Cover Image: The Serial Killer's Girl

The Serial Killer's Girl

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Member Reviews

This story explores the effect of being a serial killer's child on their future life, a complex and original idea. Lexi needs to control her life living in the shadow of being a serial killer's daughter. She is secretive and unsettled, not sharing her past even with her partner. When a copycat murder happens, she runs to her childhood home and straight into danger.

Lexi is an unreliable protagonist, and because of her past trauma and current fear, most of her decisions lack rationality. Her thinking is confused and disturbed, which comes across in the narrative.

I like the atmospheric and claustrophobic island setting that intensifies the suspense and reinforces Lexi's fear of pursuit.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Serial killers fascinate me! I love reading about them and watching true-crime tv shows.

When Lexi was a young child, her father was convicted as a serial killer and sent to prison. She was protected as much as possible. Her name is changed and the rest of her childhood is typical. She becomes a reporter, meets Nate. They have a baby and life is good. Except her father is a notorious serial killer and she’s hidden this from everyone in your life, including Nate.

Secrets never stay buried and her past is rearing it’s ugly head. I enjoyed reading the detailed background the author provided about Lexi. I was captivated by the tangled mess she’d managed to weave and stayed engaged to find out if she could repair the chaos she created. But she was one of those characters you wanted to slap for continuously making bad choices!

By the end, I’d had enough of Lexi and her antics.

Thank you to Boldwood Books and the author for this complimentary ARC that was provided through NetGalley. This review is my honest opinion.

#theserialkillersgirl #lhstacey #boldwoodbooks #letstalkbookspromo #rachelsrandomresources #booktour #booktourstop #booktourhost #advancedreadingcopy #honestreview #usbookreviewer #bookreviewer #thrilleraddict #netgalley #bookandtonic

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Does a killer’s blood run in the family?
Lexi Jakes thought she could run from her past…she was wrong.
Because when her biological mother is found dead, with all the same hallmarks of her own serial killer father, Lexi knows someone is out for revenge, and that she and her small daughter, Isla, could be next.
Determined to protect Isla, Lexi travels back to Lindisfarne, the small remote island where she grew up. There, cut off from the mainland, Lexi hopes they’ll both be safe.
But as the tide comes in and the causeway slowly closes, Lexi’s greatest fear comes true: now they are trapped with no way out.
Lexi will do anything to save her daughter…she is the serial killer’s girl after all.

This is a brilliant read.
Wonderful well written plot and story line that had me engaged from the start.
Love the well fleshed out characters and found them believable.
Great suspense and found myself second guessing every thought I had continuously.
Can't wait to read what the author brings out next.
Recommend reading.

I was provided an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher. This is my own hone\st voluntary review.

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The Serial Killer's Girl presents as a good story. The pace is slow and gives the reader and insight into the killers mind...

Stacey has created an interesting plot with great potential, yet the story soon became predictable, and dropped the suspense of the story when I was able to guess the killer within the first half of reading. There is alot of sections that are unrelated to the overall plot. The writing style doesn't flow very well in some chapters and some of the information is quite often repeated...

The character development of The Serial Killer's Girl is ok. The characters are mostly likeable. Upon been introduced to Lexi I was sympathetic towards her, some of the details mentioned from her childhood was heartbreaking....Lexi lives a structured life with her partner, Nate and 2 year old daughter, Isla. Working as a reporter, each year she looks for any mention of her father horrific crimes as they appear. This year marks the 20th aniversary of his last murder yet instead the murder of her biological mother by a copycat killer apears....

I am 50/50 if I would recommend The Serial Killer's Girl...The story is a character driven emotive filled with danger, grief, but sadly lack the feel of a thriller....

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This story started out great and I was eager to dig deeper into the story, figure out the mystery. But quickly it lost steam with very, very long sentences that dramatically slowed down the storyline. I enjoyed it but after a while it felt like a task to finish which is a bummer because it was a solid story.

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I read the story and I found in some parts of the story it was hard for me to connect with the character, Lexi. The beginning of the story had Monotone feel to the narrative as she discussed in her mine all the things that happened around her. The plot of the story is a good idea for a thriller novel.

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The Serial Killer’s Girl by L.H. Stacey is a gripping psychological thriller. The setting of this story is beautiful. I’ve never been to this area but I felt like I was there because this author transported me into this story and setting.

This story has quite a bit of tension. Lexi is in a situation I definitely wouldn’t want to be in. Trying to keep her past hidden and daughter safe causes a lot of tension in her relationships. Some of her decisions frustrated me but in the situation she was in, it made sense.

There was a bit of repetition in this book that I think could have been cut to make the story flow a bit better. I had a bit of trouble because sometimes it took me out of the story, but it didn’t ruin my enjoyment overall!

I had suspicions of who the murderer was but was taken by surprise by the reveal. The author takes the reader on a a twisting journey full of suspense and mystery until the final reveal.

I would recommend this one for psychological thriller fans. I think the characters were great and the plot was intriguing.

Thank you to Rachel’s Random Resources, Boldwood Books, and the author for the free review copy. All opinions are my own and unbiased.

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A cleverly written psychological thriller where we learn the killers motives early on. The wonderful description of the island makes me want to visit there, but in summer not mid winter. It’s well written, although some of the sentences did seem to go on forever! Written from two perspectives, Lexi and the killer, the latter being quite disturbing.

Briefly, Lexi is the daughter of a serial killer who was jailed 20 years ago when she was 6. He had been accused of killing 20 girls and all the victims had been found apart from one girl. Following the conviction Lexi was sent to foster parents on Lindisfarne. She is now living in Whitby with her partner Nate and daughter Isla. When her mother is killed in the same manner as her father’s victims Lexi believes she is in danger and returns to Lindisfarne.

If you like a complex story with lots and twists and turns then this may not be the book for you. To be honest the story was a bit predictable although the ending was unexpected. It was a good, easy read and I enjoyed it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Thank you NetGalley and Boldwood Books for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The description of this book really caught my attention, so I requested it right away! I'm also excited to be a part of the book tour on 05/09/22.

This book is told from multiple POVs. I especially liked the creep factor of the first chapter. It's told from a killer's POV, but we don't know who it is yet. That first chapter is what had me hooked!! I thought the characters were well-developed, the plot was strong, and I definitely couldn't put this one down! The ending was suspenseful and didn't have a clue to who the serial killer was.

Definitely recommend this one to those who love serial killer crime fiction books!

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Imagine for a moment that your father was a serial killer. A famous serial killer that everyone knows. What would your life be like? The Serial Killer’s Girl is the story of a girl trying to overcome her family

Nature vs. Nurture. The timeless question and subject of many studies. Lexi has a famous serial killer for a father. Did she inherit his killing traits? This blurb of this book caught my attention right away. I know it is fiction but the idea behind it is still interesting. This is my first book by Lynda Stacey and I enjoyed her writing style. The book is told from multiple POV but we don’t know who the POV belongs to right away. I also loved the cover. If you look carefully you can see the outline of a person against the fence; something I didn’t catch at first.

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I’ve grown up with a Mum who was really into crime fiction novels so I’m pretty well versed in the genre. I started nicking her books to read when I was 12 and still regularly swap recommendations with her, so when this book came along with a slight twist on the serial killer narrative I was excited to give it a read.

We start the book with the inner monologue of the serial killer who is targetting Lexi, the daughter of famous serial killer Peter Graves, but hardly anyone knows. This serial killer’s internal narrative did a good job of establishing the story but there were sections where one sentence was a paragraph in itself and I found myself rereading them. We discover throughout these sections in the rest of the book that the serial killer is set on revenge for the murders performed by Lexi’s father, specfically targetting his family.

In the next section, we start to follow Lexi, if I’m honest she’s my least favourite character in the book. She is understandably self-involved and paranoid, but she’s also a completely unreliable narrator. We meet Lexi at work, in a job that she doesn’t seem to enjoy where she finds out that her biological mother has been murdered in a copycat style of her father. She then returns home to a partner she seems both besotted with but also untrusting of. She has a young daughter who she smothers with attention and her own anxiety, basically Lexi has a lot of unresolved issues and she could absolutely benefit from counselling. The pacing here was quite slow for me as well, with the evening dragging along and the characters going over and over the same issue. I did wonder if this would end up being a DNF (did not finish) at this point but I persevered…

The next morning Lexi discovers a calling card from the copycat that has her bolting to her safe haven on the island where she grew up post her fathers arrest. At this point she doesn’t tell her partner she’s going, she turns off her phone so he can’t get in touch, and miraculously he doesn’t phone the police to report it? This was so weird to me and not normal. Especially because her partner pulls her up on her drinking, mood, and behaviour the night before. They’re all warning signs of someone who is depressed and might be contemplating something more serious.

We’re then introudced to an array of other characters on the island but to be honest at this point I was really starting to lose interest and was just trying to plough through so I could write this review.

I worked out who the serial killer was pretty early on in the island section and I found the neatly tied up ending (bar one close death) completely underwhelming.

This was a frustrating read for me. So many of Lexi’s issues throughout the book would be simply resolved if she chose to communicate with the people around her. The pacing was also really slow in sections, dragging out conversations or events that could have been wrapped up quickly to keep my interest.

Verdict: Overall this was an ok book, it wasn’t awful, it just really wasn’t for me. I feel like there are similar, and better paced versions of this story so this one didn’t do it for me. 3 starts for effort (I only give 2 to things that just don’t make much sense!)

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The Serial Killer’s Girl by L.H. Stacey is a psychological thriller.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Boldwood Books and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis:   (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
It's been 20 years since six-year old had Lexi watched her father being pulled out of their home by armed police.  Peter Graves has been locked away since then, a serial killer behind bars.

Lexi now has a  2 year old daughter of her own, Isla.  Other than her foster mother Maggie, and her foster brother Harry, no one knows her history,  including Nate, who she's been in a serious relationship with for the past few years.  Although Lexi loves him dearly, it never felt like the right time to tell Nate that her father was a serial killer.

When a copycat killing takes place, Lexi is in panic mode.  The victim was strangled, a red silk scarf tied in an identical manner to the victims of her father, even with a chess piece left at the scene.  The victim is Lexi's biological mother.  Lexi runs home to her foster mother, taking Lexi, but leaving Nate to wonder what happened.  She will do whatever it takes to keep her daughter safe.


My Opinions:   
The book is about secrets.  It is also about mental illness, although that isn't really mentioned.

The story was told from Lexi's perspective, and that of the killer.  That was okay, but it was a bit boring.

I think the only character I liked was Maggie.  Lexi was too paranoid, and when pressured, she just automatically caved in.  No idea how this type of person could have kept a secret from Nate for so long...it doesn't ring true.  As well, she just takes advantage of Maggie, and thinks only of herself and her daughter... no matter what she says, her actions prove she cares about no one else.

While the premise was good, and the pace fast, the story was too predictable.  Nothing surprised me.  As well, there were a lot of paragraphs that went on, and on, and on.....unnecessarily.  Take a breath!

Overall, it was an okay read.

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The Serial Killers Girl was an ok read. The setting of the story is perfect for a thriller book. The main character Lexi has an interesting background so it was interesting to see how she reacted to everything happening around her. The plot is also good but I think it should have been laid out differently. The pace was a little slower than I was expecting since the action starts right at the beginning. But overall it was interesting to see how everything came together!

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I feel like I was bamboozled with this one. Premise? Amazing. First few chapters? Oh baby you have me hooked. After that… well what happened?! Where did the strong start go?! The last half of this novel is in desperate need of editing and if I never see the word settee it’ll be too soon.

I did enjoy the dual POV from our antagonist but I feel that character got left behind too much to really make an impact. There also lacked a connection with her father, which is the entire reason we are here reading this book.

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Oh boy this was a corker of a story!! Tense, unpredictable I didn't know what would happen from one moment to the next!!
A killer is on the loose, and has murdered Lexi Jake's long lost birth mother and has copied how her father has murdered their sister. He has buried her in a secret location that no one knows about and this act of revenge is to push Lexi's father into telling this location to police so that the family can bury and finally mourn their sister. Lexi is terrified and with her two year old daughter drops everything to run home to her foster mother who lives on the island of Lindisfarne where she thinks she'll be safe as the tide cuts the island off. It's not as safe as she thought.......
This book is so worth buying!! I really really enjoyed it and you will too!!!!.
Many thanks to Netgalley for the free arc book for an honest review.
#Netgalley,#bookandtonic,#TheSerialKiller'sGirl.

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An engrossing thriller................................

The Serial Killer's Girl by L.H. Stacey gives you a ride through the tunnels of some deep down mystery with an amazing plot. The book is absorbing right from its very first page. Every time my heart jumps to my throat with each page. Although, the main attraction is revealed only in the end. Defining the characters, Lexi is a perfect mother and handles the situation brilliantly. The whole book revolves around Lexi and Isla, her daughter. My favorite part was when Lexi gets to meet her father, at last revealing some gruesome secrets.

I would like to give the book 4 stars. Thanks to Rachel's Random resources and Netgalley for providing me an opportunity to read and review the book.

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I thought this book showed great potential, the premise was really good but I felt it was let down by the execution. I was looking for a book that had me on the edge of my seat and I just didn't think that this quite managed to pull it off.

Lexi is the daughter of a serial killer. Following his arrest she was taken into care and changed her name. Now her mother has been killed in a copycat attack.

Nobody knows who she is. But Lexi is worried, that she or her daughter might be next.

I felt that the suspense was lacking in this, there was too much story around Lexi's relationship with her husband and not enough excitement.

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Lexi Jakes has been running from her past for a long time. Working as a journalist and currently living with her boyfriend and their daughter, hardly anyone knows that she’s the daughter of Peter Graves, a well-known convicted serial killer. Not even her boyfriend knows. Everything changes when the murder of her biological mother hits the news cycle. The clencher? Whoever did it is a Peter Graves copycat and they’re sending him a message.

We follow Lexi Jakes and the copycat killer whose identity isn’t revealed until later through rotating POV chapters. The most we know about the copycat killer for a long while is that they are the sister of Peter’s final victim. Other than knowing the copycat killer is unhinged right off the bat because they’re killing people, it’s clear that they are completely unhinged and not caring that the damage they’re doing is hurting everyone the same way she was hurt.

Meanwhile, Lexi spends a lot of time debating on whether or not she is going to tell her boyfriend about her past. When I say a lot of time, I mean majority of the book is her going back and forth on it. Once she’s run off to seek the safety of the family that took her in and gave her a loving and stable home, she needed to tell her boyfriend right away or just accept it was not happening. Unfortunately, that was not the case and we just watch her fear take on different appearances while she argues with herself about what she should do.

This book has a lot of good points. However, the suspense was barely there, and personally, it missed the mark on being a thriller. I’m most disappointed by the climax of the story being totally glossed over. We build up to this big event, Lexi makes here way there and understandably has cold feet, and then the next chapter starts and skips straight over the actual event. The climax is not finding out who the killer is, either, so the whole book fizzled out once it just skipped straight over this very important meeting. The pacing was very slow as well, which would’ve worked well if the suspense made it into the story.

That said, I really enjoyed some of the characters and the initial worldbuilding is excellent. I could really see Lexi’s life and her surroundings the whole way through. Because of this, I’m looking forward to what the author comes up with in the future because I think they are capable of writing a very good thriller. Everything was there to make it happen in this book, but it just missed the mark by a little bit.

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An edge of your seat read that will leave you struggling to put it down!
It's paced really well, to keep you guessing, to keep you trying piece together what is to come and with the threats of danger around every corner, it's a tense and suspenseful read.
Lexi's desperate need to protect her daughter and complicated relationships mean the plot is really well constructed and makes for an all round, excellent read!
I loved that the island, a place that felt like a safe haven for Lexi was also turned into a claustrophobic trap. It was perfect for the plot!
An author that I will follow after reading this! I'm already searching for previous novels as I enjoyed this so much. As always thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for this cracking read! I can't wait to share with other readers!

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Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of The Serial Killer’s Girl! This novel was a very unique, thrilling, wild ride from start to finish! I will say that perhaps another round of editing could have been done to remove some of the unnecessary words as at times it was a little redundant. An example would be near the beginning with “Concentrating, I tried to focus”. Like a word quota was trying to be met. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this and look forward to reading more from the author!

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