This was fantastic - Heaberlin has a beautiful turn of phrase, and while parts initially seemed meandering, everything ultimately had a point and purpose. Can't remember the last time I enjoyed a thriller so much. Highly recommended. ( )

I genuinely didn't see the ending coming, which is always a plus with a thriller.

For a book about a serial killer of young women, it's wonderfully lacking in gore or the sort of voyeuristic zeal with which the bodies of mutilated girls are described in books like these.

Tessa was a great main character, both as a seventeen year old in 1995 and as an adult. Smart, compelling, and very human. ( )

A well-written thriller, that sadly never divulges the major questions the reader has about what actually took place—e.g., how long was Tessa held hostage? what happened to her? how intimate did she become with the other Susans?

As the reader hopes to get closer to these answers—as the older Tessa herself hopes to, with an innocent man on Death Row for the crime, and the clock ticking down—the narrative shifts and takes a "quaint" turn.

Plot-wise, this is as predictable as they come in this genre; but the writing was compelling, and the structure as it shifts between past and present, between a countdown and a count-up, was really well done. I'd definitely be interested to read Heaberlin's new book, [b:We Are All the Same in the Dark|49189494|We Are All the Same in the Dark|Julia Heaberlin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1592880650l/49189494._SY75_.jpg|74637326], when it drops next month, to see if she's built on these strong points of hers and is able to concoct a more satisfying, edge-of-your-seat sort of thriller. ( )

This is one of those books, that now it's over, I'm just going to have to sit with for a while. I am still confused, but good confused. I think... An excellent mystery, it had me going back and forth several times about who did it and who couldn't have and did it even really happen. For a while I was convinced it was all totally in her mind!! Excellent story telling. Julia Haeberlin js now in my radar and I'll be looking for other titles by her. ( )

This was a good mystery, I liked going back and forth in time as the story revealed itself. It was a fun who-dun-it that actually had me a bit twisted up on the bad guy, was fun to figure things out along with the main character instead of waiting for her to catch up. ( )