♥ Black Eyed Susans || Review ♥

I am the star of screaming headlines and campfire ghost stories. I am one of the four Black-Eyed Susans. The lucky one. As a sixteen-year-old, Tessa Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive amid a scattering of bones, with only fragments of memory as to how she got there. Ever since, the press has pursued her as the lone surviving “Black-Eyed Susan,” the nickname given to the murder victims because of the yellow carpet of wildflowers that flourished above their shared grave. Tessa’s testimony about those tragic hours put a man on death row. Now, almost two decades later, Tessa is an artist and single mother. In the desolate cold of February, she is shocked to discover a freshly planted patch of black-eyed susans—a summertime bloom—just outside her bedroom window. Terrified at the implications—that she sent the wrong man to prison and the real killer remains at large—Tessa turns to the lawyers working to exonerate the man awaiting execution. But the flowers alone are not proof enough, and the forensic investigation of the still-unidentified bones is progressing too slowly. An innocent life hangs in the balance. The legal team appeals to Tessa to undergo hypnosis to retrieve lost memories—and to share the drawings she produced as part of an experimental therapy shortly after her rescue. What they don’t know is that Tessa and the scared, fragile girl she was have built a fortress of secrets. As the clock ticks toward the execution, Tessa fears for her sanity, but even more for the safety of her teenaged daughter. Is a serial killer still roaming free, taunting Tessa with a trail of clues? She has no choice but to confront old ghosts and lingering nightmares to finally discover what really happened that night. Shocking, intense, and utterly original, Black-Eyed Susans is a dazzling psychological thriller, seamlessly weaving past and present in a searing tale of a young woman whose harrowing memories remain in a field of flowers—as a killer makes a chilling return to his garden.

Ive been dwelling on this review for days and I'm still not sure whether my words will relate to my feelings with this book, but ill give it a go non the less. I started this book twice before it actually got consumed, I don't think I was in the mind frame because third time lucky I was hooked & with all the hype surrounding it, I can see why.

Tessa, is famous almost, shes one of the susans, presumed dead in a field - and no real memory of that terrible night, but when she confronts the fact Black Eyed Susans keep appearing at her house, and the feeling that maybe the wrong person really is in prison for the crime, Tessa must dig deep and battle through to confront what really happened.

The narrative was told through the past and present tense, we follow the narrative as it leads up to the execution date, and we look at the story as it goes to trial in the past. We meet an array of characters and most are likeable. With this been a thriller, I do like to work out whodunit - but like with most, I just cannot, and I feel like the twists and turns thrown into the novel made it a real mystery for me. I was not expecting what I got.

I do feel like I was left with a lot of questions, and I'm still thinking about the book days later - did I get the ending I wanted? No, but did I get something unexpected and page turning? yes. I really enjoyed this, and I feel like I just flew through it, the pace was steady and I kept myself up late at night, because it was always "just one more chapter"

4/5

Julia Heaberlin, is an award-winning journalist who has directed arts and lifestyle coverage at the Fort-Worth Star Telegram and The Detroit News. She lives with her family in Texas, where she is at work on her next novel of psychological suspense.