A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

e-Audio, 11:01:16
Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
Release Date: January 11, 2022
Published by: Macmillan Audio
Read from: January 21-24, 2022
Stand-alone
Source: Netgalley (I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
TW: Serial Killers, Mention of Death, Mention of missing Girls, Mention of Abuse Parents
For Readers Interested In: Thrillers, Mysteries, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Adult

   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.
 Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then 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?
     In a debut novel that has already been optioned for a limited series by actress Emma Stone and sold to a dozen countries around the world, Stacy Willingham has created an unforgettable character in a spellbinding thriller that will appeal equally to fans of Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter.

*MY THOUGHTS*

I’ll be honest, I’m weird. So when I heard that there was a book that had a woman whose father was a serial killer and suddenly the same things were happening and I immediately knew I needed to read this. And sure enough, for the most part, it was a me book. But unfortunately, it didn’t keep me this excited for too long. Up until like 23%….

Chloe is just starting to get her life back in order after her father has gone to prison for the murder of 6 girls. But suddenly, it’s 20 years later and there’s more girls going missing. Almost like her father’s back. Now the press is interested in what she has to say and everything is making her paranoid that there’s parallels there that only she sees.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. The reason I said I stopped being excited about this at 23% in. I was able to guess who it was. Now there are some things along the way that made me second guess myself, so I’m glad I kept reading. And, there is another part of the story where I thought, ok I was wrong, good! But then I realized there was more to the story, and sure enough, I did get it right in a sense. But even though there’s 2 parts to this, it still wasn’t enough to make me decide that I still liked it. Maybe I just read too many thrillers, but me being able to find out whodunit that early on, I spent the rest of the book rolling my eyes.

But for those of you who aren’t able to guess whodunit, you will definitely enjoy this more than I did. The clues that were unearthed and the way they showed the parallels of the book were enough to keep me intersted in continuing the book. It reminded me of a show on ID or something. (And y’all know how I am about the ID Channel) Willingham has a good writing style that kept me interested, but she still needs some work to on not making things too obvious. ) I say this because a friend of mine also guessed who the culprit was too lol

The narrator was good too. There wasn’t much difference between the male and female voices (or maybe that was because I was listening to the audio from Netgalley?) but it wasn’t that bad. They also did some heavy breathing and other special effects when necessary. I also love those little tidbits in audiobooks. They make the story a little “more” if that makes sense.

Although it wasn’t completely amazing, I still plan to check out anything else she might write. This was good and I suspect her writing will get better and better! Can’t wait to see what she has coming out next!

Overall, I give this