This has mostly everything I love in Thrillers; dual timelines, unreliable/morally grey MC, beautiful writing, and a gripping plot!

I’ve said this in the past, but Willingham’s prose is absolutely beautiful! I found myself getting sucked in and swept away by the quotes, phrases, analogies and more that our MC, Isabelle, is made to say and/or think. I truly had to stop myself from annotating the hell out of this book, lol. 

More on Isabelle though… my goodness what a complex and flawed character. I loved it. I genuinely loved peeling back her layers and wanting to understand why she was the way that she was and of course, it all made sense in the end. But the journey was wild! There were so many moments where I liked Isabelle and then didn’t, and then liked her but still didn’t fully trust her… she really did remind me of Chloe (from A Flicker in the Dark) in certain instances and I felt for her (just like I did with Chloe) I really did. 

In addition, this book further solidified how much I adore Psychological Thrillers, ugh! Every time I turned the page I felt like I was collecting all these puzzle pieces but still didn’t have enough to connect them and as we got closer to the end, things started to fall into place and it was so satisfying, lol.  

Final Thoughts: While I loved this, I know this won’t be for everyone. It’s definitely more of a slow-burn, lyrical mystery type of story with Thrilling elements. However, given the commentary on the true crime community, motherhood, womanhood, and so much more, I still think this book packed an important punch and I’ll be thinking about it for awhile. Also, Willingham is officially an auto-buy other for me after this hit 😮‍💨🤌🏾