This is my first book by Julia Heaberlin. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were well developed and I cared about them. Did not see the twists and turns. I hope to read more books by this author.

Firstly, thanks so much to the author Julia Heaberlin and Netgalley for my advanced reader copy. One question: Can this just be made into a film already?! It was SO good. And can Matthew Mcconaughey please play Wyatt?? Just for his Texan accent of course... Anyway back to the book - it was brilliant, deliciously dark and twisted AND I don’t think I will ever look at Dandelions in the same way again... There were a lot of things I liked about this novel - the small Texas town setting, the long list of troubled characters, the carefully thought out storyline (the way bits of the puzzle are revealed piece by piece) and lastly, I enjoyed the unexpected twist at the end. In hindsight, I probably should have seen the ending coming but I DIDN’T and I love when a book surprises me like that. After reading and loving Black Eyed Susans by Heaberlin, I wondered how this book would compare. I’m so glad that I was not disappointed. A must read !

A young cop with a prosthetic leg. A teenage runway with a glass eye. A troubled pariah who talks to his long-vanished sister like she’s still in the room. Texas author Julia has once again crafted an absorbing rural thriller centred on damaged, complex characters.

WE ARE ALL THE SAME IN THE DARK is a clever tale full of emotional depth. Ten years ago Odette Tucker lost part of her leg in an horrific crash. On the same night cheerleader Trumanell Branson and her violent father vanished from their Texas town. Wyatt Branson, Trumanell’s brother and the boy Odette had been seeing, fell under a cloud of suspicion and spent years in a mental hospital despite being cleared. By the police, not the public. Now a TV documentary has vilified him again, so when Odette hears he’s been seen with a young woman she rushes to his house. Did Wyatt really rescue one-eyed ‘Angel’ from a field of dandelions? Or has he been a predator all this time?

Heaberlin weaves an absorbing slow-burn thriller that delivers in spades on its small town full of secrets setting, while elevating that familiar backdrop with her rich characterisation and the way she casts light on real-life issues that don’t always get a lot of prominent coverage (eg amputees).

There are some real jolts – including a huge swerve that would be the #hashtag-creating focus of other books (#CantBelieveTheTwist, etc), but here that is only one part of the overall tale, and to my mind is made even more impactful by the deep characters Heaberlin has crafted.

I've become a big fan of Heaberlin's storytelling over the past decade. Her thrillers are full of rich characterisations, centring on unusual protagonists including a former rodeo rider who discovers she may have been kidnapped as a baby (PLAYING DEAD), the sole survivor of a serial killer beginning to question if an innocent man is about to be executed (BLACK-EYED SUSANS), and a young woman who tricks an ailing old man she believes might be a murderer into taking a road trip into the desert (PAPER GHOSTS).

While Julia Heaberlin writes standalones rather than series novels, there is a constancy among her bibliography, threads running through the disparate tales: each is a clever standalone thriller full of different plotlines and characters, but each time we're offered rich characters and a terrific sense of the Texan setting. It's a resume full of atmospheric and emotional depth.

Recommended.

Another dark and twisty thriller from Julia Heaberlin! For me, Heaberlin always fills the void left by Gillian Flynn, though she has a writing style that is all her own that I love. I was so thrilled to have a chance to read this book early. From intriguing beginning to shocking end, I was hooked.

So much more than a straightforward mystery, the plot twists and reveals will keep you wondering what happened in the past and what will happen now. And I guarantee you will never figure it out.

When Wyatt finds a girl all alone on the side of the road, he takes her home knowing it will only bring trouble upon him. His small town still blames him for his beloved by all sister's disappearance. It doesn't help that he still talks to her like she's there.

Enter Odette. She's Wyatt's high school girlfriend and lost her leg in an accident the same night everything else happened. She's continuing the family legacy of being a cop and moved back home. She's quick to get to Wyatt's house before anything can happen to him. Or before he can possibly do something to the girl. Odette can't know for sure what to believe, she's always been haunted by that night and meeting this one eyed girl just escalates things for everyone.

I can't say too much more without going into spoiler territory. It's best to just dive on in with this one and enjoy the ride.

This book deals mainly with how loss affects us and how we survive in spite of it. Whether we've lost a person or a body part, it's always traumatic and it always leaves scars.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book.

We Are All the Same in the Dark started off so strong for me. The writing was addictive, the atmosphere was tense, and the mystery was intriguing. Unfortunately, it lost steam for me about halfway through. It wasn’t a bad book, but it ended up disappointing me after giving me such high hopes in the beginning.

The story was told in five parts and through three different POVs. I really enjoyed the first two parts and POVs. As I mentioned, I was really interested by the mystery and I thought Heaberlin did a great job of keeping the tension high. I found both Wyatt and Odette really compelling characters and was intrigued by their shared past and lasting connection. And then Part Three happened. It’s hard to talk about without revealing spoilers, but I found the transition to be really jarring. I didn’t really like that the third narrator got about the last half of the book. I thought the pace slowed down and the story started to drag. I also thought the identity of the murderer became pretty obvious long before the reveal.

I wanted a tense mystery/thriller and I while the story did start out that way, I felt like it shifted almost more into Women’s Fiction for a great deal of the book. The heart of the story are three strong, but damaged women. They are all special snowflakes type of ladies, that are are beautiful and clever and brave, but have been damaged physically, psychologically, or both. A lot of time is spent on what happened to them in their youth and how they cope. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I didn’t care about that, but I thought it would have been better placed in a different genre. I felt like the message got in the way of the development of the mystery sometimes and made the pace drag.

Overall, We Are All the Same in the Dark ended up being just ok for me. It started off really strong, but seemed to lose focus of the mystery and started to drag about halfway through. I think if you don’t mind a heavy handed lesson being handed out with your thrillers, you will enjoy this one a little more than I did.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 3 Stars

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Let’s begin with the main character, Odette Tucker. At 26, Odette has followed her father Marshall’s footsteps into law enforcement, and is the youngest person on the police force in a dusty Texas town. When Odette was 16, one night changed the lives of many, and the town has never been quite the same. On that night the popular prom queen Trumanell Branson disappeared. Trumanell was the older sister to Odette’s boyfriend, Wyatt. What happened at the Branson homestead that night is a mystery, as Trumanell and her father, Frank Branson, were never seen again. Marshall and Wyatt have no explanation for the disappearances, yet Marshall is convinced that Wyatt did not have a hand in the deed. The court of public opinion believes differently, and for the next 10 years Wyatt is shunned and harassed.

The novel begins with Wyatt’s narration. When he finds a young girl on the side of the road and brings her home, Odette is sure that no good is going to come out of the town hearing about this. Wyatt has named the girl Angel, and it is clear his mental health is suffering.

We then move to Odette’s narration. She does her best to help Angel, but the girl won’t talk. She also does her best to help Wyatt, but he won’t talk about the night of Tru’s disappearance.

Angel then takes over the narration, and at this point, I’ll leave the storytelling to the author. This is a slow-moving mystery, but does it ever hold your attention. The excellent character development really brings to life the quirkiness of characters in a small town that knows everyone else’s business. The writing is atmospheric, and you can breathe in the “roses and velvet” of a hot, dusty summer night in Texas, as well as feel the chills each of the characters experience along the twisty way.

This was a great read, and please don’t go into it with any more knowledge than this. Just let the story burn slowly, revealing its secrets gradually, and it will keep you engaged to the end.

www.candysplanet.wordpress.com

𝙎𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙗𝙖𝙙, 𝙗𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙧. 𝙄 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙞𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙮 𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙗𝙤𝙣𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙠𝙞𝙙. 𝙈𝙮 𝙖𝙧𝙢 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜.

When Wyatt Branson stumbles upon a young girl laid flat and still off the highway, he knows it doesn’t bode well for him. Girls and their bad mysteries have been his ruin and if the locals are to be believed he is guilty of doing something to his missing sister. Trumanell was the town’s good luck charm, with beauty as delicate and fine as bone china that belied her strength. There wasn’t a local alive that didn’t love her, unless you count her own father. A decade later her poster still hangs in the police station, a reminder of the towns longing for their favorite daughter, her disappearance a legend they feed on. With Wyatt’s new discovery, a one-eyed girl who seems more alive than dead, likely a curse among dandelions beneath her, he awakens interest in his sister’s disappearance a decade ago. The girl reminds Wyatt far too much of the beautiful Trumanell, who believed in fairy tale nonsense until she became one. Fate has never favored him and this is just another warning from the universe. He is nothing but a shadow in his hometown, a marked man living a lonely existence in their decrepit house, the one place he still communicates with Trumanell.

Odette Tucker is painfully familiar with Wyatt’s mental state and knows in her heart how wrong the town is about him. She is painfully aware of the hell he and Trumanell suffered at their father’s hands and trusts what her own father (the police chief) believed until the day he died having exhaustively worked the case, that Wyatt is innocent. The town has other ideas, since Wyatt has been out of his mind ever since that night, where a bloody hand print hints at what happened to his sister, it’s evidence enough to point fingers at him. His mind shattered for a reason, and that reason is murder! They aren’t the only ones, even an FBI agent has labeled him a monster. Odette’s heart at sixteen was captured fast by Wyatt and despite her grandmother’s warning, she could never stay away from him until that night. Trumanell never came back, neither did Wyatt, not completely anyway.

Leaving town and it’s ghosts at her father’s insistence, Odette escaped but could never forget the past nor make peace with not knowing. Despite making a life of her own far from it all, it is destiny that she returned to bury her daddy’s ashes and decided to become a cop, having been born into four generations of law enforcement. Showing up on Wyatt’s doorstep after rumors and tips from locals that he is keeping a girl in the house, she is betraying her dead father, involving herself in a case whose truth he felt was better left buried. She clings to hope that it’s nothing but lies, that the girl is simply a figment of other’s imaginations. For his sake, it can’t be true.

It is impossible to know that this odd, quiet girl (Angel), barely in her teens will set events in motion, a turning that will uncover everything that has been buried, altering her own life. With the help of her cousin Maggie, Odette is desperate to save Angel from the system and Wyatt from the locals she knows all too well can become a mob in no time, just as they did the night his sister and father disappeared. He doesn’t help himself with his wild ideas, broken thoughts, talking to his dead sister and following young girls. Their time is not finished, nor is the story. The more he is poked and prodded, the stranger he seems and the less people believe him. Are secrets truly hidden in the family home? Does Wyatt know more than he admits to? Does Odette really want to know the truth that she is about to uncover? Can she afford what it will cost her?

Obsession with the truth drives more than one woman in this clever, twisted tale. Nothing is as it seems while shame and guilt are two sides of the same coin. When the unthinkable happens, blame is easy to place, but only those closest to the crime question what came before. People own girls and their stories when they are victims, living and dead. Angel knows that fury can be felt from the grave, like the dandelions she was found among, she had been blown to a safe place and planted in soil where she could flourish, and she owes this all to Odette. Strangers can be salvation, and they can haunt you as deeply as a loved one. Her story is a knot in Trumanell’s nightmarish vanishing as well as Odetter’s hunger for the truth and there is a hunt, but can she succeed in outsmarting the killer?

We are all the same in the dark, but is it easier to distinguish truth from lies without light? I didn’t have a clue who was guilty, I was thrown in every direction scratching my head. The novel provokes us to assume things, because it is what the majority of us do, based on scant information. It works, maybe that is why people get away with so much in the real world, with others so busy planting their flags of guilt like conquered lands… Each character feels guilty of something like being a catalyst, a coward and Angel too, who walks into a story that is already written, blames herself for what is coming. The women in this novel are tough, they are survivors and fighters- but that doesn’t mean they are safe. Their trauma shows, worn as a prosthetic eye and leg but what makes them vulnerable is the very thing that makes them strong as titanium. Strong enough to outwit a killer? You are not on steady ground, and good guys lose sometimes but it’s a hell of a tale. Sure, I got mad as things unfolded because that isn’t how it’s supposed to be but what happens is believable. We don’t all get happy endings but how about justice? Just what did happen that night? You have to read. Julia Heaberlin can write her characters into some serious dark corners, can’t wait for the next tale.

Publication Date: August 11, 2020

Random House

Ballantine

I wanted to like this book. The beginning started off so well and I was engrossed, but then I feel the story stalled. Too much. Too much on everything, I ended up confused and skimmed to the end. The writing was so well done. This is such a slow burn mystery, it just wasn’t my time for it.

A nice, well written mystery that dips it's toe in the thriller genre without falling into a lot of the typical cliches. Kept me guessing and because the story wraps around so many characters it keeps up the pace and doesn't get tedious. Not necessarily the most outstanding read but definitely a good one to keep you occupied.

Thank you Netgalley, Ballantine Books, and Julia Heaberlin for the opportunity to read this book!

I thought this was a well written slow burn mystery thriller! It had me on my toes and interested through the entire thing! I liked a lot how it was divided into three parts and told from different perspectives. That really allows one to see from other points of view and really see how the story line comes full circle! The twists were crazy and had me in shock at the end! I will definitely be adding all Julia Heaberlin to my TBR list asap!

I am on the hunt for engrossing fiction that will not let me set the book down for long without calling me back to continue. Something strong enough to overcome the need to repeatedly check the news for the latest disaster. We Are All the Same in the Dark is just what I need.

It is a murder mystery set in Texas and features strong female protagonists, a twisty plot that keeps you guessing, and quality writing that forces the reader to slow down and absorb the words. I am not going to share more than that, as this book is best read with no advance details. Let the mystery unfold as it was written. The story skips around a bit within the chapters, so it is not a skim read. I didn’t predict the outcome. YAY!

5-stars and a new author for me to follow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the eARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I am a fan of Julia Heaberlin and this one does not disappoint! Great characters, plot full of twist, and a beautiful cover. More please! Thank you for the opportunity to read for a fair review!

We have an ol' proverb here in Texas: "When you throw dirt, you lose ground."

Julia Heaberlin creates an atmosphere of grit, growl, and the pointy end of a jagged stick. That's West Texas where arguments and grudges are settled one way or another. The end result doesn't always face the sun kindly in the morning.

People go missing for a number of reasons. They hit the highway or the highway hits them. Young Trumanell Branson was the town's sweet child of beauty and grace. The school girls all tried to emulate her tightly drawn bun at the back of her neck and her penchant for all things glitter. But out of the blue, Trumanell and her daddy Frank failed to show themselves in town. A search party covered every inch of the Branson ranch with no results. Not a stray hair or a particle of glitter.

Wyatt, Trumanell's older brother, was taken down to the station and grilled and grilled. It was Wyatt who was found down by the lake in a trance-like state. He's never been the same. Something happened that night that only Wyatt knows. Unfortunately, the truth hides in little corners in a shuttered mind.

Heaberlin introduces us to Odette Tucker, a rookie cop who comes from a long line of police officers. Her father was the Chief of Police, in fact. Big boots to fill for a diminutive young woman. But Odette has been following the Trumanell case for years without a nugget of proof. There's a connection between her and Wyatt from long ago. And Odette is persistent to a fault.

But it's Wyatt who comes across a young girl unconscious in a field. She's surrounded in a circle of dandelions. Wyatt brings her to his ranch. The girl refuses to utter a word. He calls her Angel. Odette will become involved. And Angel will take this storyline to an unexpected level with an aftermath like a Texas Tornado.

We Are All the Same in the Dark is a WoW of a story. It is highly character driven. Heaberlin gets beneath the skin and reveals the tender spots that make us painfully human. She has a magic touch, as she did in Black-Eyed Susans, for lifting the veil and uncovering the things that we all try to hide behind: Physical imperfections and the weight of emotional baggage. (Read the Author's Notes at the end) This starts with a slow burn until the flame ignites at the end. Here's a Texas dare. You can't help but fall into the tall grass that entangles Angel.
Guar-o-teed.........

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Ballantine Books/Random House and to Julia Heaberlin for the opportunity.

This is a literary novel, dark drama, unforgettable characters and a remarkable story. I was thoroughly Invested in this one and read it more slowly than I normally would so that I wouldn’t miss the nuances and the lyrical phrasing. Now I can’t wait to read Ms Heaberlin’s previous work - a win win for me.

Thank you Netgalley, Ballantine Books, and Julia Heaberlin for the opportunity to read this book!

I have been in need of a good thriller, so I was so excited to pick up We are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin. A small town in Texas is haunted by the disappearance of Trumanell Branson and her father. No one really knows what happened, but many blamed Trumanell’s brother, Wyatt though it could never be proven. Years later, the story divides into three points of view. First, Wyatt is scarred by his sisters’ disappearance and probable death. However, one day he stumbles upon a young girl in a field, and she is missing an eye. Then there is Odette, her father was a police officer and she follows in his footsteps. She discovers the girl that Wyatt found and knows the town will erupt if they find out. Their relationship history makes her desperate to protect him. Then there is Angel, the young girl Wyatt found. She doesn’t talk and she is quite a mystery. All their paths intertwine and seem to connect to that dark night of Trumanell’s disappearance years before.

Boy, that summary does not do this story justice. This is a very complex thriller with multiple points-of-view. Wyatt is an unstable point-of-view which adds to the unpredictability of the story. Odette is a female police officer who lost her leg in a tragic accident the night Trumanell went missing. Her point-of-view describes the difficulty of being disabled and the strength it took to accept herself as a whole person. However, missing her leg ables her to connect with Angel who lost her eye. Angel is a young girl and won’t talk. However, Odette makes a lasting impression on her, which inspires her to solve a crime years later.

One thing about this story is that it is unpredictable. I was not prepared for the twist that happened halfway through the book! I wish I could go into more detail but that would mean some major spoilers. Because of the multiple points-of-view, there is a lot of rehashing information, which slows down the pace just a bit. However, the characters are great, my favorite is Angel because her development is what really brings the story together and solves the mystery. Although, my favorite aspect is how the author shines a light on what it is like to lose a physical piece of yourself. It is not a common theme in novels and I appreciate this insight.

I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars! This book will be published on August 11th and you will not want to miss out!!

“𝘐 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘳𝘰𝘣 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘶𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘴𝘢𝘧𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘢𝘺.”⁣⁣
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In a small town in Texas, one girl has been missing for years. When a young girl with a missing eye is found on the side of the road surrounded in dandelions picked up by Wyatt, the brother of the missing girl, known to be quiet and deadly, and maybe a bit insane; Odette a cop, and life long friend of Wyatt’s does everything in her power to figure out what happened to Trumanell, and to keep Angel (the little girl) and Wyatt safe. This story is told by Wyatt, Odette, and Angel over the course of several years. ⁣⁣
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This was a dark, psychological thriller, written so well that I couldn’t stop reading. I wanted to know what happened to Tru. I needed to know what Wyatt knew. I loved how fierce and resilient Odette was. Angel proved, that even living a horrifying childhood, you could become a resourceful, brilliant adult. I really enjoyed @julieheaberlin ‘s writing style and would highly recommend this book if you like dark, small town secrets that buried so well they may never be discovered.⁣⁣
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣⁣
Thank you @netgalley and @ballantinebooks for an ARC for my honest review. Pub date 8/11.⁣⁣
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#bookstagram #books #WeAreAlltheSameintheDark #thriller #suspense

Where do I start without spilling the beans on anything?!?? Books like We Are All The Same In The Dark are my favorite books. But they are my hardest to write a review for because everyone should read this with knowing nothing! Nada!! So I’m just going to tell you to read it! Then call me and I won’t shut up about it! The twists and turns left me up until 3am with a case of the “just one more chapter”. The writing was amazing!!! The characters were sinfully perfect!! The book was just perfect and def a favorite for 2020!

"People here still leave their doors unlocked no matter what explodes in the America outside this town's borders. They tuck their firepower in tampon boxes and Bran Flakes, where their kids won't look, because, by the time they think to, those kids are handy at shooting guns themselves. If there's terror in their lives, it shares their bed or DNA. Odds are, they'll keep it a secret until it's wrinkled and dead. Even then, they might eulogize it with buttery words."

Oufff. This was an atmospheric slow burn of a thriller that kept my attention even after switching halfway through to a totally new narrator and changing direction.
There's something about this author's style that just gets under your skin and makes you uncomfortably quiet around others because you're suddenly suspicious about what's going on in their heads and what they could be capable of. The characters are all fully fleshed out and feel like real people so much so that I started getting emotional at multiple parts.
I don't want to give much of the plot away, but it follows the disappearance and probable murder of a town beauty queen and her father that has left the town shaken and the general consensus seems to be the brother did it. There's a town cop who's bent on proving the brother's innocence even while her partner believes him guilty. Throw in an abused girl with one eye and some rural small-town politics and you've got the very general idea of the story.

I'd definitely recommend this for those hot summer nights when you can't sleep and need something to occupy your brain. We Are All the Same in the Dark is both a true statement and a statement maker of a novel.

5 stars!

We are all the Same in the Dark is a slow burning, nail biting, mystery that will stay with reader long after they have put the book down.

The cast of characters and the unique three points of view will have readers keeping all the lights on while they are reading this book wondering what will happen next.

This is the first time I have read a book by this author and I will say you will not regret this thriller mystery that will keep you wanting more!

This book might not be for everyone but it doesn't disappoint either.



Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy of Julia Heaberlin We Are All the Same in the Dark

You know those rare moments, when everything is so absolutely perfect—so utterly right—that you wouldn’t change one solitary thing?

That, for me, is literally every single page of Julia Heaberlin’s We Are All the Same in the Dark… and no matter what I else I read this year, this is gonna be my favorite book of 2020, without question.
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A trucker spies something near the edge of the road on one of those endless stretches of you-can’t-see-anything-for-way-too-many-miles flat Texas highway. The man, Wyatt, thinks it could be a dog, and he likes dogs, so he stops to check. Instead, it turns out to be an injured young girl, barely a teen—bruised, bloodied, and missing an eye—lying in the parched grass, a ring of dandelions circling her. Seeing as how he’s always taken dandelions as a sign—and heaven knows you don’t leave a wounded creature out in that kind of brutal heat, anyhow—Wyatt grudgingly puts her in the truck with him, and heads for home.

The same evening, a police officer—Odette Tucker—stops by to do a wellness check… on her old friend, Wyatt Branson. (It’s the tenth anniversary of his elder sister Trumanell going missing, something which Wyatt—along with the rest of the town—hasn’t exactly come to grips with, yet.) What Odette finds in the old Branson homestead, though—a strange girl, in dreadful shape, who refuses to speak—is somehow more troubling than even she was expecting.

Knowing full well that the townsfolk—many of whom are still convinced that Wyatt killed his sister and buried her body somewhere (despite the police having cleared him, years ago)—would view the girl’s presence as further evidence of his “guilty ways”, Odette takes the silent teen with her, stowing her at a sort of secret way station for runaways. Until the girl feels safe enough to tell her story, so that Odette can help, she needs to be protected.

But helping her is only part of what’s on Odette’s plate. That fateful night when Trumanell went missing, ten years before, was the same night that caused a teenage Odette to decide to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a police officer, a few short years later…vowing to someday solve the mystery of Trumanell’s disappearance (and hopefully to ease some of Wyatt’s agony).

Odette has no idea how very much someone is determined to keep the truth of Trumanell’s whereabouts a secret, though… nor of how far they’re willing to go to ensure ancient history stays buried and forgotten.
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If We Are All the Same in the Dark were merely that story, the one I’ve just laid out, it would be a good—albeit fairly standard—one. The thing is, it isn’t only that story… but I can’t tell you any more; you have to read it for yourself, to get there.

I could go on and on about how cleverly Heaberlin structured her story (it’s ingenious), how spot-on her characterizations are (I feel like at some point I’ve met everyone in this book), or how brilliantly she jacks up the tension and suspense… but again, such could also be said about plenty of other worthy thrillers.

What I will say is this: the real magic of We Are All the Same in the Dark is in the nuances… in the sheer perfection of Heaberlin’s prose; in the all-enveloping sense of time and place; in the aching poignancy of memories; in the subtleties of friendship, love, and everything in between; and in the devastating heartbreak of realizations.

We Are All the Same in the Dark is full of such incredible beauty, and of so much heart-wrenching pain, that it's a bit like gazing in rapturous wonder at a crazy, green-tinged sky... then reeling when the tornado hits. Like all such experiences, this one will stay with me for a long time.
~GlamKitty