Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Twenty years ago, then twelve-year-old Chloe Davis and her older brother Cooper watched helplessly as their dad, the man Chloe ran to every single day for safety and protection, was taken from their home by police for the serial killings of six teenage girls in their little town of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. In that moment, Chloe learned that monsters aren't always in the shadows or under your bed - sometimes they're right in front of you.
You do everything right – you come home before dark. You avoid the ‘bad’ crowd. You get straight-As. You text your parents when you’re leaving. You want to bleach your hair, but you don’t. You never sneak out. You’re good. Skip forward to today, Chloe is now a psychologist with a home and private practice in Baton Rouge, planning her upcoming wedding to perfect, supportive Daniel, and helping over-protective Cooper take turns visiting their mother, Mona, in an assisted living facility - a situation necessitated by Mona's mental and physical trauma after her husband was taken away. Lena Rhodes was the first. The original. The girl that every girl in Breaux Bridge envied UNTIL her face became the one seen on every TV, and on all of the MISSING posters around town. Monsters don’t hide in the woods. They aren’t shadows in the trees or invisible things lurking in darkened corners.I have to admit: sometimes reading about the family’s traumatic life after a serial killer father is convicted is a great plot idea to work on!
SHE SLEEPS WITH THE FAKE REPORTER MURDERER. God! Was the choking the day before not enough? Also, there was chocolate on a pillow at a Motel 6? Laugh out loud. This is like Blair from "Gossip Girl" trying to write "poor." The ending is Chloe arriving at her former(?) fiancé's sister's house. She drove to Mississippi to return the ring (certified mail anyone?), but she doesn't actually want to talk to Ken-doll. In retrospect, and aside from not asking permission for the choking, he wasn't so bad. He's a pharmaceutical rep and she's a drug "addict." Match made in heaven, DUH. Beyond that, she and other characters also behave in mildly nonsensical ways like withholding information and doing incriminating things in obvious ways. I understand why this happens in mystery-thrillers, but it did feel a little contrived. To be fair, this type of protagonist pops up a lot in mystery-thrillers, and I never really like it. So, I realize my opinion on this is fairly subjective and perhaps you won’t mind it so much.Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/ Minotaur Books for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.
Chloe's Dad is now in prison, six teenage girls are missing and he is known as the serial killer. Chloe has gone through a lot of trauma being the daughter of a serial killer. On one hand, I really disliked the narrator. She was seemingly super unreliable at times and she made what I thought were really, really stupid decisions. All the time. Like the quintessential TSTL ("too stupid too live") female bane of the stereotypical romance novel.Before turning to fiction, she was a copywriter and brand strategist for various marketing agencies. She earned her B.A. in magazine journalism from the University of Georgia and M.F.A. in writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design. That alone is stressful enough, but when local teen girls begin to go missing, one of them a patient of Chloe's, she's triggered into a really dark place; her past. The adaptation is currently in development. It appears that some version of the script was completed as of October 2021. Who’s in the cast? So, yeah. Very meh on this one, sadly. But you’re in need of a good thriller with a complex — and deeply twisted — female lead, consider Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild instead, due out in April 2022.
years later, her life begins to unravel when local teens start to go missing, and Chloe starts to suspect someone around her may be involved. Emma Stone was apparently impressed too. Her company has optioned the book for a TV adaptation...with Emma starring in and producing it. This is the latest TV project Fruit Tree has set up with A24 since signing their first-look deal. It was announced in December that Stone would star in and executive produce the Showtime comedy “The Curse.” The show hails from Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, who will also star alongside Stone. When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath. Chloe Davis has lived in the shadow of fear for a long time. When she was twelve years ago, six teenage girls disappeared in town, one right after another. The nightmare finally ended when her own father confessed to the killings, upending her childhood and leaving her family in ruins. Now twenty years later, girls are going missing again. And Chloe can't help but feel there is a link between what's happening now and what happened so long ago.Both Chloe and Cooper are fighting their own demons from the past. Chloe is afraid of everything and tries to medicate it all away with pills she surreptitiously prescribes to herself in Daniel's name and the nearest bottle of booze. It isn't helped when a nosy reporter from the NY Times calls one day hoping to revisit the past as part of a 20-year anniversary piece, and is further exacerbated when two new girls - both of whom she knows - go missing within miles of her new home. Is history repeating itself? Twenty years ago, Chloe's father was sent to prison for kidnapping and presumably murdering six young girls, although their bodies were never found. Chloe's life is secure and stable now--she's engaged to Daniel and has a fulfilling job as a psychologist. However, her demons lurk just below the surface, and when first one, then another young girl turn up missing, she feels as if her life is repeating itself again. The missing girls have connections to Chloe--is it the work of a copycat? Can she help find who is doing this? the sex scene with Chloe and Aaron, the “journalist”? I mean, come on. Guys. Like , really?! Her issues with her fiancé notwithstanding, here’s barely a hint of sexual tension between her and Aaron leading up to that moment ( I would know) and there’s nothing to suggest that something so out of character would ever cross Chloe’s mind until they’re suddenly tussling on a dirty hotel comforter. All because he said she’s not crazy? Sure, she was desperate for that validation, but it was a bridge too far and came off as a huge eye-roll moment for me. Aaron needed to be a lot more fleshed out (as did her interactions with him — staring longingly at his biceps? More emotional conversations that show they have some sort of genuine link or attraction? An appreciation of his cologne, even? Literally anything, I don’t care), or Willingham needed to show that Chloe was circling the drain faster, and therefore such a rash decision would’ve made more sense. In present day, Chloe is brought into the police station to be interrogated by Detective Thomas since she was the last person to see Lacey alive. Afterwards, Chloe goes to visit her mother, Mona, at the assisted living facility. Mona attempted suicide after her father's sentencing, resulting in brain damage that left her unable to move or speak. Chloe and Cooper try to visit her occassionally. Today, Chloe tells Mona about the recent missing girls. She also promises to bring by her fiancée Daniel sometime.
Related:
Great Deal 
New Comment