I almost always give even the shittiest books at least two stars because the author I'm bashing wrote words and got them published. Good job. However, given that the story has already been optioned by Emma Stone, I don't think the author will be weeping into her labradoodle's fur over my piddly little review. So, fuck it. ONE STAR.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS AHEAD

"Psychology," I said. "I'm hoping to pursue my PhD here next fall - then, eventually get my master's."

Reader, my eyes closed in pain. I'd to call this an editorial error, but I think the main character is actually this stupid. I have a master's degree. I also have a doctorate. Which one do you think came first - the doctor designation, or the dusty, useless piece of paper my mom put in a frame? Hmm.

Where to even start with this book? Chloe Davis, the human equivalent of hold music, is very deeply damaged. She's the daughter of a notorious serial killer, and she's done everything she can to separate herself from that life. Those efforts include the following: not changing her name, moving an hour away from her hometown, giving an interview on how her serial killer father inspired her career, ETC. Girlfriend, have you heard of Google? Everybody knows you. Your Ken-doll fiancé - yeah, you didn't have to reveal nothing, because other people know how the internet works.

Yep, let's discuss Ken-doll: he throws you surprise parties even though he knows you freak out about everything. He unilaterally decides to throw in a little surprise choking during some nice, relaxing morning sex. (Didn't your father's victims die by choking? Huh. Tacky). Dude disappears all the time and you never really bother to ask where he is or what he's doing. Sounds super great. A nice healthy relationship. At least you can call in prescriptions in his name! (Apparently psychologists can do that in Louisiana --solidifying the decision to set the book here, because this girl would have never made it through medical school).

Elevator music drug and alcohol problem: Look, I realize I'm more Hunter S. Thompson than most, but this D & A problem ain't really that bad. I work with lawyers and criminal defendants, and ALL of us are taking benzos legally or illegally and in much higher quantities than Princess Chloe here. You're worried ONE xanax is going to muck up your day? If you're really an addict, you'd have to take half the bottle to even notice you took anything. Two glasses of wine after a xanax, and you wake up not remembering what happened? Two xanax and you lose a DAY AND A HALF? This is some amateur shit right here. Our girl talks about having done all of this since college (10-12 years?) -- this is your tolerance? LEAVE THIS PARTY RIGHT NOW.

Some other random thoughts: they find Valium in the first victim's hair follicles approximately two seconds after they find the body. What coroner on what earth is looking at a hair follicle test first thing? Those things take days to process in a best case scenario. They would use a blood test, a vitreous fluid test, maybe even a urine test if there was any remaining. I've sat through enough expert witness testimony to feel personally affronted by this scene. This inattention to detail covered the entire book. I understand we don't all need to know the science. But if you don't have the science, you need the characters. Ergo, if there is neither science nor character, you have a fucking snoozer, my friends. Who even needs the Xanax at this point.

SHE SLEEPS WITH THE FAKE REPORTER MURDERER. God! Was the choking the day before not enough? Also, there was chocolate on a pillow at a Motel 6? Laugh out loud. This is Blair from "Gossip Girl" trying to write "poor."

Then, revelation time. Chloe has solved this puzzle! The dang murderer is obviously taking these girls to Chloe's childhood home. She also apparently used to know him, because he's from her home town. EYE ROLL. She is going to drive right to the house and not tell anyone about it. She is also going to leave her phone in the car because why would you need that? (Aside: a famous serial killer's house has been sitting empty for 20 years and it's somehow completely intact, not vandalized, burned down...?) In what world?

Well, thankfully Dr. Brilliant Chloe remembers to take the gun into the house, even though she's never shot a gun in her life. Earlier in the book, she even rues the fact. "Golly gee, I should really learn to shoot this thing." But, in this perfect moment, the benzos have steadied her hands, and she shoots that dumb fucker reporter lover murderer right in the fatal spot. Deus ex 9mm.

But, of course that's not the end, because the killer from 20 years ago was Chloe's weirdo brother. Did that surprise a single person who read this? The serial killer sitting in jail never actually did it, duh. Turns out those porno mags Cooper kept in his room really pushed him over the edge. Wait, that doesn't make any sense. NONE OF IT MAKES ANY SENSE. Cooper feels the darkness, he says. Yeah, dude. We all feel the fucking darkness. Take this bottle of xanax and work it out.

The ending is Chloe arriving at her former(?) fiancé's sister's house. She drove to Mississippi to return the ring (certified mail anyone?), but she doesn't actually want to talk to Ken-doll. In retrospect, and aside from not asking permission for the choking, he wasn't so bad. He's a pharmaceutical rep and she's a drug "addict." Match made in heaven, DUH.

Chloe's dad gets out of jail because, also, DUH. My only emotional response to that was that everyone should watch the show Rectify and forget they read this stupid fucking book. If my kid was murdering people, you better believe I wouldn't take a murder rap for that little psycho!

Emma Stone, my beautiful, husky-voiced girlfriend: I love you, but this book is not your "Sharp Objects."This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full review1,704 s87 comments Yun551 27.4k

Even though A Flicker in the Dark has an interesting premise, its reliance on the confused and drugged-up female narrator trope prevented this story from being as great as it could've been.

Chloe Davis has lived in the shadow of fear for a long time. When she was twelve years ago, six teenage girls disappeared in town, one right after another. The nightmare finally ended when her own father confessed to the killings, upending her childhood and leaving her family in ruins. Now twenty years later, girls are going missing again. And Chloe can't help but feel there is a link between what's happening now and what happened so long ago.

I've read plenty of serial killer stories from the perspective of investigators, the victims and their families, and regular townspeople, but I'm not sure I've ever read one from the killer's own daughter. And coming at it from that angle makes this story feel fresh and unusual. Chloe still suffers from the fallout of her childhood, and her narrative envelopes the whole story in her dark and foreboding mood.

Where this didn't quite work as well for me is the pacing. It's very slow, with hardly anything happening in the first 250 pages. Instead, we spend a lot of time in Chloe's head as she ruminates, freaks out, consumes copious quantities of alcohol and prescription drugs, sticks her nose where it doesn't belong, and in general, just bumbles around being confused and paranoid. To be fair, this is a pretty common trope for the genre, but it just isn't my favorite as I find it to be pretty dull and a bit exasperating.

Clearly, this is the sort of psychological thriller that leans heavily towards the psychological side, whereas I mine to be more on the thriller side. I always enjoy a more active investigation instead of a more active rumination. However, that's just a personal preference. I think a lot of what I found to be slow is what a lot of readers find fascinating, so your experiences may be the opposite of mine.

The pacing does finally pick up in the last 100 pages, and we are treated to one revelation after another. I wouldn't necessarily say any of it is surprising (I've read too many thrillers at this point), but it is exciting. The way everything comes together is really the highlight of the book, and made this a worthwhile read for me.

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This was a pick for my Book of the Month box. Get your first book for $5 here.1,494 s6 comments Sara Carrolli45 115k

3.75 (?) 658 s1 comment Nilufer Ozmekik2,545 51.9k

Whoa! This is so impressive, spine tingling and deliciously twisty and intelligent! Let’s make some noise and clap till our hands hurt: we have a brilliant author at smart psychological thriller town : welcome dear Stacy Willingham!

I have to admit: sometimes reading about the family’s traumatic life after a serial killer father is convicted is a great plot idea to work on!

The character driven/ psychological thriller story of this book picked my interest and hooked me up from the beginning.

I d the emotionally sensitive but also resilient, survivor and sometimes a little unreliable heroine; doctor Chloe Davis: she is a psychologist who also suffers from mental disorders and her fight helps her to become better at her job and change the lives of her patients. She’s dealing with her inner demons since she’s twelve the day her childhood is over because of her father’s conviction from kidnapping and killing six young teenagers in her hometown Louisiana.

You can imagine how her life entirely turned upside down!! As she feels too much, her brother who is 3 years older than her chose to feel nothing, turning into a stone hearted man keeping everything to himself, doing everything to protect her sister and their mother is already a lost case, committing suicide after her husband’s verdict, living in oblivion.

Now Chloe Davis grabs her second chance: working with teenagers as a psychologist and she’s doing far better job than her colleagues because she knows how to be troubled kid. She also found her loved one, is about to tie the knot with Daniel even though her brother Cooper has still suspicious about Daniel’s motives. Does he really know the real Chloe and does he know how she still struggles with her past?

But there are enough predicaments she has to face from her past prevent her move on to her life! A reporter from NY Times demands to interview her about her father’s crimes he committed 20 years ago and the murders of young teenagers strike back: interestingly the killer has exactly same methods of her father!
Is there a copy cat killer imitating her father’s method or was his father convicted to lifetime prison sentence for the crime he didn’t convict!

The culprit was a little foreseeable but most of the twists and big revelations were well constructed. There are some untied loose ends but overall it was gripping, well written, heart throbbing, engaging story makes you sit on the edge, giving you creeps, keeping your attention intact!

I’m looking forward to read her next works of the author. So far I really enjoyed her writing style!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/ Minotaur Books for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

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A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

Chloe Davis, a thirty two year old psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge, has a family past that will haunt her for the rest of her life. What her father did, when she was twelve, tore families apart and terrified a small town. A serial killer kidnapped and killed six girls, that killer was her father, and he's now rotting in prison, having ruined the lives of so many people.

Chloe has tried to move on, with her practice, which reminds her too much of the past, and with her upcoming wedding to Daniel. Really, though, Chloe is a mess, self medicating with prescription drugs and alcohol. She rarely visits her mother, who lives in a care home after trying to commit suicide. Her older brother, Cooper, is dealing with their past in his own way, staying close to Chloe but also adding more stress to her life. For some reason, he's disd her fiancé from the first time they met and he's always at her that Daniel isn't who she thinks he is. And now, it appears that there is a copy cat killer, going after a girl who was last seen by Chloe.

This story is full of twists, turns, and red herrings. Chloe has tried to keep a damper on her feelings and fears and doing so is going to destroy her if her use of drugs and alcohol doesn't do it first. She has let her paranoia go too far before and she's not sure who she can trust. This all leads to bad decisions, faulty assumptions, and a sense of more danger and death to come, with no way to stop it. The story is riveting although it's hard to put aside the fact that a drugged and drunken main character can only be trusted so far.

Pub: Jan 11, 2022

Thank you to Macmillan Publishers, Minotaur Books, St Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.netgalley netgalley-2021 pub-prov443 s JanB1,212 3,522

When Chloe was 12 there was a serial killer on the loose, targeting young teenage girls. Her father was arrested for the murders, pleaded guilty and was sent to prison. Now, 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist and although suffering from her childhood trauma, she is trying to move forward in her life, although, unfortunately, with the help of alcohol and pills. As she prepares for her wedding, a string of copycat murders sends her in a downward spiral. Has her stress and anxiety caused her to see connections where there aren’t any or is a killer coming after her? The story is told in alternating chapters between the present day and flashbacks to her childhood.

However, I’m tired of drunk, pill-popping narrators. I guessed the ending immediately, but the author tried to throw in plenty of red herrings and a couple of other unexpected twists.

The story requires a large amount of suspension of disbelief, which is OK if I find the writing and plotting to be stellar. However, there was a lot of repetitiveness and extraneous details that felt filler, plus there were a few things that took me out of the story, such as staying at a cut-rate highway motel, then mentioning the chocolate placed on her pillow (really?? Motel 6 places chocolate on pillows?
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