this novel will torture you until the last page! there were times I wanted to rip to the last page just to see how it ended and yet I had to talk myself into slowing down. This is a must read!

I hate writing this type of "reviews" but I couldn't really get into this book unfortunately so I won't be providing any feedback.

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley. This book had me from the very beginning. I love that it kept me engaged the entire time. I couldn't wait to see how it ended. I would highly recommend to all my fellow readers. Thank you for the chance to review this book!

A very on the edge of your seat type book! Such an intriguing plot. I enjoyed this author’s writing style. A dark, creepy psychological thriller about a man who spent 3 years in a psychiatric prison after being convicted of a grisly murder. There were times when my jaw would drop open.

Set in 1980s Texas, Hunting Annabelle by Wendy Heard is an unusual, menacing sort of novel that follows a young man (Sean) who lives under a haze of medication controlling his schizophrenia. Annabelle, his love interest, was abducted right front of his eyes….but nobody believes him. We know from the start that Sean has a dark, potentially murderous past so he’s an unreliable narrator from all angles. As he tries to determine Annabelle’s whereabouts, the reader is left as disoriented as the narrator. Did Sean hallucinate Annabelle entirely? Did he harm her himself? This book is far-fetched and chocked too full of twists, but readers who enjoy getting inside the heads of complex, unstable characters (think You by Caroline Kepnes) may enjoy this.

After reading many recent thriller and mystery type books in the past several years, I realize how formulaic and generic parts of the story and writing can be. This, however, surprised me, especially the ending. While there were still some formulaic and generic plot points and how things ultimately played out, I genuinely didn't completely see the ending coming. I was able to figure out who the culprit was, but the twist afterwards was crazy in a good way.

As someone who grew up in a small North Texas town, outside of Dallas, I appreciated the nuance and descriptiveness given. I really was able to picture everything described in my head and I enjoyed that. I also thoroughly enjoyed the descriptive nature of Sean's mental illness and being able to peer into his mind and get his thoughts on everything as well.

My only real issue here is with the ending. I wish that it would have been more thoroughly fleshed out and given a few more answers to lingering questions. Overall, good debut novel and interested to see what Wendy Heard puts out next.

Full Disclosure: I received an ARC Kindle copy of Hunting Annabelle through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Hunting Annabelle follows the story of a young man named Sean. Sean lives at home with his mother, and spends his days drawing pictures of people as he watches them in a nearby park. He used to kill people but after spending 3 years in a psychiatric prison, and being on medication, he tries his best to ignore the temptation. one day while people watching in the park he meets a young woman named Annabelle. They begin talking and hit it off as friends. Sean really seems to like this girl, and she even seems to see past the monster that is Sean and enjoys his company and friendship. They begin to hang around together more and more, and seem to become inseparable.

One day while they are together Annabelle suddenly disappears and Sean is heartbroken. He will do everything he can to find the person who took her and to bring her back to safety. However, everyone suspects him due to his past of killing people. He tries to convince everyone, including the police and his mother, that he had nothing to do with her disappearance. Who took Annabelle and why?

This book was an interesting read with a good plot and storyline, but I found the middle part of the book to drag on a bit. The story picks up a bit again near the end, with a few twists I didn’t see coming, which made the ending quite enjoyable for me.

Thanks for reading my review and I hope you enjoy the book.

Wow...this book is creepy, fast-paced, and has a very unexpected and crazy ending. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. I "liked" Sean, the main character, as much as one can like a murderer, but whether or not I like Annabelle is questionable, and Sean's mother was definitely not a likeable character. I never saw the ending coming which I always have a hard time with. I don't like surprises.

Sean meets Annabelle at 4 Corners, a leisure park which he goes to daily to draw the tourists. Sean is instantly attracted to Annabelle and she is attracted to Sean’s quirkiness. When Annabelle is kidnapped on their first date, he goes of on a mission to find her. The police at first don’t believe him and then he soon becomes their chief suspect. His mother thinks he had an hallucination and imagened it all!!

Wow! This book is creepy! It focuses around a man in his 20s who has schizophrenia. Where a lot of books has a positive focus on mental illness, this doesn’t. He is violent and he tries to stop because he doesn’t want to go back to the hospital. A girl he is on a date with is abducted and nobody believes him. Everyone thinks he did something to her or he just made it all up. You go the whole book not sure what happened. The ending I did NOT expect. Not sure what I think about that. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to review this.

I didn't love it, I found it took to long to get to the twist and I was losing interest. It was a bit over the top, maybe I just didn't like the characters enough to care that much. The premise is good, but I don't know, it just didn't click for me- I don't want to give spoilers, but the "Dexter" aspect, just seemed so implausible to me- this is a genre I usually love, but this just fell flat for me.

Butter my butt and call me muffin...what the hell did I just read? And why do I feel so much sympathy for an obviously deeply disturbed and mentally ill young man? I was beyond fascinated at the glimpses into the mind of Sean Suh, our Hero (?????) This had so many little twists and turns. You suspect everyone, and try to make your theory fit the details as they are given to you. Ohhh, I figured out part of it pretty easily, then doubted myself, but was gloriously vindicated when my guess was shown to be right, and yet there was still a few more surprises thrown my way. And what an ending. I can see this going on to become several more books...and I would definitely read them.

Enjoyed this a lot! I'm so picky and can be a little hard to please when it comes to this genre, but I really liked Hunting Annabelle. It went the way I hoped it would!

Wow I wanted to read something darker that would keep me guessing and this book certainly ticked all the boxes.

Sean Suh is the main character, we know he has violent tendencies and was at a psychiatric corrections unit for 3 years for killing someone. He is heavily medicated by his controlling mother which keeps him in a state of stupor. Is he schizophrenic or is it the medication?

Sean meets Annabelle at 4 Corners, a leisure park which he goes to daily to draw the tourists. Sean is instantly attracted to Annabelle and she is attracted to Sean’s quirkiness. When Annabelle is kidnapped on their first date, he goes of on a mission to find her. The police at first don’t believe him and then he soon becomes their chief suspect. His mother thinks he had an hallucination and imaged it all!!

I couldn’t help but like Sean and wanted him to find Annabelle and be the hero. No matter how I thought this book would end I did not predict this ending. loved the twist!!

This is a dark and very addictive book which I found impossible to put down. I was kept on the edge of my seat through this chilling story.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

Sean was recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital and he relocated with his mom, a renowned neurosurgeon, from California to Texas. Each day he goes to a theme park and draw the people he sees. One day he sees a woman who he feels drawn to and approaches her. They begin to foster a relationship and she goes missing. As the reader gets further into the book, they find out a little more about Sean and his time in the psych ward. We also start to learn that the disappearance of Annabelle might be more than it seems. How much is Sean willing to risk in order to prove his innocence? I found the book to be an engaging read, but it was a little bit predictable.

I started reading Hunting Annabelle not really having a clear idea of what it was about. I had made some general assumptions about a possible plot based on the title. Those assumptions could not have been more wrong.
Hunting Annabelle is a first person perspective novel that follows Sean Suh, a troubled twenty something Korean boy who was discharged to his mother’s care after he spent years locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Sean has been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and he also experiences vivid visual hallucinations in the form of auras. These are best described as a sort of energy field that exists around each person. Sean’s life is relatively simple, he spends his days in a theme park called the 4 corners. Every day he goes there and draws people he sees in the park. Life is bumping along comfortably enough when he meets a Annabelle, a beautiful college student with a unique copper aura. Annabelle and Sean spend the entire day together and Sean briefly allows himself to believe that he could perhaps have a future with someone like Annabelle. Love is never simple for someone like Sean though, especially since he still struggles with some very dark, carnal urges. Sean’s world is completely turned upside down when Annabelle is abducted in front of his eyes as they are leaving the Four Corners. Sean reports the abduction to the cops, but the cops fail to take the abdication claim seriously, and Sean is forced into investigating Annabelle’s disappearance on his own. The risks go up for Sean as the cops start to dig deeper and find that Sean himself is a viable suspect in Annabelle’s disappearance, and the alleged kidnapper appears to be subtly threatening Sean via handwritten notes that are carefully left behind in areas only Sean will find them. Sean feels compelled to solve Annabelle’s disappearance, but the harder he tries to better he looks as a suspect, and the little life he has strung together slowly unravels.

Sean is not a typical hero. He is deeply flawed and has enough dark urges in himself to be considered a predatory figure. His story is completely riveting and I had a hard time at times trying to figure out if I should cheer him On or fear what he is capable of. This is definitely a twisted tale, but it was fun to read and definitely had enough twists and turns to keep me interested.

Thank you to Netgalley, the Publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in return for a review based upon my own honest opinion.

First, let me say that I really wanted to like this book, it sounded good and the premise is good. I even kind of liked the main character, Sean, but I did not like Annabelle. I am not sure when it changed for me after that, but as the book went along, I disliked the characters even more and the story-line was so predictable about midway, I just lost complete interest. I finished the book, and I will say, the book redeemed itself a little at the end, I did find the end to be most surprising.

As a huge fan of the psychological suspense genre, I can honestly admit that very few twists are surprising to me. That is why this book was such a pleasure to enjoy--I say enjoy, but the word is really "devour". The novel explores dark and complicated topics (abuse, mental illness) in a way that both honors the experiences and unflinchingly illuminates the effects of these events. A fabulous new author whose work I can't wait to devour next.

Hunting Annabelle is twisty, dark novel told from the perspective of the killer. It's fascinating getting to read the story from this POV. The story is filled with tension. Readers who enjoy psychological thrillers will want to check this one out.

Wendy Heard built this book one layer at a time, taking the time to build all of her characters then place them in a setting that turns them into someone else. Even the main character who tells his story as he sees it, is not always what he seems. After spending time in a psychiatric hospital, he is trying to fit into a world he does not recognize. The people who are supposed to be his support system, mainly his mother, leave him struggling with his thoughts and afraid for himself and others. As he investigates the disappearance of Annabelle, he must work through the limits he has placed on himself as well as the police suspicions. Thriller is the perfect adjective for this book!