Wendy Heard | HUNTING ANNABELLE

Plot (via Goodreads):

Sean Suh is done with killing. After serving three years in a psychiatric prison, he’s determined to stay away from temptation. But he can't resist Annabelle--beautiful, confident, incandescent Annabelle--who alone can see past the monster to the man inside. The man he's desperately trying to be.

Then Annabelle disappears.

Sean is sure she’s been kidnapped—he witnessed her being taken first hand—but the police are convinced that Sean himself is at the centre of this crime. And he must admit, his illness has caused him to “lose time” before. What if there’s more to what happened than he’s able to remember?

Though haunted by the fear that it might be better for Annabelle if he never finds her, Sean can’t bring himself to let go of her without a fight. To save her, he’ll have to do more than confront his own demons… He'll have to let them loose.

Review:

Hunting Annabelle is one of those ferocious novels that you come across once in a lifetime. It's a twisted love story filled with suspense and what I consider the perfect unreliable narrator. Going into this one, I expected a dark and kind of gritty novel that featured a missing girl. Now, I don't know what my obsession (and America's obsession to be honest) is with missing girls, but it's always an immersive tale that you just really need to get to the bottom of. In fact, I kind of stay away from reading or watching the news when it comes to true life missing people because I get general anxiety of the never knowing. This story however gives you an adventurous plot with a satisfying ending that shocked and kept its claws deep in my brain. If you want a twisted story unlike any other, you've come to the right place. 

I knew from the moment I started this novel and met Sean and Annabelle that this was something I wasn't prepared for and any ideas I had about what this novel would be like quickly flew out the window in a gust of wonder. Sean Suh is about as unreliable as a narrator that you can get, but you feel for him, you applause this man, and you feel for him...no matter how dark his past may be. Heard does an outstanding job of introducing you to these two main characters and right away exposes them flaws and all. Annabelle was mysterious and illusive, without being over the top. Sean is kind of a mysterious in his own way as this novel alludes to a dark past without giving too many details. Put them together? Perfection. Make one of them disappear? The perfect storm. 

I got lost in this book so quickly. Heard captures Texas in the 80s so perfectly. You can envision the sun as it comes down and the darkness creeps in combined with oppressive heat. You can hear the spokes on the bike as Sean races to get to Annabelle in fear of her life. You can smell the heat radiate off the pavement and tickle your allergies. It's all too real and I was lost in these pages and didn't want to recover. Honestly, it reminded me of a nostalgic thriller and would make a perfect movie. But, the story was short and wasted no time. There were no lulls or moments where I found myself wishing something would happen. The twists and turns were ultimately gentle until the big reveal of what really happened to Annabelle. The big reveal with this one was shocking, effective, and spun my brain like a bad case of vertigo. But it didn't stop there and as the story progressed, I was loving it even more. I pray there is a sequel or I get to see what happens further on down the road as the novel ends in away that is satisfying as a standalone, but left me begging for more of Heards writing. A brilliant novel that is the perfect combination of Stephen King and Caroline Kepnes - this is the novel that thriller and suspense fans have been begging to devour. 

Special thanks to MIRA Books for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4.5/5