This is one of the most memorable, disturbing, WTF, OMG, gripping books I’ve read in a while, and I’ve read some AMAZING books lately, but this one… well this one tops the list for me.

A girl’s memory lost in a field of wildflowers.
A killer still spreading seeds.

At 16, Tessie Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive, piled into a half-dug grave with a strangled college student and a scattering of unidentified bones. Tessie remembered nothing about how she came to be there and, for the eighteen years since, she has been known in serial killer lore as the surviving Black-Eyed Susan. The media nicknamed the victims for the yellow carpet of wildflowers that flourished in the ditch where they were dumped.

Almost two decades later, the man who was captured and convicted of the murders sits on Death Row about to be executed. A group of Texas lawyers dedicated to turning over unjust verdicts believe his proclamation of innocence, as does a famous forensic scientist. The team appeals to Tessa Cartwright, now an artist and single mother, to undergo hypnosis to retrieve her lost memories and to share drawings she produced in experimental therapy as a 16-year-old. They don’t know that Tessa is hiding a painful secret. For years, she’s stumbled across black-eyed Susans planted in very personal places. Is the real killer still out there, taunting her? The story races back and forth in time, between the teen-age Tessie and the woman she has become, determined to find her memory and the truth.

The book is marketed towards readers who liked Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, well let me tell you my honest opinion, this book is better. Way way better, more disturbing, it gripped me almost immediately  and there were a few mornings I was almost late for work or cancelling plans because I just needed to stay at home to finish it!

I loved the authors writing style, how she kept me hanging on the edge of my seat, desperately reading at a frantic rate to try and uncover the mystery, all the while, she unhurriedly wove this intricate story that continued to build the suspense and questions around the mystery right up to the end.

5 full star read for me. Really, if you love suspense and mystery, you need to read this novel!

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