Monday 25 April 2016

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin

It's intense, creepy and memorable. The girl who got away. Dumped in a grave full of bones and corpses with no memory of why, when, who, what or why.

The killer sits on death row waiting for his final breath, unfortunately Tessa doesn't really think he is guilty, and yet her testimony put him in prison in the first place.

Someone keeps leaving her mementos of the killings. It can only be the real killer, right? Following her around from one house and town to the next. Never letting her out of his sight. Always reminding her of how lucky she is, and yet knowing he can take it away at any moment in time.

Heaberlin has the intimate descriptions, emotions and flashbacks down to a tee. Smells that bring it all back and make her gag. Flowers that remind her of the fact she is one of the Susans, and of the course the Susans themselves. They speak to her, they spoke to her in the grave. The dead, the decomposed and the bones, they speak to her still.

Tessa is torn between wanting to know the truth about what happened and fearing the foggy curtain will lift and reveal things she would rather not know.

I liked the way the author kept the pace slow and steady. Focusing on the fear, the guilt and the aftermath of being the survivor of a serial-killer. Unusual procedural flaws make the solution fairly evident, but that doesn't stop it from being a good read, and a twisted and perverse ending is only to be expected when you take the rest of the book into account.

Buy Black-Eyed Susans at Amazon UK or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.
Follow @juliathrillers
Visit juliaheaberlin.com
Read Paper Ghosts by Julia Heaberlin

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