Hunting Annabelle by Wendy Heard

Hunting Annabelle by Wendy Heard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a delicious and mysterious psychological thriller by a debut author, and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

This story will have you second-guessing every character and every event that occurs from start to finish. There’s so much suspense that it deserves all 5 of the dark, twisty, and murderous stars that I awarded it.

Here are my 10 favorite things about it, with no spoilers:

1. This is Dexter level on the murderously creepy scale.

2. I love a potentially unreliable narrator, especially when I desperately want him to be somewhat reliable but can’t be sure if he actually ever is or not.

3. It’s so layered and nuanced. I feel like I need to go back and read it again right now, so I probably will. I want to take everything in again, since so much happened so fast.

4. Heard does some amazing things with description. I feel like I’m right there seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and hearing it all.

5. The characterization is so complicated and fascinating.

6. The mom. Wow. She’s something else. Talk about an intense side character.

7. The audiobook is also amazing, and I love the narrator, Tim Chiou. I wish he would narrate more books.

8. Talk about kicking a character when he is down…repeatedly. There are no easy fixes or lazy solutions in this story. Sean just has to cross all of the muck to get to the other side, and it just keeps getting deeper.

9. Here’s what it felt like to read this one: “Okay, I know exactly what is happening now”. . . twist. . . “So I was wrong before but now I’ve got it”. . . Twist. . .” I’m pretty sure”. . . twist. . . “It just has to be”. . . twist. . .”Oh, my God! It’s totally”. . . twist. WTF???

10. The cover is perfection. I adore it. I have some bookmarks, and I really want to cut one of them apart to highlight book quotes from this novel between the title, kind of like the cover. That may happen.

As far as I’m concerned, this book is A+ from start to finish, and you should all go out and snatch it up for some murdery holiday reading (come on, we all know how you really feel about those in-laws).

It would also make a great present for your favorite book nerd friends, your least favorite family members, and all frenemies. Books like this can be a great way to say, “Hey, everything is fine. I just might want to murder you today,” or even, “I swear, I’m not trying to frame you. Mostly.”