Eight Days in Darkness: The True Story of the Abduction, Rape, and Rescue of Anita Wooldridge by Angela Roegner and Anita Wooldridge

Pub. Date: April 2010 
Publisher: Synergy
Genre: NonFiction/true crime
Rating: C/3 Stars

SYNOPSIS: On June 25, 1998, Anita Wooldridge (21) was taken from her parents' home in broad daylight by a convicted rapist. For eight terrifying days, Anita was savagely beaten and raped by her captor, (Victor Thomas Steel) who locked her in a metal storage cabinet for hours at a time. With only a steadfast faith in God to comfort her, Anita refused to give up hope that she would be found. Eight Days in Darkness chronicles the shocking events of Anita's kidnapping, including her transport across state lines, and the impressive efforts of local authorities and FBI agents which led to her rescue and the dramatic capture and conviction of her abductor. Anita's story is still used today as a case study for prospective FBI agents, and Eight Days in Darkness paints a portrait of the real-life battle between good and evil.

MY THOUGHTS: I was really bored by this book. I didn't find it particularly interesting. Every page was the same as the one before it. I'm very disappointed that the author didn't explore the childhood of the rapist, Victor 'Tom' Steel. Any well written true crime/biography/autobiography/memoir will have a through account of the perpetrators upbringing. We learned nothing much about Tom's childhood, except that his father was abusive and that he has two siblings.

Tom had previously been imprisoned for ten years for raping another woman, long before he met Anita. But that couldn't have been his first taste of crime. Most sex criminals have a history of voyeurism, stalking, obscene phone calls, something but we never learned of any because the author didn't explore his past enough or interview him.

His mother was quite a character. I wanted to know more about her but was told nothing at all. What a disappointment. I found her to be the most interesting person in the book.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

STILL MISSING by Chevy Stevens

You can read about this book at Amazon.com. It's Chevy Steven's first novel and was published by St. Martin's Press in July 2010.

MY THOUGHTS: 32 year old Annie, who's a Realtor, was abducted while alone at an open-house. The story is about being abducted by a stranger and how she suffered at his hands for a year. From the get-go I did not like Annie at all. She seems more like an angry, foul-mouthed, crude teenager than a woman in her 30s. I despise the word freak simply because I think it sounds stupid and she always referred to her abductor as The Freak  (real name Simon Rousseau) throughout the entire book. She also kept referring to the police station later in the book as the cop shop. That really annoyed me.


I didn't care for the abductor either and found him to be a bit unbelievable and unpredictable when it came to violence. I don't understand what the whole point of the baby plot was either. Include a baby just to kill it off a month later? I've read a lot of true crime and have watched a lot of true crime on television (and still do on a weekly basis) and I've never, ever heard of a kidnap victim getting away in the abductors own vehicle. That just seemed a bit silly to me.

I was very bored up until almost 2/3 of the way through when her abductor got what he deserved and Annie escaped. Too bad she couldn't have done the deed sooner so that the book could have ended sooner. Right after that incident, I was back to being bored and unhappy with the story. She went to the police station, in the abductors own van, and told them everything. She's back home, out jogging with her dog one day and is almost abducted again. I think before that happened, earlier after she first came home after the abduction, someone tried to break in her home while she was out. Can you say overkill?

Then it's revealed who's behind the kidnapping and it was just too much for a reader to stand. Just not plausible at all.

Needless to say, I did not care for this book at all. I didn't find it to be exciting or suspenseful at all. I won't be trying this author again.


This book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.