Title: Hunting Annabelle
Author: Wendy Heard
Publication Date & Publisher: December 18, 2018 HARLEQUIN – MIRA (U.S. and Canada)
Genre(s): Mystery & Thrillers
Length: 336 pages
ISBN: 13: 9781488095405
My Rating: 4.0/5.0
Description (from 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 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.
My review:
I picked this one to be my first Blogoween post and I’m so excited to share it with you!!! (Please visit Clo@BookDragons to learn more about Blogoween.)
The narrator of Hunting Annabelle is Sean Suh. He’s a young man who’s been released from a psychiatric prison a few years ago. Since being released, he’s only spoken with his mom and his psychiatrist…until he meets Annabelle at Four Corners, an amusement park that he describes as “a cheap Disney rip off.”
Sean has been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and he takes multiple medications, which make him feel disoriented and sluggish. This is important because, when Annabelle goes missing during their date at none other than Four Corners, Sean begins to shake off the sluggishness and other side-effects from his medication. He becomes clear for the first time in a very long time. Is it his love for Annabelle removing the effects so he can find her?
As Sean searches for Annabelle, he realizes he didn’t really know her. How could he, after all? He’d only known her for a couple of days. But he’s digging into her life and her past and in doing so, he learns that he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets when they met. This doesn’t deter him from his mission of finding her though. In fact, it seems to only make him care for her even more!
I have to admit… it’s a little odd to be inside the mind of Sean! It’s not that he’s not likable, it’s quite the opposite! I found myself so proud of him at times simply for not killing people! At other times, I was either wishing he had or thankful he did. If you’re a fan of the show Dexter, you’ll definitely take a liking to Sean Suh!!!
This book is crazy in all the best ways and had my heart pounding often!!! I recommend reading it in a nice low-light on a spooky October night! You’ll be in for more than just a good scare… There are multiple HUGE twists in Hunting Annabelle. My best advice for reading this one… don’t ever think you know what’s going on! Trust me, you don’t. (And that, is my highest praise for any good mystery!)
I received a free review copy of this book through NetGalley. This in no way influenced my review.
What do you think of Hunting Annabelle? Have a suggestion for my next read? Leave me a comment below!
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