Heartsick

title: Heartsick
author: Chelsea Cain
genre: thriller/suspense
published: 2007
pages: 324
first line: Archie doesn't know for sure that it's her until that moment.
rated: 4 out of 5



Heartsick is one of the many books I have discovered through blogging friends recommendations. What can I say about this book? It was really good. Heartsick had me hooked from the start and had me cringing from chapter one. This did remind me of The Silence of the Lambs.

While working on 'The Beauty Killer' case, detective Archie Sheridan is taken by the same killer he was searching for, Gretchen Lowell. She tortured him for 10 days. Gretchen left Archie with her signature, a scar on his chest, shaped like a heart....after breaking his ribs with a hammer and nail, among other things. I told you, this book made me cringe. So naturally, Archie is forever psychologically scarred after his encounter with Gretchen. After torturing him, remarkably, Gretchen calls 911 and turns herself in, and ironically, saves Archies life as well. She is now in prison serving a life sentence.

Archie has left the force, become estranged from his wife and is addicted to pain killers. Only now, there is another serial killer on the loose, and his old boss wants Archie's help.

Archie was high. He stood at the river's edge, hands in his pockets, a fine mist of rain settling on his shoulders. One of these days, he was going to get one of those waterproof jackets everyone kept recommending. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. But he wasn't tired. The right does of Vicodin kept him in a state of perpetual in-between. Not tired, not awake. It wasn't such a bad state of mind once you got used to it.

Archie agrees to come back to work. This new serial killer is dubbed 'The After School Strangler', and as Archie works on the case, he is being profiled by journalist Susan Ward. Susan has her own personal demons to battle. She starts to spend time with Archie during the investigation and tries to learn more about him, in order to write articles on the case for the newspaper.

As the story unfolds, the reader gets flashbacks, seeing a glimpse of what was happening to Archie while he was held captive by Gretchen.

I really enjoyed this book, I found Gretchen to be the creepiest characters i've ever read. I liked reading about Archie and Gretchen more than the other characters, I really wanted to see what was going on with them. He has such an odd fascination with her. And what she did to him made me cringe...yikes!

They have such a twisted relationship, even at the end, I didn't fully understand it. I liked Archies character, you can't help but feel bad for him. I liked Susan too, there's more to her than you think. The storyline was good and so was the ending. Gretchen is a female Hannibal Lecter, minus the cannibalism. She also reminded me a bit of psycho nurse, Annie Wilkes in Stephen King's 'Misery'.

If you are looking for a good, creepy thriller, pick up a copy of Heartsick. You won't be dissapointed. However, this one is not for the faint of heart.

Heartsick has a sequel! It's called 'Sweetheart', and yes, I will be reading that one too.

About the author:

Chelsea Cain lived the first few years of her life on an Iowa commune, then grew up in Bellingham, Washington, where the infamous Green River killer was "the boogeyman" of her youth. Her first novel featuring Detective Archie Sheridan and killer Gretchen Lowell, Heartsick, was a New York Times bestseller. Also the author of Confessions of a Teenage Sleuth, a parody based on the life of Nancy Drew, several nonfiction titles, and a weekly column in The Oregonian, Chelsea Cain lives in Portland with her family.

this book has also been reviewed by the following: (let me know if you have reviewed it too, i'll link you here)
ladytink
cheryl
melody