patrick plays that one note incorrectly, just like Ashley had.  When Kate questions him about this song, Patrick knows the title of the song; when she asks him about the note he played wrong he responds “I play it the way I play it”  Kate knows that that was what Ashley had always said.  Reading this part made me really want to finish the book.  It created suspense and made me anticipate every turn of a page.  I had tons of questions; I couldn’t put the book down and had to keep reading, even though it was late at night.  The author did a great job of creating suspense in the book and that was what I liked the most about it.    

Chandler, Elizabeth.  Dark Secrets 2- The Deep End of Fear.  New York.  Simon Pulse 2003 print

In this book, it is very important that Kate is narrating the story.  If she wasn’t, there would be certain bits of information that no one else knows except for Kate.  For example, “When we do [get home] can we play with my plastic horses?  Ashley said you could ride Silver Knight.”  “The toy’s name had been a secret between us.  Since the horse was my favorite among Ashley’s toys, it was also the bribe she would use when she wanted me to play with her.”  If someone besides Kate had been telling the story, they would not have known that small but significant detail.  Since a large portion of this book deals with Kate and Ashley’s past, you would not get the full picture if Kate wasn’t telling it.  If someone else did tell this story, you would have read about the same events happening, just in a different context.  Also, it would take away from some of the dramatic effect in this book.  In some situations, some characters know more than others.  Since some of the characters already know how Ashley died, it would take away the effect that it has on you when Kate finds this out in the end.  Also, some characters have different views on a certain subject than others do.  This would also change the story.  These are my reasons on why it is important that Kate is narrating this story.

Chandler, Elizabeth.  Dark Secrets 2- The Deep End of Fear.  New York.  Simon Pulse 2003 print

The title of my book, The Deep End of Fear is very significant.  When Kate, the narrator, was a child, her playmate Ashley drowned in a lake on the Westbrook estate.  When Kate returns at the age of seventeen, she gets a job watching over Patrick, a child who lives in Westbrook estate.  As time goes on, Kate starts to realize that some things that are happening also happened when she was a child.  At one point in the story, Patrick goes onto the ice.  The ice breaks under his weight and he almost drowns but Kate manages to rescue him.  In this book, accidents keep progressing until several people end up dead.  I think that this book was titled The Deep End of Fear because when Kate comes back something seems to be pulling her back to the life or death situations she faced in her younger years.  I also believe that this book has more than one meaning.  One meaning is that even though Kate is older now, she and the rest of the family are still in danger.  Also, since a girl drowned in the pond, I think that also goes towards the title.  The water was too deep for Ashley and she had probably been scared then.  With these reasons, I can support the meaning of the title and its significance.

Chandler, Elizabeth.  Dark Secrets 2- The Deep End of Fear.  New York.  Simon Pulse 2003 print