Finally Friday - Night Will Find You by Julia Heaberlin

 Finally Friday and here's a really good read for the weekend - Night Will Find You by Julia Heaberlin. 

You'll keep the pages turning on this one.  cover blurb: A scientist and reluctant psychic.  A little girl who haunts her.  Can she find the truth?  Everyone believes a little in something they can't see. 

cover: Vivvy Bouchet, age ten, saved a boy's life with an impossible prediction. Now she's an astrophysicist in Texas, devoted to science, and she tries to leave visions behind. 

She is called to help on a cold case of a kidnapped girl, and teamed with Detective Sharp, who questions her "skills". She's in the crosshairs of a conspiracy podcaster, haunted by her dead mother, and overwhelmed with dreams.  cover - Can she lure a kidnaper out of hiding, find a child who haunts her, and lay some of her ghosts to rest?

Whew! It's a lot to process. Heaberlin's characters are a hoot. The dialogue is snappy. And she keeps the plot tight.  Had me guessing until the end.  (I did read this in daylight...gets a bit creepy at nightfall). 

Wednesday Whodunit - Black Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin

 Tessa Cartwright, age sixteen, was found in a field of Black-eyed Susans amid bones of murder victims. Barely alive, she doesn't remember much. However her testimony helped put a man on death row. 

Now decades later, a fresh batch of flowers appears below her bedroom window. Is the real killer still at large? Lawyers, forensic investigators, and psychologists work to unlock the past and perhaps save a man on his last appeal. 

cover blurb - As the clock ticks toward the execution, Tessa fears for her sanity, but even more for the safety of her teenaged daughter. She has no choice but to confront old ghosts and lingering nightmares to finally discover what really happened that night. 

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin turns up the suspense quotient with  lots of twists and turns. Our strong hero, Tessa, is presented as an adult and alternating chapters as a teen with trauma. Great writing, strong characters, a Texas backdrop - all add up to a page turner. Kept me guessing for sure. 

Book Review - We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin

 We Are All the Same in the Dark.  Julia Heaberlin knows how to write a mystery thriller. Your neck will hurt from the spins, twists, and turns. I was still sitting poolside as I read this book, and it was difficult to break from a chapter, take a dip in the pool, and then hurry back to continue. "Shall I keep sweating and reading, or swim?" Tough summer choices. 

Ten years ago Trumanell Branson disappeared. She haunts the small town. Wyatt, her brother, lives as a pariah. He was cleared and yet....

He finds a lost girl in a field of dandelions and the local young cop, Odette Tucker, believes the girl is a catalyst that will ignite a seething town still waiting for its own missing girl to come home. But Odette shares a wound that won't close with the mute, one-eyed mystery girl.  (back blurb)

Lots of shocking truths to dig up, lots of violent history to uncover. 

p. 221  We are all the same in the dark.  My mother said that to me when she kissed me good night. She meant that in the dark, all that's left is our souls. She wasn't imagining me in a hole with a killer, living out my worst fear. Totally blind. Floating in space. One eye just like the other. 

Whoa.