Beautiful cover!

No lie I really hated the writing style when I began but stick with it... now writing this I love the writing style. It added to the atmosphere. Just great storytelling! It’s a longer than usual book but not a single word is wasted!

What a beautiful, complicated character Odette is, she’s fiery, she’s emotional, kind and she absolutely kicks arse! I loved her. I loved Angel as well. Two well written plucky female characters is always a plus for me!

I loved racing towards the end but I did not enjoy the last 5% of the story. It came out of nowhere and didn’t feel connected. With a better ending this would be a 5/5.

This is a compelling psychological thriller, which is well-researched and also does well on local colour in its Central Texas setting. The novel primarily sets out to show how "life changing injuries" as the police describe them when they are inflicted on someone, actually change lives.

The author mostly manages to avoid careless stereotypes, although the psychologist character is seriously bonkers (that may be based on experience rather than prejudice and I am not finding real fault there) and the Baptist Minister is not only described as being like something out of the Handmaid’s Tale by one of the other characters: the character does indeed seem to hail from there.

This book is being offered to a British readership and whilst American readers may presumably take it as read that a Baptist minister is going to be a snake oil and brimstone phoney, “Baptist Minister” is one of those terms which has a much more positive meaning in the United Kingdom than it appears to have in the United States. Unless the negative view is something unique to the author or some faction which she represents. The positive image has a lot to do with John Bunyan, who preached and wrote, in England after the Pilgrim Fathers had sailed.

The suspense lasts until the end of the book, though the mystery frankly does not.

I read and raved about "Black Eyed Susans" -but dare I say this novel is better than that ?
Set in a small town near Oklahoma -It has been 10 years since 16 year old Trumanelle (fantastic name ) Branson along with her father disappeared off the face of the earth . The only suspect was her older brother Wyatt who was released without charge -but has been under suspicion ever since.
Wyatt's ex- girlfriend -Odette -(another great name !) is with the local police and still investigates the disappearance in her own time..
One day Wyatt finds a 10 year old girl in the fields -a runaway. . Odette helps her and in doing so -uncovers a clue to Trumanelle's disappearance -only to disappear herself ...

This is a fantastic read -the plot -the characters -there was nothing I didn't like about this book - a well deserved 5 stars from me

We are all the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin is completely gripping - I could not put it down. It is the story of town that is haunted by the disappearance and possible death of a young woman called Trumanell and her abusive father. Her sibling Wyatt is the only survivor of whatever happened on their farm and is a suspect. Years later, his ex-girlfriend, Odette, who is now a policewoman is haunted by the tragedy and is determined to solve the mystery of Trumanell’s disappearance and risks everything in the process. The story is told from a few different viewpoints and my favourite is when it is told from Odette’s. There are a number of twists and turns throughout the story and there are very few characters that seem trustworthy. This adds to how gripping and suspenseful it is and the overarching air of menace. I have previously really enjoyed Black-Eyed Susan’s which is also by Heaberlin but I have to say that I enjoyed this more. It is a great read!

Dark and twisted with characters that are truly out of the box, We are all the same in the dark kept me gripped and guessing right to the end. This is a thriller set in a foreign world. They may speak English in Texas but it is wild and dangerous country and finding a one-eyed girl abandoned at the side of the road surrounded by dandelions, is not that surprising. Odette is a cop, following in her father's footsteps, and her former boyfriend found the girl. We then get pulled into an unsolved murder case of a father and daughter whose bodies were never found and which Odette is determined to solve. This is definitely not your usual thriller, it is deeper and more complex, but as a result, more satisfying.

Having enjoyed 'Black Eyed Susans', I was really excited to receive my copy of 'We are all the same in the Dark' - I wasn't disappointed! This is a truly gripping and dark tale, which opens with a very original scene of a man finding an abandoned girl by the side of a road outside a Texas town. The town is already obsessed with the disappearance of a local girl and her father some years before. This book had me reading it as much as I could in order to find out the fate of the characters; it is a dark and gothic tale, told by three narrators, and is very well written. Highly recommended.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Penguin Michael Joseph UK, for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. After what appears to be a slow start the story gradually unfolds with past events dramatically colliding with the present; surprises and twists; long-held secrets shattered and the truth revealed. It's well-written with good characters and dialogue, and the conclusion is perfectly crafted.

Ten years ago Odette Tucker, the daughter and granddaughter of police officers in small-town Texas, was best friends with 19yr-old Trumanell (Tru) Branson and her older brother Wyatt. Calling at their family farmhouse Odette is urged to RUN when Wyatt opened the door; she did, and crashed her car which led to her leg being amputated. That night Wyatt's father killed his wife and disappeared. Tru disappeared as well, leaving only a bloody handprint. Wyatt and his father were both suspects but nothing could be proved, and Wyatt remained under suspicion and lived a reclusive life at the farm.

Ten years later, fit and sporting a titanium prothesis, her father having died, Odette returns to the town as a police officer. Alerted by an anonymous call saying that Wyatt had a young girl at the farm, Odette discovers 'Angel' whom Wyatt had found on the edge of a field. She also finds that Wyatt talks to, and sees, his missing sister. Angel is distinctive because she only has one eye intact. Odette is determined to find out who she is and who she is running from, but is equally determined to reexamine the investigation into Tru's disappearance.

No more or we'll be in the realms of spoilers!
But there definitely is a LOT more - some bits are heart-warming and tender, others are heart-wrenching or heart-breaking. Lots of misdirection here, and definitely a surprising and major twist. Didn't see THAT one coming!

My thanks to Michael Joseph and Netgalley for the copy of this eBook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
In a world where forensic knowledge and technic provides so much evidence and well-trained detectives, authors of thrillers will inevitably return to that all familiar trope cold case file. These are frequently linked to a new crime also usually unsolved or wrongly solved.
That is not to say all these plots are clichés it is just that one would like a little more imagination from the author.
In this novel, I found myself not believing in so much of the background, the description of the community and its narrow viewpoint, the familiar isolation of one of the protagonists, the unlikely police officer all at sixes and sevens felt to me to be a hotchpot of ideas badly constructed and rushed in its execution.
If this is a true representation of small-town America it would explain so many of the problems the country suffers.
Three stars for effort and because I know the author could do better

Having enjoyed previous books by this author, I was pretty excited to read this. Some parts of the book were really gripping and I found myself squeezing in a page or two wherever possible. Other parts were just plain confusing, like the author had a few books' worth ideas for twists and decided to just use them all in this one. I also found having characters called Rod and Rodney unnecessarily confusing.

I’m afraid I didn’t really enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. Like other reviewers I felt it was a little bit too slow. It had a very confusing story line until the end when things started to join up but I’m afraid it wasn’t my cup of tea.

I absolutely loved this book.
The pre-read book cover comments about most crime/mystery/psychological thriller books (which are my bread and butter reading) always talk about twists and turns you won't see coming but often this is hardly the case.
However, with We Are All The Same In The Dark, you get a massive twist that completely changes how you expected the book would progress to it's conclusion. I think it might, for me at least, be the best twist since I read The Kind Worth Killing several years ago.
The storyline predominantly keeps to chapters that progress consecutively in time rather than the alternate chapter timelines very popular in many books.
The revelations at the end are plausible and surprising. As usual I didn't work out who the culprit was!
Definitely in the 'couldn't put it down' category and it thoroughly deserves a 5 star rating

A compulsive read that I found hard to put down. I was disappointed by the ending though - it felt as though the author had suddenly become bored with the story and decided to tidy up the loose ends and go on to something else! There seemed to be several opportunities for the author to take us in potentially interesting directions (I was pretty well gripped at that stage) but for me it just didn't seem to happen. There is a lot to like though.

What a truly gripping book.. What begins as a mystery story very quickly develops into a story about humanity. People you completely interact with - their lives, foibles and all. A suspenseful and twisted story.

I absolutely loved Black Eyed Susans and was really looking forward to this book. Sadly I found it extremely confusing; I couldn't work out which characters were which, there were long descriptions of mundane things and so many Americanisms (I assume they were) that I lost track. When I highlighted the words to get a meaning I got "we can't find a meaning" Why on earth you would call someone Trumanelle I can't begin to fathom but then Trumanisters were mentioned so was this a cult or something? At one point we were told that Egyptian Princesses were left to rot in the sun and then on the next page they were Greek! I found it very disjointed with a confusing plot time line and I found it hard to concentrate on the book.. And did nobody spot a fresh grave dug twice? I couldn't quite believe that. In the end I wasn't sure who was dead, who was alive or who was telling the story. I will try this author again but this was so disappointing.

This story just didn’t flow well for me, I lost interest as I felt it jumped from here to there and I got confused. I tried to read it in instalments which helped a bit with the slow building storyline, a dark, intriguing and mystifying read, you need patience and the ability to persevere as deeply imbedded is a good story.

This started as a slow burner and I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick with it but I’m glad I did. It was a little difficult to follow initially as it came from 3 different viewpoints but once the characters became well known and more familiar it worked really well and was an enjoyable book

We Are All The Same In The Dark was one of the most atmospheric psychological thrillers I have read in quite a while.. a twisty yet considered tale that has some thought provoking social themes running through the narrative and two women who will steal a little bit of your soul.

There's a mystery of course, at the heart of it, but the real strength of this comes in its relationships...built on years of silence and difficult life circumstances. The two main protagonists come together for the briefest of times yet the affects of that ripple down the years.

The author manages to floor you a couple of times keeping the feel of it unexpected and off kilter. The writing is genuinely superb and the whole thing builds to a quietly emotional crescendo.

Most excellent. One to watch in 2020.

I quickly realised this book was just not for me. It made me feel oddly uncomfortable. It was also a very slow burner. Unfortunately I chose not to finish.

Felt the authors brain was buzzing with so many ideas that when she began this book she couldn’t get them all out quick enough which was a little confusing for the reader trying to establish who was who and when and where everything was happening,. This was especially confusing in the first half dozen chapters! However once the characters had settled down with their many afflictions the story played out to a fairly predictable but calming conclusion.

Interesting, riveting and totally original. I was completely absorbed in this wonderful novel. The characters are different but nonetheless compelling and there were some great twists.