Score: 4.25/5 Bookmarks

Thank you to Minotaur Books and Macmillian Audio for gifting me A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham.

I can’t believe this is the author’s debut, well done! Chloe Davis’ world is turned upside down when her father is arrested and subsequently sent to prison as a serial killer. All her adult life she’s tried to distance herself from her father, but when teenage girls she’s been in contact with start disappearing she has no choice but to get involved. Chloe is aided by a New York Times reporter looking to do a ‘20 years later’ piece on her father and family, and they work together to pull on various threads and uncover clues.

This book is seriously twisty. Willingham will keep making you think you’ve guessed the killer, but you’ll be wrong. It is also quite atmospheric and I really enjoyed her writing style. I don’t usually love an unreliable narrator, but Chloe wasn’t all the way unreliable, but she was hitting the sedatives pretty hard which made some things fuzzy for her. Be aware that there’s a lot of domestic abuse in the story, mental health issues, bullying, and kidnapping and murder (although those last themes are pretty obvious if you’ve read the synopsis).

I switched between the physical copy and audiobook, and I enjoyed Karissa Vacker’s performance so much. You might recognize her voice from The Replacement Wife, Every Vow You Break, or Love, Lists and Fancy Ships (among others). The audio is 11 hours in length but I binged it in one day.

You can download the audiobook right away by clicking here, or order a phyical copy via the link below.

Synopsis:

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.

Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren't really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?

In a debut novel that has already been optioned for a limited series by actress Emma Stone and sold to a dozen countries around the world, Stacy Willingham has created an unforgettable character in a spellbinding thriller that will appeal equally to fans of Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter.