Black-Eyed Susans

A Novel of Suspense

By: Julia Heaberlin

Narrated by: Whitney Dykhouse, Eric G. Dove, Karen Peakes

Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Top 5 Sunday Times and USA Today bestseller. For fans of Laura Lippman and Gillian Flynn comes an electrifying novel of stunning psychological suspense.

I am the star of screaming headlines and campfire ghost stories. I am one of the four Black-Eyed Susans. The lucky one.

As a sixteen-year-old, Tessa Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive amid a scattering of bones, with only fragments of memory as to how she got there. Ever since, the press has pursued her as the lone surviving “Black-Eyed Susan”, the nickname given to the murder victims because of the yellow carpet of wildflowers that flourished above their shared grave. Tessa’s testimony about those tragic hours put a man on death row.

Now, almost two decades later, Tessa is an artist and single mother. In the desolate cold of February, she is shocked to discover a freshly planted patch of black-eyed susans - a summertime bloom - just outside her bedroom window. Terrified at the implications - that she sent the wrong man to prison and the real killer remains at large - Tessa turns to the lawyers working to exonerate the man awaiting execution. But the flowers alone are not proof enough, and the forensic investigation of the still-unidentified bones is progressing too slowly. An innocent life hangs in the balance. The legal team appeals to Tessa to undergo hypnosis to retrieve lost memories - and to share the drawings she produced as part of an experimental therapy shortly after her rescue.

What they don’t know is that Tessa and the scared, fragile girl she was have built a fortress of secrets. As the clock ticks toward the execution, Tessa fears for her sanity, but even more for the safety of her teenaged daughter. Is a serial killer still roaming free, taunting Tessa with a trail of clues? She has no choice but to confront old ghosts and lingering nightmares to finally discover what really happened that night.

Shocking, intense, and utterly original, Black-Eyed Susans is a dazzling psychological thriller, seamlessly weaving past and present in a searing tale of a young woman whose harrowing memories remain in a field of flowers - as a killer makes a chilling return to his garden.

©2015 Julia Heaberlin (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Recorded by arrangement with Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC

Critic reviews

"Deliciously twisty and eerie, Heaberlin's third psychological suspense novel is intricately layered and instantly compelling." --Library Journal, starred review

"Heaberlin does a neat job, in Black-Eyed Susans, of making us care.... [She's] a pro who strengthens her theme of judicial prejudice by referring to the O.J. Simpson trial and by drawing our attention to the morbid regularity of executions in Texas prisons." --The New York Times Book Review

"A truly compelling tale of the fragility of memory and elusive redemption." --Kirkus Reviews

Disappointed

Would you try another book from Julia Heaberlin and/or the narrators?

No

What was most disappointing about Julia Heaberlin’s story?

After reading the reviews I was disappointed with the story line. The story started out good and held my interest until about the middle of the book. This is when I felt the author started adding details as after thought. For me it went downhill fast with the the sex scene that felt like it was written by a forty year old virgin. I also felt that the author just tried too hard to come up with a unique twist at the end, it was too far fetched to be believed. Also (without giving too much away) the Susan's, which I felt were a very important part of the story should have played a bigger role in the psychological space that haunted Tessa, which she claimed happened but the author forgot to include the reader in the emotional, traumatic and apparently constant visitations. Narration was the best part of this book. Disappointed at the end, as I thought this book had great potential.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Jo was the best.

A more thoughtful psycho-killer novel.

Any additional comments?

A cut above the usual book of this kind. The sole survivor of a serial killer's spree is haunted and spoken to by the spirits of the dead girls, the "Susans" that surrounded her in the field of black and yellow daisies where she was left for dead.

The considerable physical damage is mostly just implied for a change and the focus is on the emotional chaos the killer leaves behind, destroying the life of a really gifted kid. So many of these brave-woman-in-jeopardy books featuring an unspeakable serial killer boogie man turn into gross-out festivals. It's a change for the better to read one that compares the ruined state of mind of the teenaged victim with the recovering mind of the woman she has become. Well done!

Good twist

I don't usually go in for thrillers, but this was a pleasant surprise! The reader was slightly annoying, but that's really just due to my own pet peeves.

a thriller I couldn't put down

fantastically suspenseful story. excellently read. I couldn't wait to hear each next chapter. I will absolutely be looking for more titles by that author and buy those narrators

Anticlimactic

This was recommended to me by audible because of a few other books I've listened to. When it came up as the daily deal I thought I would go ahead and listen to it. I liked the readers voice, thats about all I've got.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

So so

Struggled to finish the book. I Needed more excitement from the story and the performance.

Loved this book.

This book was great. Loved the ending! Highly recommend and will suggest it to my Book club.

loved it!

it doesn't have an obvious ending, which I love ! Excellent reading and very interesting story.

Excellent yet needs some wor

Was a bit distracting the way the story jumped from past to present. Yet the further into the story you were the easier it became .

Decent story

Story was very slow to start and sometimes difficult to follow but a good plot.