Creepy with some surprises thrown in. Slow burner, couldn’t wait to see how it all came together. I really enjoy this author’s writing style!

4.5 stars. A well written, slow burn of a mystery told in three timelines...10 years ago, current, and 5 years in the future...and three main points of view. In the past, a young girl mysteriously disappears; in the current, a mysterious young girl is found. A dramatic small town setting, very well fleshed out troubled characters, and a compelling, suspenseful story. It was a touch confusing at times as to who and when things were happening, but it all worked out to an unexpected, sad but satisfying, ending.

Excellent book. When I began reading, I wasn't quite sure what was going on and I felt off balanced and confused. The opening sets the mood for a suspense filled, atmospheric book that kept me on the edge of my seat and wondering "who done it" right until the end. I highly recommend this one!

I could not put this book down. I had to know what happened, and it definitely kept me guessing. I love how complex, and yet completely relatable every character was.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thrillers.

*I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Another atmospheric thriller from Julia Heaberlin. I loved Black-Eyed Susans and couldn’t wait to read this new one.

I’m not going to lie, her books are complicated. They frequently jump from present to past and are told from different points of view. You have to pay attention and keep track of where, who and what is going on.

This story is told from 3 different points of views: Wyatt, Odette and Angel.

Everyone in the novel has a past with something horrific in it. Wyatt - the disappearance of his sister Trumanelle and his father. Odette - an accident that caused her to lose part of her leg. Angel - has only one eye and a father fresh out of prison that is probably looking for her.

All of these stories weave in and out. As we get further and further into the novel, it gets even murkier and there is another disappearance.

Most of the time, I felt like I was trying to process it all and was losing, but in a good way. I like a book that’s a challenge and I definitely hadn’t figured out anything, by the time we get resolution at the end.

I received an ARC of the book.

To be honest this was a struggle to finish because it moved too damn slow for my tastes.I have mixed feelings with what I'll call the "pay off"at the end.

Pros:The characters(we have 3 POV's here)are very well developed but despite that, I really didn't care for any of them. The plot was intriguing and I did love the creepiness/Gothic feel.

Cons:Confusing at times and again this moved way too slow. No real surprises but then again it's rare for a book to take me unawares.

Rating: Closer to 3.5 stars

Odette Tucker crashes her car and loses a leg. On that same night, her boyfriend’s sister, Trumanell, homecoming queen and town hero, goes missing leaving only a bloody hand print behind. Her dad disappears that night too. And Wyatt seems to be incoherent and in shock. As the only remaining member of the family, he has been the number one suspect for years although no one has been able to prove it. Odette, now a police officer, is determined to solve the mystery of these two disappearances. To add to the mystery, she finds a young girl missing an eye in Wyatt’s house, refusing to speak. The story is told from three perspectives: Wyatt, Odette and Angel (the girl who is missing an eye). There is also a big focus on the struggles of people living with prosthetics, which was the most interesting parts of the book in my opinion.

As you know, mystery/thriller is my favorite genre. And I just could not like this book. It is a slow burner and when it does get going, it just leaves something else to be desired. My husband calls what frustrated me about this book “Deus Ex Machina.” I am not a fan when authors just explain everything in one chapter at the end and basically pick a random character to be the killer all along without really spreading clues throughout the book. It just felt like the author could have done so much better and this story could have been a lot more interesting with a shocking ending. Unfortunately, this book did not make my cut. 2/5.

Thank you @netgalley @randomhouse for the e-arc.

When Wyatt Branson finds a young girl abandoned in a field just beyond the barbed wire, multiple thoughts race through his head. She’s lying in a circle of broken dandelions. Besides being extremely sunburnt, he also realizes that she only has one eye...and that she doesn’t talk.

Odette Tucker is the youngest cop in this small Texas town. When she gets word that Wyatt was seen with a young girl, she investigates. Ten years ago, Wyatt’s sister, Trumanell, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Odette was dating Wyatt at the time. She finds herself absorbed with the girl with one eye, and decides that she is going to do her best to solve the current mystery...along with the mystery of Trumanell’s disappearance. Odette is aware that Wyatt was a suspect in the disappearance of his sister, but digging into these mysteries may result in a dangerous and deadly end.

This book starts as a slow burn. I know that’s not always a good thing. If you read my reviews, you’ll know that it’s ALSO not always a bad thing. I was intrigued pretty much from the beginning. Author Julia Heaberlin dangles carrots in front of us bunnies...slowly but methodically. I was thinking this would be a solid 3 until halfway through...when things really ramped up in ways I didn’t anticipate. I’ve seen mixed reviews, so I will say if you are not enjoying it at first, it’s worth it to soldier on. I have mixed feelings regarding the ending. I think it was a bit rushed, and I’m still wrapping my head around it. However, all three POVs were fantastic, and the acknowledgements from the author are worth reading as well.

Thank you to Julia Heaberlin, Ballantine Books, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I ended up waiting for the audiobook when I saw the list of narrators! I have ordered this for my library.
This was another excellent thriller from Heaberlin! I am glad she didn't make me as scared of dandelions as she did of Black eyed Susans! If you've read her other book you will understand this comment!

Very interesting thriller with some family drama that kept me guessing till the end. The characters were very well fleshed out even the dead. The ladies in this book have not had easy lives and don't look to get any easier. Aack I don't want to give anything away. I think these characters will stay with me for awhile.

Great narration from Jenna Lamia , Catherine Taber , MacLeod Andrews & Kirby Heyborne. I do have to give props to the ladies for bringing the emotions to their narration, but all were great!

Can't wait for more books from this author she has become an auto buy for me!

4 Stars

This is the strongest effort yet from Texas thriller writer Julia Heaberlin, who has perfect pitch for capturing the equal measures of charm and creepiness in the state's small towns.

A brief description of We Are All the Same in the Dark: A second-generation cop attempts to solve the case that made her hometown famous, the disappearance of the homecoming queen a decade earlier. But that doesn't come close to capturing the twists and turns. Have I mentioned twists? This book has a BIG one, right in the middle. Wow.

I was up late into the night reading, reading, reading, because I had to know whodunnit, and why.

I predict you will be too.

*I received an early review copy of this book.

This was a couldn’t put down book. It got me in from page one and it kept me that way to the very end. Told in the voice of 3 different people and how their lives intertwined.. A Found 10 year old girl with one eye a man who lost his sister and very abusive Father. And a female police officer with only one leg. The small town secrets that connect them all. I haven’t read any of the author books ,but I will be reading more of her books after this one.

”Texas is a beautiful poison you drink from your mother’s breast,” muses Odette Tucker, a young third-generation cop in Julia Heaberlin’s new thriller, We Are All the Same in the Dark. “The older you get and the farther you run, the more it pounds in your blood.”

Odette should know. She has tried running from her North Texas hometown, which seems to be known for nothing except the never-solved disappearance of a beloved homecoming queen in the summer of 2005. Still, when her father died five years later, she felt compelled to return, bringing her lawyer husband with her.

In a big city like Dallas, the vanishing of pretty, gallant Trumanell Branson probably would have faded into obscurity after 10 or 15 years. But in Odette’s undistinguished prairie burg, this case has become the town’s claim to fame. It is, as one character puts it, a town “whose whole purpose for existing is to wait.”

A decade later, the Trumanell case still haunts Odette, for several reasons. The fact that Tru’s father disappeared when she did, that bloodstains were left behind, and that Tru’s teenage brother Wyatt — then Odette’s boyfriend — was found gibbering and distraught, all added heat to the headlines. Marshall Tucker, Odette’s late father and a legendary local cop, investigated the crime relentlessly, to no avail.

Odette herself was at the Branson house that night, but she fled in a panic when Wyatt opened the door and told her to run. Her flight ended in a road accident that took her left leg below the knee. Now she has matured into an officer of the law who works to bring justice to her town, and especially to young girls who are lost, damaged or terrified.

Heaberlin, who lives in North Texas and is internationally known for her thrillers like Paper Ghosts and Black-Eyed Susans, has the sort of amused but unsentimental affection for Texas that natives can readily recognize as the real thing. You can hear it in her characters’ voices, as when Wyatt jokes darkly that he could quit trucking and turn the infamous Branson place into a museum, like the LBJ Ranch, “where our 36th president invited people to his brick house on the prairie like it was the Taj Mahal.” You can hear it when Odette remembers getting home from a miserably hot and depressing day of police work, wanting “to retreat to the coldest place on the planet or at least my husband’s arms. It turned out, those were the same things.”

In their Texas Gothic hometown, neighbors were suspicious, not supportive, of the boy who lost his entire family under bizarre circumstances. Odette’s father didn’t believe Wyatt was guilty of killing his father and sister, but the rest of the town did — and still does. Odette describes the vengeful residents chanting and baying for Wyatt’s blood outside the town jail as “the worst kind, the ones in silver cross necklaces, baseball caps, and Life is Good T-shirts. … Their love for God and family is just as manic as their hate.”

The townsfolk are of the opinion that, excellent cop or not, Odette Tucker is still much too close to her old boyfriend. Her estranged husband has come to the same conclusion. But Odette can’t help following odd, intriguing trails on this cold case. She’s still hurting for Wyatt, mentally hunting for Trumanell every day, unable to forget and unable to mend her broken marriage. Nevertheless, she struggles to help Angel, a young teenage girl who turns up in a field like a lost puppy: blind in one eye, inexplicably surrounded by wilting dandelions and traumatized into muteness.

Though the novel’s narrator shifts, the focus of Heaberlin’s story never moves far from the scarred but strong women who are its core. They can pick locks, shoot a gun, cuddle a toddler, love, lie and flat-out surprise you.

Heaberlin knows how to build to a truly shocking twist, how to break a reader’s heart and then begin mending it. “What’s coming is always unimaginable,” Odette’s one-time therapist tells her, “and by that, I mean just that. It cannot be imagined. What’s coming never acts or behaves the way we think it will.”

That’s true for this novel, too.

You want disturbing characters? You’ll find plenty of them in this book by Julia Heaberlin. When a one-eyed girl is found in a patch of dandelions by a mentally ill man, the reader becomes involved in a small-town mysterious disappearance of a local girl ten years ago. Policewoman Odette Tucker is bound and determined she’s going to save this girl, something she was unable to do ten years ago. Odette has become one of my favorite characters as she struggles with her own desires and what she must do as an officer of the law. There were many twists I did not see coming as the young girl just found plays a part in connecting the past and present.

I can see why a lot of people will enjoy this book. There were a couple of points that I definitely enjoyed.

It delivered on being atmospheric. The narrative was wonderfully written. There were many lines that stuck with me.

The representation of amputees was wonderfully done. It had intent, was researched and was thoughtful. I appreciated that it was much more than just a throw-away or plot device.

On the opposite side, it was alluded to inferenced that Wyatt (in his actions, and other character commentary) was suffering from mental illness. At the very least, he was definitely traumatized and dealing with PTSD from his childhood. However, that was glossed over, surface and never properly dealt with.

In terms of the story, the pacing was slow and became repetitive after the time jump. There were many points I just wanted to get to the solution, already. I was not invested enough in the characters or the town. In fact, the town overall was just despicable. So, why would I even care about its history? The big twist really just made it worse.

Overall those points outweighed the parts I appreciated.

Five HUGE stars for this stunningly beautiful thriller by Julia Heaberlin.

This book follows two strong, if broken, women through their hunt for the truth about tragedies in their past. The author, through her striking plot/setting painting, allows the reader to find themselves completely enveloped in the story.

It isn't often that plot twists catch my by surprise, but We Are All the Same in the Dark succeeded multiple times!

This one was good- a very slow burn... NOT a thriller but more of a dark mystery. Overall, I liked the writing and the plot, but I wanted to know the characters a little more and was surprised by some of the outcomes. If you're looking for a fast-paced thriller, I'd pass but if you have the patience for a slower, twisty mystery, then check this out.

This review would be published on the below-mentioned blog and other social media on 14 Aug.

Book Title: We Are All the Same in the Dark

Author: Julia Heaberlin

Genre: Thriller

Publishing Date: 11 Aug  2020

No. of Pages: 352

Line Summary:

(From Goodreads) The discovery of a girl abandoned by the side of the road threatens to unearth the long-buried secrets of a Texas town's legendary cold case in this superb, atmospheric novel.


My Review:

Wow !what a creepy thriller! From the beginning, this story is creepy and edgy!  A brilliant way of storytelling without lagging anywhere and engaging from the first line to last! The storyline is simple with very complex characters and creepy narration! The life of physically challenged people, their raw feelings, the prosthetic eye & legs are highly informative and admirable! Couldn’t predict/ guess anything at all and so it made us chase for answers! The major twist in the middle of the story is shocking and makes us bite our nails!!  Finally, we could find our answers, but still, not for all the questions! If you are a crime thriller lover you would enjoy it! I did and highly recommend it!

Thoughts while reading:
Odette's character is so messy, I couldn't believe such a sharp brilliant police officer would tangle herself with past & present emotions! And so instead of showing her confident, achievement &braveness the story portraits her confusion weakness and instability. I kind of not like it when the story portrays women police officers as weak ones with personal emotions!
On the other hand, I like the way Montana's character portrayed. Love her courage, confidence, and "never give up" attitude with her silly teenage thoughts!
In the middle of the story, the twist is mind-blowing but a lot of confusion and loops of the same thoughts sometimes test our patience and make us edgy.
Though the end solves the main question, a lot of questions were unanswered which makes the story felt incomplete ( who took Tucker brothers pic when they washed The blood? why wayyatt should shut his mouth though he knows the truth, why didn’t he saved Odette with his truth, what’s the story of cemetery keepers part? Etc )
The disabled person's daily struggles and their feelings, their sufferings, they are such awareness contents and so my fav parts. hats off to the author for this brilliant work. End of the day "We are all the same in the dark" isn't it?

DNF. I picked this book up so many times and started reading then put it down again. I just couldn't connect with the characters. I hope that others find and love this book. But for some reason it it was not for me.

Loved it!! Would give it 4.5 stars. From the start I wanted to find out what happened to Trumanell. (BTW Trumanell is such a horrible name.) I really enjoyed the three points of view- Wyatt, Odette and Angel. Angel was definitely my favorite. She was smart, brave and full of personality. Trumanell and Wyatt had such a horrible childhood. Their father, Frank, was so cruel and found fun in terrorizing his children. I really don't understand hoe Frank caught the eye of so many ladies. The second part of the book was so sad and wasn't expecting what happened. The third part with Angel is my favorite. She's determined to figure out what happened to Trumanell. The Betty Crocker Cookbook probably gave her nightmares for life, especially since she only wanted a recipe for chicken and dumplings. Loved the ending, the book was a full a surprises with a few twists and turns.

Definitely recommend the book. It's a great psychological thriller. Loved the characters, story and writing style. Look forward to reading more books by the author. Loved the cover of the book.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I am torn on rating this one. I have read Julia Heaberlin before and always enjoyed her books. They are always very atmospheric and you can feel the mystery and dread so strongly to where it's almost claustrophobic. That being said, they are always slow burners. This was no different. There is nothing wrong with that, I just prefer faster paced books. NOW, having said THAT, I ended up LOVING this one! The timeline got a bit confusing, as it ends up jumping ahead 5 years, but I felt so strongly for all of the characters I almost didn't want it to end. I loved Odette and really struggled with Wyatt's innocence or non-innocence. I guess this is the mark of a good author! She makes a writing style that's not really my cup of tea, become my cup of tea! Plus, I'm from Texas, so I really love that aspect!

Thank you to NetGalley, Julia Heaberlin and Ballentine Books for this ARC!