A Flicker In The Dark
Stacy Willingham
Synopsis: 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?
My Rating: 3 Stars
cover 5; characters 3; plot 3; pace 2; writing 3; enjoyment 2.
My Review: A FLICKER IN THE DARK was not the book for me. Maybe it’s because I’ve read from the POV of far too many self-medicating main characters recently, maybe it’s because I guessed the plot twist by chapter 8 and was very unimpressed.
As mentioned above, our MC is dealing with some serious childhood trauma, and that’s fair. She’s now a phycologist and self-medicates with many different Rx to get herself through the day. She’s marrying someone that she really doesn’t seem all that into. Her mother is in an assisted living facility, has been for 20 years, and her brother is a grumpy asshole in his mid 30’s.
These characters were not it. They felt flat and like they were just doing the thing that needed to be done. Which if I have a great plot twist, I can be okay with. But that didn’t happen either.
I will probably pick up more from this author in the future, given that this is a debut and I don’t think the writing is atrocious, this one just didn’t work for me.
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