Any book blurbed by Karin Slaughter is one I definitely have to pick up! While A Flicker In The Dark is a lot less graphic and gory than Karin’s writing, I really enjoyed the story. Certainly an impressive debut that you won’t want to miss!

Although I'm not sure if this counts as "a twist you'll never see coming" per the blurb, I thought this book was very well written. The pacing was excellent. I flew through the last 2/3rds of it on the plane to Hawaii, and it was a great way to pass the time. I passed my ARC copy on to my sister when I arrived!

Chloe was an interesting character with a unique backstory as the daughter of a serial killer. She struggles with addiction, and is working on coming to terms with her complicated past. When history starts to repeat itself, all of Chloe’s progress is dashed. I enjoyed the first-person narrative as the reader is thrown right into Chloe’s jumbled thoughts. It was fun to unravel the case alongside her. I thought Chloe and her brother Cooper were very well-developed characters.

If you've read A Flicker In The Dark, I'll be posting a spoiler review on my blog where you can see what I thought of the twist. There’s a link in my stories as well as in the “spoiler discussions” highlight!

I’m excited to see what else this author puts out in the future.

An unreliable narrator, a family torn apart and the 20 year anniversary of a father’s arrest for serial murders, this book is filled with twists and turns designed to thrill readers. A FLICKER IN THE DARK, by author Stacy Willingham, does a very good job of creating a tense and creepy scenario that just does not let up as the story progresses. Our protagonist is a psychologist with a penchant for pills and booze when not at work; her thoughts are troubling enough without her added chemicals. This is a good thriller by a new author. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

What an intense, heart-pounding debut by Stacy Willingham!

A Flicker in the Dark is a dark, psychological thriller that follows Chloe Davis in her adulthood after her father convicted for killing six teenage girls when Chloe was 12 years old. This book felt extremely unique coming from the perspective of the killer's daughter, and made this a very intriguing read. This book was paced a bit slow for my liking, and it felt like the bulk of the plot happened within the past 100 pages. I wasn't super interested to spend so much time in Chloe's head for the first half of the book. While I didn't exactly guess the twist, I did have a hunch what was going on. Overall, interesting and twisty thriller and highly recommend for something unique!

I enjoyed this book, but not as much as others seemed to. I unfortunately figured out the mystery pretty early on. I was second guessing myself the whole way through, but in the end I was proved right. However, I really didn't mind that I figured it out, because the book was still very good. It was tautly paced and well written from start to finish. I will definitely read more by this author! 4 stars.

Chloe is the daughter of a serial killer. But all that happened 20 years ago. It doesn't mean it hasn't changed her life because everything is different for Chloe, including herself. But now, girls are dying again. It's bringing up old memories for her, and she spends a lot of time ruminating, caught in the past. Chloe needs to get to the bottom of things if she ever wants to find a resolution for not only the girls, but in her own life.

Poor Chloe is a hot mess. It's not just PTSD or her many disorders, but being the daughter of a serial killer and everything combined. If anything would help her, she should have to report to a psychiatrist to continue practicing. That alone would help her in so many areas of her life. She needs to be on proper prescription meds.

I had a few issues with the book. The med addiction, for one, is never resolved. Because of that, she will continue to be a hot mess, which also might be helped by mandating that she report to a psychiatrist. She's so often drinking and taking pills, in an attempt to make her an unreliable narrator, that it's hard to believe she can successfully run a practice helping others. Next, when she was younger, she got wasted off a sip of vodka, which just feels so overly exaggerated. Last, the first half of the book crawls in some spots. It's because her inner monologue got repetitive. I want to discuss something but feel I shouldn't because it might spoil things. But I can say that someone isn't entirely truthful, and they have absolutely no reason not to be honest about that secret. An explanation isn't really given, and what is given doesn't work for me.

But I rated this book 4-stars for a reason, and that's because I can look past those minor issues and see this as a very enjoyable story. The pacing picked up once we passed the halfway mark, and the book grew addicting. Secrets started spilling out, and they didn't stop. While I figured out what was going on fairly early on, it didn't dampen my enjoyment of the book, and I feel not all readers will figure it out as I did. Overall, this is a fun read. Thank you, St. Martin's, for sending this along!

The new star DEBUT author Stacy Willingham delivers a knock-out smashing psychological thriller— A FLICKER IN THE DARK, both haunting and compelling.

Series adaptation news: Emma Stone’s Fruit Tree, A24 to Develop ‘Flicker in the Dark’ Series at HBO Max.

Trust no one!

If this is a debut, I cannot wait to see what comes next. This small-town thriller gets under your skin— with a twisty creepy vibe and atmospheric setting.

Meet Chloe, protagonist — a medical psychologist living in Baton Rouge, LA. Chloe had had a rough life and experienced PTSD due to her tragic childhood when she was twelve.

Her father (Richard) was convicted of murdering six girls in the small rural town of Breaux Bridge and currently serving time in prison.

It is approaching the 20th anniversary of the killings, and girls are missing in much the same way. A copycat killer?

Chloe is engaged to be married to Daniel, and instead of planning the wedding, she is caught up in the new murders and has to re-live her past over again.

She is responsible for turning over evidence against her father, which drove her mother (Mona) to attempt suicide. She has been incapacitated since, and Chloe still visits her.

Chloe is self-medicating, dealing with her anxiety and nightmares, and keeping it from Daniel (pharmaceutical sales) and her soon-to-be husband.

Cooper, her brother, is worried about her and does not care for Daniel. Daniel also has a past with his younger sister, who went missing 20 years earlier. They both are keeping things from one another.

When she is contacted by a journalist who wants to interview her for an anniversary story—things get stressful for her, and another girl is murdered.

So was her father possibly innocent? Is this someone new killing again? What about the trophies from the victims?

Smartly written, the author keeps you on the edge of your seat as the suspense builds to the explosive ending where all is unraveled. From past to present, we learn about the murders and how they connect with the present.

Dark and twisty, with nail-biting tension and jaw-dropping surprises. There are several red herrings and twists which keep you guessing.

Complex, richly atmospheric, and thoroughly riveting fans of authors Mary Kubica, Heather Gudenkauf, and Kimi Cunningham Grant These Silent Woods will enjoy this gripping debut and newfound author's lyrical prose.

A special thank you to #NetGalley and #MinotaurBooks for an ARC digital copy and from #MacmillanAudio an audio ARC performed by Karissa Vacker for an award-winning performance.


Blog Review:
@JudithDCollins
#JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5/of 5 Stars
Pub Date: Feb 11, 2022
Top Debut 2022

I rushed through this book looking for answers. The beginning is a bit of a slow mess with mainly introspection by the main character. Chloe has run away from her past plagued by the memories of her serial killer fathers doing. She lives in the city now with her fiancée and brother. She’s doing really well until the murders start again. I could have done without all the time spent with Chloe just trying to think. It was pages and pages of that rather than dialogue but the plot is intriguing and doesn’t give its secrets away until the end. It was a nail biter and actually surprised me

I had an idea of the outcome early on and couldn't wait to finish reading this psychological thriller to see if I was correct (for the record, I was). This was aa fast moving story that kept my interest. I did feel that more character development was needed to make a more cohesive story.

Loved this book. It had constant twists and turns. Just when I thought I had it figured out I was wrong. The characters were great. Definitely worth the read.

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Debut from Stacy Willingham. Thank you St Martin and NetGalley.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>A decent thriller about a serial killer from someone's past. It was a little predictable and slow, but a good debut. Looking forward to more from this author. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

A FLICKER IN THE DARK by Stacy Willingham is a compelling mystery that follows the daughter of a confessed serial killer as she navigates her roots while also experiencing sudden disappearances that are reminiscent of her father’s murders in her present life.

This really was a wonderful debut full of red herrings galore. Stacy crafted characters that were so dimensional, it was difficult to determine, as a reader, who to trust. That mystery kept me on the edge of my seat while I continued to flip pages.

The overall plot of the story and the main character (Chloe’s) history was intriguing from the get-go, and made the ending that much more satisfying.

I highly recommend this one and can’t wait to see what Stacy comes up with next!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Publication Date: January 11, 2022

I like starting out the new year with a good book. "A Flicker in the Dark" is a good book by debut author Stacy Willingham. What kept it from being a great book is that I figured out the killer pretty early and the red herring was way too obvious.

Chloe Davis was 12 when her father was arrested and sentenced for killing six girls in a small town in Louisiana. Now 20 years later, Chloe is a successful psychologist in Baton Rouge but still suffers from the trauma of her childhood. The trauma will gets worse when teenage girls with a connection to Chloe go missing. I would almost consider this a "Locked Room" mystery because of the limited number of viable suspects.

Even though the book has some plot problems, it still is an enjoyable and quick read.

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. Twenty years have passed, Chloe is a psychologist in a private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She thinks she has finally found a future to embrace when her world is turned upside down. 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?

A FLICKER IN THE DARK is a debut thriller from Stacy Willingham that feels like anything but a debut. This book is an absolute masterpiece in plot, pacing, and character study. From the first few chapters I found an easy bond with our main character, Chloe. She’s got a complicated past and is trying to live with a trauma that she can’t seem to put to rest. When teenage girls start going missing, the similarities are far too strong to her father’s crimes of the past for Chloe to ignore and soon she is immersed in the hunt for the truth. What a ride that hunt is! I suspected almost everyone at some point and while I was able to make a few predictions that turned out correct, the last quarter of the book was simply shocking reveal after shocking reveal. A FLICKER IN THE DARK is the binge-worthy thriller we’re all looking for in our lives!

A huge thank you to Minotaur Books for my gifted copy!

ARC provided by NetGalley for an Honest Review

A Flicker in the Dark calls to the dark thrill seeking side in many of us. As I read on in the book the thrills, (a few chills), and a web of secrets evolved so naturally I was hardly able to put the book down. The mystery of the novel intensifies slowly leaving you with so much uncertainty and a naive perception of everything. While Chloe is the sole character, her narration is often and quite literally untrustworthy. Obviously this creates a hazy world of lies and a setting rife with unsolvable clues. With so few characters it’s likely fingers will point at them all once or twice before the end.

I was engrossed in the story from the start. Chloe is not your usual heroine. Chloe works as a psychologist in her own practice but she has a wild past. Her past is something she tries to repress and forget about. Life is good for Chloe. She’s engaged to a wonderful man and has made a good life for herself. The past, as it often does, comes back to haunt Chloe in the form of her childhood monsters. This particular monster being her father, a serial killer whose been locked away in prison for twenty years. The 20th anniversary of the murders seems to have enlivened a copycat and young girls are going missing. When a young girl and new patient of hers goes missing and later turns up dead outside her workplace Chloe is unwittingly sucked in and dragged down a path that will have her confronting her past head on.

Chloe is a very flawed and relatable heroine. She’s done a lot to further her life in hopes to leave the past behind and I can’t say I blame her. (view spoiler)

So this is the latest “must read” selection according to the ‘Gram???? I mean to each his own, but I don’t get it. I was all about picking up a story about a serial killer’s daughter, but could she maybe not be some pill popping alky cliché in this supposedly “fresh” debut???? Talk about been there/done that a time or twelve.

Not to mention the suspension of disbelief that has to occur in order for (i) this chick who is clearly not right in the head to be able to not only hide the above, but somehow become a highly successful psychologist, who (ii) apparently has not ever Googled anyone ever and (iii) remained completely oblivious of the whodunit despite the fact that (in the immortal words of Lana Del Rey) it was "shining like a fiery beacon."

If you are new to mysteries or are a person who can simply enjoy super farfetched storylines and/or have no interest in playing couch detective and spoiling things for your own dang self immediately only to be annoyed you wasted two days to discover your first thought was 100% spot on then maybe this will be a winner for you??????

But seriously though, people really and truly didn’t know who the bad guy was right away????

Really really?

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

A huge thank you to @minotaur_books & @netgallery for my gifted eARC!🤗


💭💭My Thoughts:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️4/5

I cannot believe this is Willingham’s debut book! It was so good, so captivating, and the author does such an amazing job at storytelling & painting a vivid picture for the readers. I was definitely hooked!

The story is about Psychologist Dr. Chloe Davis and how she has a serial killer as a father. The book flows back and fourth between her past and present. Chloe is haunted and traumatized by her past as a young girl, and by the actions of her father-who is rotting away in prison now. Her father ruined so many lives, and Chloe has never really been able to move on.

Chloe tries to keep busy with work, yet it brings back memories of her past. She is a mess, and turns to self medicating and alcohol. Especially now that there appears to be a copy cat killer of her father out there. Is there really a copy cat killer, or is Chloe imagining the similarities? Can she ever really move on and let go of her past traumas?

Chloe’s character is full of paranoia and trauma, and she is unsure of who she can trust. As the reader, I could really feel her pain and trauma throughout the book, which really helped to connect to her character.

It’s hard to give a full review without giving any spoilers, so I will keep this short but this is definitely a must read, especially for fans of Karin Slaughter books! If you enjoy mystery/thrillers this is one for you. It is slower paced, but it worked for me, and towards to middle it picked up and I was definitely hooked and could not put this one down.

Willingham shows promise but is unpolished and in a sea of thrillers she doesn't stand out yet. The story was compelling enough that I kept reading and it helped that the pacing was fast. However the twists weren't shocking, the narrator was too unreliable and unlikeable, there were too many loose ends. Sometimes things felt forced, stilted. But the premise was creative, the daughter of a convicted serial killer is an interesting POV, the settings and characters were well formed and I could picture everything. Creative, descriptive and atmospheric writing is hard to do and shows a lot of promise for Willingham and I would read another book by her in the future.

This psychological thriller revolves around Chloe, the daughter of a confessed serial killer.

We learn how devastated she is when she discovers that her father has a dark secret.

And then the methods she uses to escape from being associated with her past.

But now, twenty years later is she being haunted by a copycat killer? Young girls are dying around her. Just like before.

Though this didn’t immediately win me over, the more I read the more I needed to know.

I began to wonder about Chloe. She was continually needing to reach for medication to push the past out of her consciousness. Was she a reliable character? Had someone in her past surfaced? Could it be a copycat killer?

While at one point I was sure I had it all figured out, I still vacillated from here to there in my thinking. The more I thought I knew, the faster the pages flew. I needed to confirm my thoughts, which, by the way, weren’t correct.

My Concerns
As can be expected in most thrillers, there may have been a few places that required suspension of disbelief, but it certainly wasn’t enough to concern me.

Final Thoughts
I would highly recommend this psychological thriller. If you’re like me you’ll be doing lots of guessing, and you might even be correct. But the ride to the end is definitely worth the journey.

If this is Willingham’s debut novel, and it is, then you can be sure this author will be on my radar. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ebook and the ability to post my thoughts in a review.

This is another of those absolute true thrillers. It will have you guessing all the way through. The only reason I took away one star is that I figured out who did it. I figured out two things. One I can't tell because that would be wrong. Just wrong.

This book starts out strong. It grips you in a way that you can't look away from. Like one of those train wrecks or bad car wrecks that make people stop and look even though they know it's going to be bad. This book will grab ahold of you and take you on a ride that you can't get away from until that very last word.

There is a family who seem so normal. A loving family. A dad, mom, and two children. But there are secrets in this family. Deadly secrets. Someone in this family is not normal. Not caring. Has no feelings. Possibly. Or could it have been someone else? That is another possibility.

One summer six young teen girls go missing. Never to be heard from again. What could have happened? Was it the work of a serial killer? Was it someone Chloe knows? Was it a friend or a family member? When her father is arrested for this heinous crime her life will never be the same. No one in this family will ever be the same. Their lives are shredded.

Twenty years after her father is incarcerated for the murders of six teenage girls Chloe is working as a psychologist. She's trying to make a life even though she is constantly on edge about things that happened when she was just a kid. She's engaged to be married and dealing with all of that. She's trying to be a good sister, daughter, fiancé. But when two girls go missing and are later found dead she starts living a nightmare that she thought was in her past. She has so many trust issues and starts suspecting that maybe the killer is closer than she thought. But is he? Or is it a he? Is it someone she knows? Or a total stranger?

This is a terrific book. Well written. Great descriptions. Makes you feel like you are there. In Chloe's office. Behind it in the alley. In the woods where she grew up. In her home. You feel the fear that this book takes you through. The sadness that is. The loneliness. You feel it all. Stacy Willingham did a fantastic job for her debut novel. The only thing that made it lose a star as I said is that I figured out who did what and why early on. But that did not in any way take away from the story. I was not positive about my thoughts until I was. I did wish things would have ended a tad different for Chloe. She deserves to find that happiness and togetherness. She deserves a family.

Thank you #NetGalley, #StacyWillingham, #StMartinsPressMinotaur for this ARC. This is my own true feelings about this book.

4/5 stars and a high recommendation. Read it. Enjoy. Be warned though. It's edge of your seat in many places.

What a debut!! In my opinion, A Flicker in the Dark is an amazing way to pop your publishing cherry.

Described as a psychological thriller, this novel certainly lives up to its description and if this is your favoured genre, you won't be disappointed.

I'd imagine that most people will try to work out 'whodunit' and I'm equally sure that you'll get mired in the twists and turns that Stacy Willingham puts in your path.

Personally, I found Chloe, although the main character, to be a bit annoying. I'd have thought that a practising psychologist would have personally been in a more advanced stage of recovery.

However, in getting past that, you will become invested in this intriguing storyline and desperate to solve the mystery within.