HarperCollins A Flicker in the Dark: The new debut psychological serial killer thriller with a shocking twist that will keep you up all night in 2022

Absolutely loved it. TikTok made me buy it 😊👍🏻

The story felt formulaic, and ideas/characters were generic. There were moments where the writing style was quite moving, but I wouldn't read it twice. That being said, I know why a lot of people love this book, and the ending is interesting. If you think you might like it, you probably will

Chloe Davis is a psychologist, living in Baton Rouge and preparing to get married. She’s finally getting a glimpse of enjoying life, when two local teenage girls disappear.Memories of when Chloe was twelve, and six teenage girls went missing and her dad confessed to their murders, come flooding back.Chloe has to figure out whether the comparisons she making between then and now are legitimate and who’s responsible for the disappearances.✔️ Willingham did a nice job of keeping me on the edge of my seat. I couldn’t put the book down.✔️ I was sympathetic toward Chloe’s struggles.✔️ I enjoyed the surprising twists.Overall, it was a lovely thriller. I recommend reading the debut novel.

Take this from someone with an addiction to Tiktok, I read this book for 13 hours, almost nonstop. I didn’t want to eat, shower or socialise. I’ve never been so enthralled.Just when you think you know who’s done it, you’re left guessing again. This book is so incredibly written that it felt as though a movie was playing in my head. I’ve already preordered the next book. 31st August feels too far away.

I read reviews that said it was predictable…not really. Lots of twists & turns in the end!!Read reviews said after page 50 it got really slow, so I started this at 8:30pm thinking I’d be able to put it down & go to sleep…not so!!It was a good suspense book! Nothing too heavy, easy read, didn’t want to put it down til I finished.

Stacy Williamson's attempt at a mystery thriller, "A Flicker in the Dark," was an infuriating read for me. That a reputable publishing company with presumably capable editors can let such a work s enter the public domain proves that a bad book, heavily marketed, will sell, and convince some readers that because a lot of other people (and advance copy authors out to help another) say it is wonderful, it must be.I am not one of them and from the one, two and three star reviews I have read, it appears I am not alone.Marketed as a mystery thriller, the book contains so much romantic piffle as to qualify in that genre as well. We are treated to whole chapters of lovey-dovey dialogue and wedding plans (should the cake be lemon curl or carmel drizzle) made with and without her fiance,Daniel, whose arms, legs, biceps, eyes, hair, hairstyle, lips, chest scars, and other body parts are explored and admired for us in detail. By chapter seven (out of forty eight plus an epilogue), there is already a boatload of red herrings raised about Daniel that predictably rule him out as the serial killer of six young women twenty years ago, and the killer of two more, currently, despite the "damning" evidence the author keeps piling up against him,evidence that the she then must go to absurd lengths to explain away when the "real" killers (hint, hint) are either at long last exposed or revealed. No spoiler intended--the outcome should be of no surprise to anyone halfway through the book.For starters, the narrator is a drug dependent psychologist badly in need of one herself. She psychobabbles to herself for long paragraphs and sometimes chapters at a time, most of which end with a last sentence revelation anyone could see coming, or something purposely contrived to keep the reader turning to the next chapter, often disappointed to find the "scare" was nothing at all. It is hard to believe that the author might have consulted with psychologists to create the caricature of one the narrator turns out to be.Nor, it appears, was much if any research was made into legal and police procedures. In the middle of a trial in which the death penalty is being sought, for no apparent reason given, a plea bargain is offered and accepted.As an attorney and prosecutor, having tried capital cases, such a thing does not happen mid trial unless something goes terribly wrong with the State's case. To the contrary, the author continues to play up the strength of the evidence against the defendant. Interplay with the police is just as unrealistic, the dialogue with the police would simply not take place as the author portrays. At one point, the narrator, as a child, finds condemning evidence in a box, shows it to her mother and together they go to the police. We are then treated by some of the most inane dialogue in the book when the 12 year old narrator decides she doesn't want to give the police the box after all, despite the pleas of her mother and the begging (!) police officer, then says yes, then changes her mind, doesn't let go of the box, starts to cry.....you get the picture.We are told that , however improbable, that the bodies of the earlier six victims were never found, even though the defendant takes the police to where he says he buried them.This is what we read: "They found some remnants of the girls--hairs, clothing--but no bodies.An animal must have gotten to them first, a gator or coyote or some other hidden creature of the swamp desperate for meal." Really? That's it? No search for the animal or creature? All six bodies never found? And then narrator as a child, recites three times in the novel that she saw the defendant on the night of the first murder coming out of the woods with a shovel on his shoulder, but when, it is clear the defendant was not the murderer and the true killer revealed, the author simply has the narrator saying, in effect, oh, I made a mistake, it sure looked like the defendant. Oh well...Some circumstances are so contrived to make the plot and its various twists "work" that credulity is put to the rack. To recite them here would spoil it for those determined to read the book nevertheless.The writing is, at times, juvenile with downright silly dialogue and bizarre descriptions. The narrator visits her mother in a nursing facility: " I take the hallway to the right--the hallway littered with bedrooms, hallway number three" (p117) or "The air is warm and damp, like a boiled egg burp..." (p 3070I purposely seek out debut authors in the hope of discovering a talent I will want to read again and again. Anthony Doerr, Ian Pears, Tana French, Danya Kukafka come to mind. In this case I would suggest that someone take away the author's writing implements and keyboard and not give them back until she promises never to do such a thing as this again.