I found this book pretty stressful, and I mean that in a good way. I had to keep turning the pages to get to the conclusion and though I thought there was one bit of clunkiness there, overall the plot was really good and kept me guessing. A tense thriller,

Goodness!! Well I guessed at the beginning where the finale was but what a journey to get there!! Was it him no was it him!!! Brilliant book I was completely hooked!

A nice gripping thriller where you doubt how reliable the narrator is due to her history of substance abuse and who is the copycat murderer. I am pleased to hear that "A Flicker in the Dark" will be turned into an on-screen adaptation, it does have a cinematic quality about it. Well worth the read.

What a great debut book and an author I look forward to reading more from.
When Chloe was twelve, six girls went missing. Now as an adult and psychologist in practice, she is a mess and is due to wed. The rest of the family appears to be dysfunctional and the father is in prison for those murders. It appears that there may be a copy cat murderer. The story has lots of twists and turns and was a real page turner for me. Thanks to Net Galley for an ARC.

Edge of the seat, twisting plot, with a surprising outcome. A girls family and life is destroyed when at 12 years of age her father is convicted of murdering young girls. She re-builds her life, has a wonderful fiance, excellent job. Suddenly, on the anniversary of her father's conviction a woman she know disappears. Is the nightmare about to begin again?

First of all: I KNEW IT! I had a theory very early on about what had happened but that absolutely did not take away from my enjoyment of the book. It was very well written and the twists and turns throughout kept me hooked (even though I KNEW IT!).

Brilliant book - 5 stars

As I was reading this, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had read this book before. I don't know if that was because Chloe - the psychologist who self-medicates with alcohol and scripts that should be for her patients and who's Dad is a serial killer - was something of a stereotype. The guilt that she experiences for providing the police with the evidence that put her father behind bars does add an interesting element to the story, but I did find this created a slower pace than I would like.
The story does pick up pace during the second half. I had guessed the twist, but maybe that's because I read a lot of books in the genre. However, the ends are wrapped up nicely and the conclusion is satisfying.
This is a solid debut and I am interested to see how Stacy Willingham develops her writing in future books.
My thanks go to the publishers and NetGalley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

A very intense, dark thriller where you really don’t know who to trust. Suspend belief and sit back and just enjoy the ride. Lots of twists and turns to keep you guessing until the end.

As usual in my reviews, I will not rehash the plot (plenty of reviews like that out there already!)

Enjoyable read that kept me up late. A tense, dark atmosphere prevails throughout the whole book. The plot has plenty of twists, and the characters are well written and believable. A few, very plausible, red herrings have been thrown into the mix, to add to the mystery!

This is an accomplished debut novel, and I look forward to reading more by this author.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

A Flicker In The Dark.
By Stacy Willingham
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date 3/2/22

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️

No Spoilers .

I was invited to read this book by the publisher and liked the premise.
Tense and dark. Plenty of twists and turns which kept me guessing and interested. Great debut from this author. I will definitely give her next book a go.

I’d like to thank the author, publisher and netgalley for providing me with this advance digital copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

“A Flicker In The Dark” is a great debut from Stacy Willingham.

Although I knew exactly where the story was going from the beginning, it didn’t stop me from enjoying the book and watching how the plot unfolded for the final big reveal. A true testament to the authors writing style.

An easy quick read from an up and coming voice of the future.

I look forward to reading more from this author.

4 Stars – Recommended Read!

Publication Date: 3rd February 2022

Thank you to #NetGalley, #HarperCollinsUK, #HarperFiction and #StacyWillingham for an ARC of #AFlickerInTheDark in exchange for an honest review.

This was an intense thriller with lots of twists and turns. Filled with intriguing character and lots of tension. I enjoyed reading this

This was a good read all in all, although slow paced at times. I do enjoy a unreliable narrator.
It was just a little long/slow to be honest.

This was a brilliant, pacy thriller that had me racing to the end. I couldn’t put it down. A strong, flawed lead character who didn’t know who to trust, I spent most of the book thinking one then another of the other players was the baddie, just like she did. The author sure knows how to build tension, I can’t wait to read their next book.

Chloe Davis is a thirty two year old psychologist who discovered the evidence that led to her father's confession and imprisonment for kidnapping and killing six girls. Twenty years later girls are going missing and it seems all too familiar to Chloe even though her father is still safely behind bars.

Is Chloe seeing connections where none exist? If not who might the copycat be? Chloe was already a bit flakey and, no surprise, this is playing havoc with her life. The reader of this psychological thriller is unsure how far to trust the narrator's judgement and for the first two thirds or so I was wondering where the author was going. I needn't have worried, it was worth sticking with it.

Overall, a good read.

This is a solid debut thriller about a woman who lost her innocence aged 12 when young girls started to disappear in her hometown.
She later becomes a psychologist who appears, from the outside, very together,; with a successful business, beautiful home and handsome fiancé, but, internally she’s struggling with paranoia whilst self medicating.
Then, more girls disappear and Chloe begins to unravel as she considers; is there a copycat killer? Or, is she transposing her past trauma onto the present?

It’s got twists and turns and although it very much focuses on the female character, who narrates the story and is quite slow at times, it’s a cracking debut thriller that’s worth sticking with as the ending ties things up neatly.

I very much look forward to reading more from this author.


Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for the opportunity to preview.

I am not sure what to say about this book other than I loved it. Cooper and Chloe grow up in a small town and have a happy childhood until teenage girls go missing. Their father is arrested and is sentenced to life in prison. Chloe struggles through her life. She became a psychologist to help other people who have gone through traumas. She is always stressed and she dabbles in alcohol and prescription medication and, of course, that does not really help her anxiousness. She meets Daniel and they become serious in a short space of time. Her wedding is booked and Daniel puts pressure on her to get that organised and she begins to feel frustrated as it is left to her as he is always away business. They jog along dealing with life in general and then teenage girls go missing on the anniversary of her dad being imprisoned. Daniel throws them an unexpected engagement party. At the party her brother tries to convince her that Daniel is not the man she thinks he is and that sets a course of events come into play and her life spirals. Is Daniel who she thinks he is, her brother given her doubts. The book spreads between her early life and the present. It twists and turns throughout. I decided perhaps it was one person abducting the girls and then that proved wrong. I carried on reading and things become more and more confusing in a great way. Until the end I was not sure what would happen. Great book and I loved the way the book went backwards and forwards to keep readers interested

I’ve a love hate-relationship with mysteries. It’s taken me a while to work it out but I think it’s that I really appreciate the structure, procedure, the logical thinking that comes with good crime fiction but I really dislike the way in which psychological thrillers, in particular, attempt to manipulate readers, to deliberately send them down blind alleys. Does that make me a control freak? Maybe. Either way, I found plenty to enjoy but also a good deal to object to in this particular tale.

The story tells of how a number of teenage girls went missing from a small Louisiana town and how a man had been arrested and imprisoned for the abduction and murder of these girls. We meet a psychologist, Chloe Davis, some twenty years on who we learn is the daughter of the man convicted of these heinous crimes. Chloe is still struggling with the impact these events have had on her life and that of her mother and brother. And then another teenage girl goes missing. This is about all I want to say on the plot – I really don’t want to give anything away.

The elements that drew me in were firstly the setting (I’m fascinated by anything set in Louisiana, being a long term devotee of James Lee Burke’s brilliant Dave Robicheaux series) and also the fact that the author lays down a powerful narrative that, despite some reservations, really pushed me to see it through to the very end. The mood throughout is well preserved too, with the twitchy Chloe providing a decent vehicle through whose eyes to track events as they unfold.

My issue with this one is mainly that I could sense the author’s manipulation pretty much from the start: a range of actions, reactions and conversations jarred and some events just felt too contrived or even totally implausible. Moreover, there were sections where the drama seemed to have been amplified artificially, with long rambling paragraphs describing Chloe’s overheated reactions. But most of all – and totally out of character for me – I worked this one out very early. The result was that I could see through quite a bit (though not all) of what followed.

I really don’t wish to condemn this book as there were stretches where I doubted my own foresight and I really had become committed seeing this one through by the time I’d reached the half way point. The blurb accompanying this book mentions that a television series has already been optioned by a famous actress, and I can totally understand this - the tale strikes me as one ripe for this treatment.

What an extraordinary debut novel. Stacy Willingham is surely destined to become an established and respected crime author if A Flicker in the Dark is anything to go by. An enormous amount of tension, fear and twists that you probably won’t see coming create a superb story that is well crafted with back stories and detailed descriptions that leave little to imagine. Chloe Davis is a psychologist who has made something of her life despite her father being a serial killer. About to marry Daniel after years of finding it difficult to trust men or indeed anyone, Chloe has to fight her demons even harder than those of her own clients. As the twenty year anniversary of her father’s killings approaches, Chloe’s paranoia intensifies and when a girl is murdered nearby she cannot help but feel it is connected in some way.
Who can she really trust? And how can she hope to find the answers she has sought since she was just twelve years old. A brilliant story and I certainly hope to read more by this talented author.

4.25⭐️
Books set in the American South are not generally my favourites,due to the slow speech cadence, but I was drawn in.

A dark psychological thriller from a debut author. It’s an impressive debut.
20 years ago Chloe Davies was 12, when 6 teenage girls were killed and her father imprisoned for their murders.
Chloe is now a psychologist and preparing for her wedding. Local girls are going missing again. Chloe is suspicious and looking for links to her past.

The story is told by revisiting the past as well as the present via Chloe as the narrator. She becomes ever more of an unreliable narrator. Although to be honest it’s impossible to know who to trust.

The first half is on the slow side, as it’s very character driven. The story and characters develop really well, with the pace and tension ramping up on the second half.

I found some of Chloe’s actions, and dialogue a bit irritating. I didn’t really like any of the characters, mostly because I didn’t know who I could trust. I prefer to have someone I’m rooting for, even without that there was lots of interest to keep me engrossed on the outcome.
I really enjoyed this book. It’s getting a lot of positive vibes in the fb book groups, so one to keep an eye on.