“Her scream echoes in my memory. I know what happened. Whether anyone believes me or not, I know.” 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. … trying to be.
Then Annabelle disappears.
Sean is sure she’s been kidnapped–he witnessed her being taken firsthand–but the police are convinced that Sean himself is at the center 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.
A chilling, deeply suspenseful page-turner set in the 1980s, Hunting Annabelle is a stunning debut that will leave you breathless to the very end.
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Dynamic, compelling, and totally twisted, HUNTING ANNABELLE blew me away. I’m still reeling. What a mind Wendy Heard has. What a debut!
Gritty, intense, and full of multi-dimensional characters that will keep you guessing until the end, Hunting Annabelle is a must-read psychological thriller. Readers of Gillian Flynn and Caroline Kepnes will adore Wendy Heard!
Wendy Heard’s Hunting Annabelle is the best kind of psychological thriller – dark and twisted with a generous side of creepy. I had no idea where this story was going, only that i was rooting for Sean, the tortured hero whose search for Annabelle means releasing his own inner demons. Gritty, intense, and 100% surprising, Hunting Annabelle is one hell of a wild ride.
Hunting Annabelle is dark, twisted, and completely addictive. The characters will grab ahold of you and won’t let go even after you’ve turned the last page. You’ll both love and hate Sean and he’ll leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about your own inner demons.
A fabulously twisted book to read any time you’re in the mood for something clever and creepy.
Is Hunting Annabelle an unconventional romance, a creepy psychodrama, or a detective story about a good kid stuck in a bad situation? I devoured this thrilling debut in one sitting to find out, and it took me on a wild, twisty ride until the very last page.
Hunting Annabelle delivers the goods! This dark thriller takes you inside the tortured mind of a young man who has killed before — and fears he will kill again. When a woman crosses his path and then goes missing, anything seems possible. But what really happened to Annabelle? Pages fly right up to a final, heart-stopping turn. Wendy Heard proves herself a writer to watch!
About two-thirds of the way through Hunting Annabelle, I knew I’d found one of my new favorite characters. I also knew whodunit.
Then I kept reading, and I realized I had no idea who’d done it and was introduced to perhaps my new favorite character.
Hunting Annabelle by Wendy Heard is one of the best debuts I’ve ever read, certainly in the same conversation as Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn) and Carrie (Stephen King).
Of course, by the time I’d settled on what I thought had been taking place behind the scenes, I had already gone through three hypotheses that did not work out. And even after the major reveal just before the climax, I still thought I knew what the next few twists would be.
I’ve never been happier to have been so wrong.
Heard’s protagonist, Sean Suh, is simultaneously unique and universal. Without giving away any spoilers, the young man was placed in a mental institution and diagnosed with schizophrenia after killing a girl as a teenager. His struggles with himself and his diagnosis center on something I think all people experience (certainly I do): the dark flashes, the momentary impulses, to do harm to others that have no root in rational thought. To protect others, he tries to avoid all contact by getting lost among the crowd at a fictional theme park in Austin in the mid-1980s.
But what’s a mentally ill murderer to do when he begins a loving, if obsessive, relationship with Annabelle, a young med student he’s just met? And then, what’s that same mentally ill murderer to do when she is kidnapped during their last “date?” The answers take us through Austin, a fictional small town in northeast Texas, and into the dark history of both Sean and Annabelle.
This novel is one of those rare stories that has completely unexpected (yet plausible) twists and is a ton of fun getting to them. Also, the stakes are raised and the characters become larger-than-life subtly, which is not easy to do for any novelist.
The story is set in my neck of the woods (Austin and The University of Texas), so there are a few details that momentarily took me out of the narrative, one of which is explained in the acknowledgments. These are pretty inside baseball for UT grads and those who’ve lived in the Austin area so it won’t matter for most of you. I also thought the 1980s pop culture references were a bit heavy-handed at times, but they did their job by reminding me early that this story is set in that time, which is why the characters were sometimes looking for telephones and twirling the cords with their index fingers.
And at no point did any of those small detractors make reading the novel less satisfying.
Gripping from beginning to end, I recommend Hunting Annabelle anyone who loves thrillers, especially those who enjoy being outsmarted by the writer.
this book definitely had a twist I wasn’t expecting. for that reason, I quite enjoyed it. if you don’t enjoy exploring the dark side of humanity than this book might not be for you.
This was a fantastic story told completely from Seans POV.
Embarking on a journey together and as the story unfolded I felt I really got an insight into what made him tick.
There was almost an air of obscurity, intrigue and mystery enveloping the whole narrative and this made for such compulsive reading with some real shockers thrown in along the way.
I found myself questioning the hidden motives of every single individual here and as we are almost drip fed the answers this was almost at times like a journey of discovery: a kind of mystery tour with Annabelle the ultimate destination.
I was there questioning along with Sean his state of mind as each occurrence happened to further muddy the already murky waters.
Who is sending the notes?
Is someone messing with Sean and also his meds?
If so: who and why?
Is sean’s own sense of vulnerability and powerlessness about himself also being a victim as well as a predator feeding his own internal rage?
Then there’s his almost co-dependent relationship with his mother and also his obsession with Annabelle herself.
This story has so much going on in terms of content and each thread is kind of connected on a much deeper level until a complete visage is eventually formed for the reader.
I felt that I forged a connection along the way with Sean himself actually feeling an almost sense of sympathetic familiarity towards him.
It was almost like getting to know the monster living in his head and making a sense of peace with it despite its compulsion of ultimate wrongness.
There were also such contrasts between Sean and Annabelle: they were so different in terms of upbringing but also had such similarities that you could see why they ultimately gravitated towards each other.
I also must confess to being slightly shocked at the blatant racism and intolerance portrayed here: such injustices I know exist but as it is something I have no hands-on experience with I found it sickening to behold.
So I liked where this eventually took us and though I did guess some twists other reveals were complete surprises.
My only criticism of this story Is that I thought the ending here was slightly abrupt but that’s actually it.
This is a story that captured my imagination almost instantly and once this journey started there was no getting off this train until final destination was reached: a fabulous read that I recommend highly.
I voluntary reviewed an Arc of Hunting Annabelle.
All opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
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Hunting Annabelle by Wendy Heard, this book was totally unlike anything I have read before, it kept my attention and I had to know what was going on! Definitely a twisty,weird page turner. This is definitely an author I will be following and looking for more books from. Thank you Netgalley and the Publishers at MIRA books for allowing me to read this ARC book in turn for giving my opinion.
With a protagonist you’ll almost hate to love, and more twists than a foot-long corkscrew, Hunting Annabelle is a compulsive, deliciously addictive psychological thriller that pulls you in from the first page, and doesn’t let go until you’ve reached the shocking end. A must read!
Wendy Heard’s Hunting Annabelle is a twisted roller coaster of a ride with an utterly unique, fascinating narrator. You won’t want to miss this genre-bending thriller.
In Hunting Annabelle, , a debut novel of suspense, Wendy Heard introduces readers to a narrator with a unique perspective. Sean Suh is a Korean American who has recently moved to Texas from San Francisco with his mother, a noted neurosurgeon. The story takes place in 1986 and Heard immerses the reader into that time period by peppering the narrative with many references and cultural allusions. She captures the alienation of her main character as a person of color in Texas, but Sean is a true outsider for other reasons as well. He is an artist who sees people’s auras, dresses in “alternative” punk/goth clothes, and happens to be a diagnosed violent schizophrenic recently released from inpatient care. Sean spends his days at a nearby amusement park, drawing people in the crowds that engulf, but do not incorporate, him. One fateful day, Sean spots a girl whose aura strikes him as particularly unusual and he is captivated enough to follow her into the park’s wax museum. Unlike his other subjects, Annabelle confronts Sean and their interaction leads to an immediate attraction and plans for meeting again. Sean’s mother is overbearing and controlling, and her overprotectiveness means that Sean needs to keep his new friendship hidden. When Annabelle is kidnapped right before his eyes, Sean knows that he will not be believed by anyone because of his past instability and police record. He becomes obsessed with finding Annabelle on his own-both because he is convinced that he loves her and to prove his innocence. Sean must battle his own disturbing impulses and disorienting medication effects while also facing suspicion and discrimination. Diving into Annabelle’s past, he discovers an abundance of potential suspects and some revealing information about this girl that he barely knows. Wendy Heard deserves credit for creating a fast-paced and gripping thriller with diverse characters and some unpredictable plot devices. Some readers might object to her somewhat simplistic portrayal of mental illness, depending on their own experiences and knowledge. Younger readers might also feel a bit alienated by all the 1980s trivia, but these tidbits would be enjoyable for anyone familiar with them. The relationship between Sean and his mother was very interesting, and the story might have benefitted from including more details about their shared history. Hunting Annabelle is a solid page turner with good pacing and entertainment value, worth a look for fans of thrillers with an innovative approach.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Harlequin for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an impartial review.
A book a throughly enjoyed that got my attention from the first few pages, and kept my interest throughout with a crazy surprise ending I didn’t see coming.
A true psychological thriller , that keeps you wondering. iSean who was released from a psychiatric institution for murdering his first true love is recieving outpatient therapy and is under the strict supervision of his mother who is a renowned Doctor.
Sean meets Annabelle and falls in love immediately. Annabelle has a lot of problems as well as Sean and struggles like Sean with her inner demons. Will they make it, Is Annable even real? !
A must read for fans of psychological thrillers!
This psychological thriller starts off strong and quickly establishes the unreliability of our main character, Sean. The use of the unreliable narrator is well-done, the story is dark and often creepy, and a number of red herrings are introduced to pose the whodunit question. However, red herrings aside, this one was a little too easy to figure out the who, and even with Sean’s mental state, my thoughts on that didn’t waver. The middle of the story lags and is sometimes repetitive as Sean goes about his amateur investigation. There are parts during his search that add to the tension, but they don’t really make up for the lag time. Things do pick up, which brings us to the big reveal and where this one lost me. I can get behind a big twist, especially when I’ve figured out the who, but the why of it all and how it all goes down is ridiculously over the top and just left me shaking my head in exasperation. The ending, while not what I suspect most readers would hope for, could’ve been the biggest twist of all had it not been for everything that led to that point. It felt like the author was trying a little too hard for that big twist and Stephen King-ish surprise ending, and it all just fell flat for me. In the end, Sean was the saving grace of this story for me. I really like the way his character is done, but the story had so much more potential than was realized.