Book Review: Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Haeberlin

Plot Summary

At the age of sixteen, Tessa "Tessie" Cartwright became a Susan. That is, she was left for dead in a pile of bones and bodies which were the unknown victims of a killer. They are the Susans because their shared grave was carpeted by a field of Black-Eyed Susans, and they became sisters in their shared death.

Except Tessie didn't die.

And now growing up in a small town where everyone knows her as the living Susan, Tessie is infamous, and haunted by what she cannot remember. Tessie is terrified of being influenced by false memories and losing the only fragments she has of the events that nearly killed her.

But when everyone around her is so sure they have arrested the right man, who is she to argue with them?

Fifteen years later, Tessa must come to terms with the fact that she may have sent an innocent man to death row. Because if the killer is in prison, who has been leaving her Black-Eyed Susans for the past twenty years. Harassed on the outside by the hatred of anti-death row campaigners and on the inside by the relentless whispers of the dead Susans, Tessa tries to rebuild her fragmented memories as she races time to prove that the wrong man is about to die.

My Thoughts

The first thing you should know is that this book is addictive. I listened to the entire 10 hours, 56 minutes in just about two days. I simply couldn't stop - I had to see it through to the end.

The story alternates between sixteen year old Tessie and thirty-two year old Tessa, and these two view points are narrated by different people. Julie Rogers is Tessie, who is a sulky and irritable teen putting up walls against the various therapist thrown at her. Throughout the book I found myself becoming irritated by Tessie, until something happened that reminded me of the trauma she experienced and I feel bad for finding her annoying. I liked that she isn't a 'perfect victim' playing along with the way others expect her to behave. As a listener I felt the frustration of the older version of Tessa who feels that her younger self buried the crucial answers to questions so deep that they became lost.

Tessa as an adult is a sympathetic character and I could understand and empathise with her decision making to protect herself and the people she loves. Her confusion and conflicts felt real to me, as did her determination to find the truth.

Tessa is voiced by Sarah Borges whose rich, honeyed Southern voice draws you in and carries you through the story. The juxtaposition of such a comforting voice discussing truly horrifying events somehow made the story more unnerving for me; if evil could touch such a gently voiced character it could be anywhere. And perhaps it was because I had listened to the audiobook quite intensely in a short period, but when we hear the viewpoint of the killer the sudden change of voice actually made me jump.

One of the most common complaints about thrillers of this kind is that the twist is done poorly. Either it is given away too early or not enough crumbs are dropped and it is too jarring. In my opinion, Black-Eyed Susans does not suffer from this. Julia Haeberlin carefully weaves clues throughout the story so that by the time the identity of the killer is revealed you feel that you knew all along but hadn't realised it. This felt like a nice mirroring of Tessa's own journey to uncover what she knows but has buried in her head.

Black-Eyed Susans is a deeply compelling listen, which sucks you into the darkness inside Tessie's head and then shows you glimpses of light in Tessa's ability to overcome trauma. Throughout the story there was a sense of time running out. Tessie has to reclaim her memories before the trial, Tessa has to prove a man's innocence before he is put to death and underpinning it all is a palpable fear that it is only a matter of time before the killer comes back to finish what he started.

Thrillingly twisting, intimate and in places chillingly dark, Black-Eyed Susans is definitely one to add to your listening list.