A visceral and darkly twisted psychological thriller with a shocking last gasp conclusion.
Jar of Hearts is a visceral and darkly twisted psychological thriller that despite its often graphic content grabs the reader by the throat and refuses to relinquish its hold until the last gasp conclusion. Frequently shocking, intensely addictive and truly chilling, this is the story of three high school best friends, one shocking night that altered the course of all of their lives and the search for the truth fourteen years later. Jar of Hearts is a story about owning our pasts, accepting responsibility for our most heinous mistakes and finally moving on in order to ensure they do not control our future. As sixteen-year-old students with their lives full of potential, best friends Georgina ‘Geo’ Shaw, Angela Wong and Kaiser Brody are an inseparable trio living in Sweetbay, Seattle with the world at their feet. Fourteen years later in a shocking turn of events fate reunites them across a courtroom when Geo is testifying against her ex-boyfriend and under heavy suspicion herself, Angela is dead and Kaiser is a homicide detective lacked in an unrelenting pursuit for the truth and closure.
The story opens midway through a now thirty-year-old Geo Shaw giving evidence in the trial of her ex-boyfriend, Calvin James (aka the Sweetbay Strangler), and admitting her knowledge and involvement in the murder and cover-up of her best friend, Angela Wong, as her single father worked nights. For fourteen years Geo has carried the knowledge of Angela’s death and failed to ease the heartbreak of her parents and with Angela’s remains only recently discovered and the details of her rape, strangulation and dismemberment still shrouded in doubt, can any of the individual’s involved ever move forward with the lives? Calvin James might have gone on to kill a further three women before finally being apprehended but the memory of a sixteen-year-old Geo aiding and abetting her frequently violent and manipulative twenty-one-year-old boyfriend whose thrall she was under sits uneasily with the knowledge that she has gone on to live a full and successful life.
Now a highly successful female executive in her fiancée’s pharmaceuticals company with an MBA and perfect image, a cushy plea bargain is allowing Geo to get off lightly and still not reveal her exact part in Angela’s demise in order to imprison the man whom she loved to four subsequent life sentences. As Geo leaves the court and heads for five years in female prison Hazelwood Correctional Institute (‘Hellwood’), an enigmatic Calvin James and chillingly clinical Geo are once again still hiding the truth, as suspected by dogged detective, Kaiser Brody, of Seattle PD. Jennifer Hillier offers readers a glimpse into the brutal prison experience, what Geo had to do in order to survive and her journey to eventual release, by which time Calvin James is living on the outside after a risky prison brick and once again frustrating detective Kaiser Brody. Years later and still every bit as besotted with Geo as he was in high school, Kaiser still has a lingering suspicion that her depraved ex-boyfriend might have been in contact with her throughout her incarceration and presses the issue. But just whom are the mysterious letters in blue envelopes from, what is Geo still refusing to admit to Kaiser and just what are her plans as she returns to her childhood home and the scene of the crime?
Suspicions that Geo knows a heck of a lot more than she is saying abound when her release coincides with the start of a new killing spree which has many of the traits of Calvin James’s previous crimes and takes place in Geo’s virtual backyard and alongside Angela’s shallow grave. With the new spate of double homicides more sadistic than ever before and all the signs that Calvin James is responsible, Geo herself remains unconvinced despite Kaiser’s renewed focus on proving his involvement. Regardless of exactly what is underway it appears to be heading ever closer to Geo and as the pressure mounts she is forced to face up to her actions and tackle them head on. Likewise a doe-eyed Kaiser must follow the evidence regardless of where it takes him even if that is straight to Geo’s door despite their mutual attraction becoming undeniable.
Although the forward momentum of the story is interrupted throughout by frequent flashbacks to the high school days of the trio and the actual events of the night of Angela’s murder, the suspense rarely attenuates with Hillier’s descriptive prose spurring the reader ever onwards and punctuating the action with frequent shocks that tighten the novels vice like grip. Credit for some brilliant sleight of hand by the author and for snaring the readers early investment in the plot despite a cast of mainly unpalatable characters. Thankfully neither empathy nor sympathy with any of the cast are a prerequisite for maximum enjoyment of this incredible story.
The characterisation is admittedly rather simplistic with detective Kaiser Brody far too gullible and willing to accept Geo’s unconvincing silences for a cop of fourteen years standing. He is certainly guilty of trying to fit the evidence to a potted theory as opposed to objectively assessing the unfolding discoveries. As for Geo, there is little evidence of self-discovery or sincere and cathartic journey about her story and even as I turned the final page I never felt reassured that there was genuine remorse beyond her cooly calculating decisions, skill for compartmentalising and the intention of saving her own skin. At times the reader is drawn into her anguish only for a subsequent and deviously cruel decision to confuse, however on a positive note Hillier does resist the temptation to present the victim (Angela) as an unsuspecting innocent.
At just over three-hundred print pages Jennifer Hillier delivers maximum bang for your buck with a barnstorming psychological thriller full of audacious twists, timely revelations and shocking events. Tightly plotted and executed to perfection, even when I begun to form a suspicion as to where the story was heading I savoured every word. Disappointingly, I found the denouement rather underwhelming with it feeling rushed, frustratingly unexplored and a little out of character. However even given my minor quibbles it is impossible to view Jar of Hearts as anything other than an additive page-turner and a standout thriller! An original premise and an unfolding investigation with the dynamic, jealousies and love between a trio of friends and the arrival of a sociopathic lover splitting them down the middle and holding all the answers. Jar of Hearts is a pulse-pounding, edgy and disquieting thriller that shocks to the core as it explores what a person is capable of and the strength of will required to overcome a violent past. Enthusiastically recommended for readers with a strong stomach!
With thanks to Readers First who provided me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
The story opens midway through a now thirty-year-old Geo Shaw giving evidence in the trial of her ex-boyfriend, Calvin James (aka the Sweetbay Strangler), and admitting her knowledge and involvement in the murder and cover-up of her best friend, Angela Wong, as her single father worked nights. For fourteen years Geo has carried the knowledge of Angela’s death and failed to ease the heartbreak of her parents and with Angela’s remains only recently discovered and the details of her rape, strangulation and dismemberment still shrouded in doubt, can any of the individual’s involved ever move forward with the lives? Calvin James might have gone on to kill a further three women before finally being apprehended but the memory of a sixteen-year-old Geo aiding and abetting her frequently violent and manipulative twenty-one-year-old boyfriend whose thrall she was under sits uneasily with the knowledge that she has gone on to live a full and successful life.
Now a highly successful female executive in her fiancée’s pharmaceuticals company with an MBA and perfect image, a cushy plea bargain is allowing Geo to get off lightly and still not reveal her exact part in Angela’s demise in order to imprison the man whom she loved to four subsequent life sentences. As Geo leaves the court and heads for five years in female prison Hazelwood Correctional Institute (‘Hellwood’), an enigmatic Calvin James and chillingly clinical Geo are once again still hiding the truth, as suspected by dogged detective, Kaiser Brody, of Seattle PD. Jennifer Hillier offers readers a glimpse into the brutal prison experience, what Geo had to do in order to survive and her journey to eventual release, by which time Calvin James is living on the outside after a risky prison brick and once again frustrating detective Kaiser Brody. Years later and still every bit as besotted with Geo as he was in high school, Kaiser still has a lingering suspicion that her depraved ex-boyfriend might have been in contact with her throughout her incarceration and presses the issue. But just whom are the mysterious letters in blue envelopes from, what is Geo still refusing to admit to Kaiser and just what are her plans as she returns to her childhood home and the scene of the crime?
Suspicions that Geo knows a heck of a lot more than she is saying abound when her release coincides with the start of a new killing spree which has many of the traits of Calvin James’s previous crimes and takes place in Geo’s virtual backyard and alongside Angela’s shallow grave. With the new spate of double homicides more sadistic than ever before and all the signs that Calvin James is responsible, Geo herself remains unconvinced despite Kaiser’s renewed focus on proving his involvement. Regardless of exactly what is underway it appears to be heading ever closer to Geo and as the pressure mounts she is forced to face up to her actions and tackle them head on. Likewise a doe-eyed Kaiser must follow the evidence regardless of where it takes him even if that is straight to Geo’s door despite their mutual attraction becoming undeniable.
Although the forward momentum of the story is interrupted throughout by frequent flashbacks to the high school days of the trio and the actual events of the night of Angela’s murder, the suspense rarely attenuates with Hillier’s descriptive prose spurring the reader ever onwards and punctuating the action with frequent shocks that tighten the novels vice like grip. Credit for some brilliant sleight of hand by the author and for snaring the readers early investment in the plot despite a cast of mainly unpalatable characters. Thankfully neither empathy nor sympathy with any of the cast are a prerequisite for maximum enjoyment of this incredible story.
The characterisation is admittedly rather simplistic with detective Kaiser Brody far too gullible and willing to accept Geo’s unconvincing silences for a cop of fourteen years standing. He is certainly guilty of trying to fit the evidence to a potted theory as opposed to objectively assessing the unfolding discoveries. As for Geo, there is little evidence of self-discovery or sincere and cathartic journey about her story and even as I turned the final page I never felt reassured that there was genuine remorse beyond her cooly calculating decisions, skill for compartmentalising and the intention of saving her own skin. At times the reader is drawn into her anguish only for a subsequent and deviously cruel decision to confuse, however on a positive note Hillier does resist the temptation to present the victim (Angela) as an unsuspecting innocent.
At just over three-hundred print pages Jennifer Hillier delivers maximum bang for your buck with a barnstorming psychological thriller full of audacious twists, timely revelations and shocking events. Tightly plotted and executed to perfection, even when I begun to form a suspicion as to where the story was heading I savoured every word. Disappointingly, I found the denouement rather underwhelming with it feeling rushed, frustratingly unexplored and a little out of character. However even given my minor quibbles it is impossible to view Jar of Hearts as anything other than an additive page-turner and a standout thriller! An original premise and an unfolding investigation with the dynamic, jealousies and love between a trio of friends and the arrival of a sociopathic lover splitting them down the middle and holding all the answers. Jar of Hearts is a pulse-pounding, edgy and disquieting thriller that shocks to the core as it explores what a person is capable of and the strength of will required to overcome a violent past. Enthusiastically recommended for readers with a strong stomach!
With thanks to Readers First who provided me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.