Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's press and the author Stacy Willingham. This book was so well written and just a deep read. It touched on areas that people face daily when trauma appears in their lives. This was just a read that keep me up at night. I thought about it when I was not reading it and was just so interested in reading it quickly as I was enjoying it. Stacy Willingham did a great job with this book and I hope to see more from her.

First, thank you to the publisher for providing an advanced copy for me to review!

Ok, this was good! It wasn't anything new or groundbreaking but the writing was very solid and the suspense had just enough umphhh to keep me turning the pages long past my bedtime.

I wouldn't say that there are a lot of plot twists, maybe like one bigger one and them a couple of revelations leading up to it but I did end up knowing the ending from the start and I still really enjoyed the ride because I wanted to see the hows and why's of certain happenings.

I did like how every character is portrayed as unreliable and offsetting so I was constantly second guessing if I liked them or not.

I'm so glad I gave this a chance and now I found a new favorite thriller and a new author to follow!

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

Official rating: 4.5 stars
Page turner rating: 4 stars

When disappearances and murders start popping up around Chloe Davis, she starts to relive the part of her childhood 20 years prior when similar occurrences happened in her small home town.

I was really impressed with this book! It was creepy to read (especially at night!), it took me on a journey, and kept me guessing at how everything was going to ultimately play out. Without going too far into any spoilers, I'll just say those are some of the best parts of a thriller for me - highly recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley for an early copy of this one. It releases on January 11th, but if you have a Book of the Month subscription, it was one of Decembers picks!

Read if you:
Liked Sister Dear by Hannah Mary McKinnon
Want something that gives you the chills
Like a potentially unreliable narrator

I know this book is really popular right now, but I must admit that I found it problematic. It was a quick read and somewhat enjoyable, but mainly just to see how accurate my predictions were. And my predictions were right. 100%. If you have read more than a handful of thrillers, you will likely see the "twist" of this one coming from the beginning. But the predictability of this novel was just the tip of the iceberg. I was concerned with the way the main character's addiction was handled. It would actually be more accurate to say how it wasn't handled. Her addiction is never addressed more than superficially, and basically brushed off as normal under the circumstances. While I can completely understand why someone in her shoes would turn to the numbing effects of drugs and alcohol, that in no way means that friends and family should ignore those behaviors. Finally, I am not opposed to an "unreliable narrator,' but in this case, the way it was done almost felt like gaslighting. It really bothered me the way the main character was dismissed just because she made a mistake when she was in college. I mean honestly, who didn't make at least a few mistakes when they were that age? 3.75 stars

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this arc.

When I saw this book on Netgalley and read the synopsis I went crazy about it and knew I had to put my hands on it. Stacy Willingham’s debut novel is a page turner. The protagonist, Chloe Davis, is a psychologist from Breaux Bridge, a small town in Louisiana, who moved to Baton Rouge to leave her past behind. Her father has been in prison serving multiple life sentences for confessing the murder of six girls.

Now twenty years later, Chloe is moving forward and ready for a new step in her life. She is getting ready for her wedding, but the past repeats itself when teenage girls begin to go missing. Chloe sees herself facing her darkest nightmares. But she is not exactly a reliable narrator. She self-medicates with alcohol and prescription drugs, she has some difficulty separating what is real from what isn't, making the reader doubts her credibility as a storyteller.

The story is full of twists and because of the unreliable narrator you keep on second guessing everybody and everything is being told. I really enjoyed the writing. I raced through this book because I needed to know what was going on and who the killer was. This is a great debut novel and I will definitely keep an eye out for future books Stacy Willingham may write. I recommend A Flicker in the Dark to everyone.

I will also be looking forward to watching the HBO Max adaptation of this novel with Emma Stone. A Flicker in the Dark and Emma Stone can’t go wrong.

I read “serial killer” and immediately wanted to read this one. But I was disappointed. The main character and I don’t get along. Half the book is all her inner thoughts and they are just obsessive. Sure, she’s been through a lot of trauma, but one second she’s sure X is the killer then she’s sure it’s Y… and she’s sure it is Z. Ugh I loathe these type of thrillers. Where the main character woman is seen as being “crazy” and then her obsessive thoughts and actions make you not really be on her side either. Nope, not for me.

I know this book has been buzzing around the library and reader communities lately. I had to get my hands on it. It definitely came through as a powerful thriller. I hope we see more from Stacy Willingham in the future!

What a fantastic debut novel for Stacy Willingham. I read it in a day, once you start you want to keep reading. Lots of twists and turns. Well done!

Chloe Davis is a psychologist who twenty years ago when she was just twelve years old had her life ripped apart, and she now has issues of her own as a result. Her father was sent to prison after he pled guilty when six teenage girls disappeared and were presumed killed. Then her mother attempted suicide because of that. Now more teenage girls are disappearing in the same way, but their murdered bodies are being found, and they each have a connection to Chloe. With Chloe's father in prison, who is doing it? And if it is a copycat---why? The twists keep coming. When you think you have it all figured out---you don't.

I have no doubt that we’re going to be seeing a lot of A Flicker in the Dark. Not only has it already been showing up on a lot of must-read lists for this winter, but I predict we’ll be seeing it on a lot of 2022 best-of lists.

Stacy Willingham takes all my favorite thriller aspects and combines them in her stellar debut.

A surprise twist? ✅
Serial killer? ✅
Edge-of-your-seat suspense? ✅
One-sitting-bingeable? ✅

Here’s my recommendation - get your hands on a copy of A Flicker in the Dark (January 11, 2022) and clear your calendar.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to review - Link to Instagram post:https://www.instagram.com/p/CXOWy65re_h/

Stacy Willingham’s debut novel “A Flicker in the Dark” is an eerie psychological thriller filled with suspense, deception and mystery.

As a child, Chloe Davis’s father was arrested as the serial killer who murdered six teenage girls in her small hometown. Now, she is a successful psychologist with a private practice in Baton Rouge. She’s soon to be wed and has taken every step possible to put her past behind her—even if it means resorting to denial and prescription drugs. When two local girls go missing, the ghosts of Chloe’s past return. She’s soon convinced this new killer is somehow connected to her past and is targeting her directly. As she spirals with her own demons and drug dependence, Chloe forges on and refuses to let things be until she finds who is behind the murders—even if it means losing everything and everyone along the way.

This was a gripping read with a narrator who becomes more and more unreliable as the book progresses. You’re in a constant state of unease knowing that each character seems to be hiding something and you have no idea who you can take for face value. It’s a psychological jigsaw puzzle you’re putting together as you read. If you read a lot of thrillers, you will be able to do so pretty easily, but I still enjoyed the process. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters—especially our main character and the writing style—while the descriptions and analogies used were fantastic— was a bit dense and lengthy at times. It distracted me more than once from the narrative. Overall though, the book delivered. It will make a great page-to-screen option and is certain to launch an exciting career for Willingham. 3.5 stars.

Stacy Willingham is an author to keep an eye on! A Flicker in the Dark, her debut novel, is a well-written and engrossing mystery/suspense novel.

When your father is a serial killer, you're bound to carry a lot of baggage, and Chloe Davis does. When she was twelve, her father kidnapped and murdered six girls not much older than she. Old enough to remember too much about that summer, she left her small home town behind her as soon as she graduated high school. Now at 32, she is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge, and is engaged to be married soon.

With the 20th anniversary of her father's horrific actions approaching, a copycat killer has appeared on the scene. Chloe is living her nightmare all over again, and doesn't know who she can trust. All of the girls seem to have a tie-in with Chloe, and only someone close to her would know things that the killer knows. Can she uncover the identity of the killer and bring the killings to a stop?

This read grabbed me from the start and kept me flipping pages. I was thoroughly engaged and would probably have read it in one or two sittings if life hadn't demanded my attention! I thought I knew the culprit early on, but I was wrong. A great read, I plan to keep an eye out for this author's next book. I highly recommend this book!

My thanks to Minotaur Books who let me read an ARC of the novel via NetGalley. The book is scheduled for publication 1/11/22. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and are given freely.

This was a well written story with great character development. If you enjoy serial killers and paranoia this is the book for you. Unfortunately I don't enjoy serial killers or paranoia.

4.5 stars

I had a hard time putting this book aside as I couldn't wait to see how things turned out. I can't believe this is the author's debut! It was easy to connect with Chloe. She, along with the other characters, is well drawn and realistic. The book has a number to twists to keep the reader guessing, and even though I figured out a few things before they were revealed, it didn't take away from my enjoyment of this suspenseful story. It only made me more excited about Willingham's next book!

This may just be my favorite thriller of the year! It isn't without it's problems but it was so entertaining that I can overlook them. It—in my opinion—has a controversial plot line that would be great to discuss in book clubs or buddy reads.

This book should have been called gaslighting 101 because man did the protagonist get gaslit constantly!! I would finish a chapter and start another and be like what not more gaslighting?!

But this was a super fast-paced unputdownable thriller/suspense for me. I am so glad I got to read this one because 2021 hasn't been great for thrillers, and I know this comes out in January but this really redeemed my hope in the genre.

I would definitely recommend this one!

Thanks to Netgalley and Minotaur books for this eARC.

What a good book this was! The character development and wonderful writing made this hard to put down! I thought I had the twist figured out early on and I was definitely fooled. Great pacing with so much suspense! A perfect thriller!

Twenty years ago, then twelve-year-old Chloe Davis and her older brother Cooper watched helplessly as their dad, the man Chloe ran to every single day for safety and protection, was taken from their home by police for the serial killings of six teenage girls in their little town of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. In that moment, Chloe learned that monsters aren't always in the shadows or under your bed - sometimes they're right in front of you.

Skip forward to today, Chloe is now a psychologist with a home and private practice in Baton Rouge, planning her upcoming wedding to perfect, supportive Daniel, and helping over-protective Cooper take turns visiting their mother, Mona, in an assisted living facility - a situation necessitated by Mona's mental and physical trauma after her husband was taken away.

Both Chloe and Cooper are fighting their own demons from the past. Chloe is afraid of everything and tries to medicate it all away with pills she surreptitiously prescribes to herself in Daniel's name and the nearest bottle of booze. It isn't helped when a nosy reporter from the NY Times calls one day hoping to revisit the past as part of a 20-year anniversary piece, and is further exacerbated when two new girls - both of whom she knows - go missing within miles of her new home. Is history repeating itself?

Chloe is your classic unreliable narrator, often referencing her difficulty separating what's real from what isn't, which isn't helped by her pharmaceutical habits. She's paranoid, convinced that these new victims are someone specifically toying with her, setting her on her own amateur investigative path to find who's copying her imprisoned father's past actions, since virtually no one else believes her suspicions.

What hidden secrets does she find and what happens when she uncovers them? Peek in those closets and find out! I think you'll like what you discover.

First, let me say: Wow, that was one of the BEST prologues I’ve ever read! It set the mood perfectly and sucked me in from the very first sentence. The story is solid and structured in an interesting way, integrating Chloe’s past memories seamlessly into the current narrative, where she's simply lost in thought, dreaming or having flashbacks, rather than using the stale past/present chapters format. The humid, Spanish moss-draped trees and swamps of Louisiana provided such a visceral, atmospheric setting, and the suspenseful writing kept me glued to the pages. I read the majority of it in one day - I just had to know who did it!

There are a few downsides, but nothing that ruined my enjoyment. I suspected part of the ending reveal very early on and turned out to be right, but getting from suspicion to revelation was still fun as Willingham threw in plenty of red herrings and twists to keep me off-balance and doubting myself. There are plot elements, a couple of which border on ridonculous (ex. the Scrabble tiles and tapping thing ... no. It makes for a good plot device, but again ... no.) There are a few others as well, so just be prepared to suspend some disbelief. It'll be worth it.

All-in-all, I can enthusiastically recommend this wonderful debut. Stacy Willingham has given readers a bright spot in the crowded thriller genre and a promising start to her writing career. I know I'll be eagerly awaiting her future books!

★★★★

Thanks to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, NetGalley and author Stacy Willingham for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. It's due for publication on January 11, 2021.

I really enjoyed this one! While I had figured out the twist a few chapters into the book, I still enjoyed finish the book. It flowed easily, good character descriptions & well written. Will definitely recommend to others.

Pub Date: 1-11-2022

Twenty years ago, six girls went missing in Chloe’s small Louisiana home town. After her father was arrested and sentenced to life for those murders, she tried to move on with her life. But now more girls around her are going missing and she me may be the only one who can figure out who’s behind this new serial killing spree.

With alternating timelines and short chapters, I flew through this book and was finished before I knew it. I definitely enjoyed this one and found the flashback chapters of the main female protagonist to be the most engrossing. Although the twists weren’t a surprise I was still completely invested in the story and had to know where it was going. This is a debut novel by Willingham, and I can’t wait to see more from her in the future!

If you’re looking for a fast paced read that has you looking over your shoulder and around every corner, pick this one up in the New Year!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

The best thriller I read this year!! Engaging, tense and a total thrill ride. I loved every page and although I suspected the ending at about 69% I definitely wasn’t 100% certain I knew what I thought I knew so it never got boring! If you are in a reading slump, pick up this book!! All I wanted to do was read!! A definite top 5 of 2021!!!