* Warning ~ mild spoilers may occur here *The Experiment in Terror series just gets better and better. Seriously, I need more stars...five is no longer enough. They have gotten progressively more terrifying, more emotional, sexier, funnier and heartbreaking.Lying Season takes the filming of EIT to Seattle, Dexs' hometown. Perry has been invited to stay with Dex and his girlfriend Jen. Perry, being in love with Dex, thinks this a horrible idea but can't afford any other option. I was actually annoyed with Dex for allowing this. I mean, clueless much Mr. Foray?We get our first glimpse of Jen in this installment. Again, I was annoyed with Dex. Jen is a bitch, in the most perfect sense of the word, and I kept asking myself, how could Dex be with someone this awful?We also get our first glimpse of a ghost from Dex's past and frightening does not even begin to describe her. Equally frightening is the mental institute that Perry and Dex are tasked with investigating. Creeped me the hell out! At one point I was reading when I realized I was alone at one end of my dark house. This happened right after a certain scene involving a cold finger...Needless to say, I quickly moved to reading in bed next to my husband. You know, because he knows how to fight big scary ghosts.I'll admit it, I am a chicken shit. I love to be scared, but not when I'm alone. At night. In the dark.Again, the fragile relationship that Perry and Dex have is put to the test. Perry is submerged in his world and it is confusing, disorientating and excruciating for her. She has to sit and watch the man she loves be tortured by a woman who is supposed to love him, a woman who once loved him and also by himself. Meanwhile, they are all torturing her in turn.Everything changes for this pair in Lying Season. Everything. It is profound and heartbreaking and yet so understandable. Usually, a situation arises between a couple in a book and there is someone at fault. Someone you can blame for the breakdown of a relationship. Not here. Halle has created two characters, who at their core, are so complex and broken that you just know it isn't going to end happily for either. You know they can't help but fail at what should be so easy and obvious. They don't mean to. They have pure intentions at heart. They are just trying to survive. Survive sanity, love, each other and hold on to whatever little bit of one another they can have.The ending had me reeling and I am so glad I didn't read this book before the release of On Demon Wings. I would not have survived a wait well.I've raved about this series and Halle's writing before and I don't even know what else I can say. Halle is the shit.
