Heartsick | Okbo Lover

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Review of Heartsick

I’ve heard a lot about Heartsick by Chelsea Cain and really great reviews while blog hopping. It’s another one of those books I decided to pick up just because I was curious as to what was so great about it.

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain is about Detective Archie Sheridan, damaged and tortured, addicted to painkillers, and can’t seem to forget the famous Beauty Killer Gretchen Lowell who had him imprisoned and tortured for ten days. Turning herself in and is now in prison for life, Archie can’t seem to let go of this beautiful cold blooded killer and visits her once a week in the hopes of getting more information about her endless count of victims and providing closure to families who have lost loved ones in the hands of Gretchen. However there is another serial killer on the loose preying on young teenage killers and Archie is racing against time to catch this new killer while in the meantime trying to struggle to get rid of Gretchen’s influence and forcing himself to finally get back onto his feet and lead a normal life. On the other hand, we also have reporter Susan Ward who is in charge of this whole serial killer story and also trying to profile Archie. Little did they know, they are all somewhat connected in this huge web.

Woah. It was really good. What I like about it is there’s actually a female serial killer this time and she acts close to Hannibal Lecter with some minor differences. It sure is nice to see an evil female part though. It’s a refreshing sight instead of having females always being portrayed as victims. The plot got better and better through each chapter and it just seemed as if the book went by really quickly – perhaps because I was just too engrossed in the book. You get two different stories here in this book. You have the current case Archie is on, then you also have chapters in between where they are flashbacks of Archie when he was being held captive by Gretchen. They were gruesome and rather hard to swallow but it added a lot of depth into Archie’s character and explains to you why he is how he is. I thought that was pretty well done as it’s a great way of explaining his character and his behavior. Gretchen made a wonderful villain. Manipulative, cunning, cruel, sadistic, all in one very attractive package it was perfectly done and even in prison she still continues to fiddle with her puppet strings.

It wasn’t blatantly obvious who the culprit was behind the murders of the teenage girls, which was good, and it kept you guessing. What I liked was it wasn’t until the last minute when you actually found out who it was and by that time it was cleverly done that you wish you could have seen it in the first place. There were a few twists and turns with the final twist happening between Gretchen and Archie. I thought that was great and it left me asking for more.

No doubt there will be sequels and I see this as a promising series. I’m left wanting to know what’s going to happen in the next book. I’m definitely looking forward to reading it. The book however, did leave me with a lot of questions unanswered, particularly why Gretchen is what she is and how she came to be this way. It does drop hints here and there but nothing too specific or defined. Perhaps it’s to build up the mystery behind her character.

I do warn, some parts in this book are not meant for the squeamish. However those with a like for police serial killer novels, with a cat and mouse game and lots of twists do take this book and give it a chance. You won’t regret it. I’m glad again, for listening to my fellow book bloggers about this one. So far, we’re 2 for 2