Sandy Crosbie has just found herself smack-dab in the middle of small-town life and a nightmare. Sandy is teaching school in Torrence, Florida, a town with barely 4,000 residents, after her doctor husband moves her and their two teens from New York to the swampy, small-town community so he can be near his trashy Internet lover -- Kerri Franklin. Kerri can't seem to get enough plastic surgery and resembles a voluptuous cartoon character. To add insult to injury, Sandy is stuck teaching Kerri's teenage daughter in her classroom.
The most popular girl in school is abducted after school one day and a frantic search ensues. More girls soon disappear, creating terror in this small town as the bodies begin to pile up.
Ms. Fielding intersperses the mundane, trivial and scandalous happenings of small-town life with raw, brutal journal entries of the resident killer. She expertly captures characters' voices, personalities and scene details pulling the reader deeper into the tale. Chilling and creepy, HEARTSTOPPER offers more than a few "heartstopping" moments in its thrilling, suspenseful storyline that will keep readers up late into the night.
"I've never been a fan of blood and guts," writes the
killer, "I've always preferred the buildup to an event over
the actual event itself." In Heartstopper, bestselling
author Joy Fielding creates a gripping buildup - and
payoff - sure to get pulses pounding.
Welcome to Torrance, Florida. Population: 4,160. A small
town in the middle of Alligator Alley, a safe place where
residents feel comfortable leaving their doors unlocked and
allowing their children to run freely. It's also the town
that Sandy Crosbie, a high school English teacher and
mother of two teenagers, now calls home, thanks to her
philandering husband who moved the family from New York
just so he could live closer to the Barbie clone he
secretly met on the internet. When the body of the most
popular girl at Torrance High is found buried in a shallow,
swampy grave, everyone in this cozy community becomes a
suspect. Suddenly a down-on-his-luck sheriff must wade
through the murkier depths of his otherwise sunny
jurisdiction to determine who the killer is. Meanwhile,
Sandy must do everything in her power to help target the
attacker before it's too late.
Alternating between the chilling journal entries of a cold-
blooded murderer and the sizzling scandals of small town
life, Heartstopper is Fielding's most exciting novel of
suspense yet.
No excerpt available.
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