The Girl With a Clock for a Heart Blog Tour: Review

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Girl With a Clock for a Heart, which is being hosted by TLC Book Tours. Read on for more info on the book and my review. To follow the rest of the tour, check out the schedule at the bottom of the post.

The Girl With a Clock for a Heart

Author: Peter Swanson

Genre: Adult Suspense/Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: November 4, 2014 (paperback)
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Description:

Already optioned for film, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart is Peter Swanson’s electrifying tale of romantic noir, with shades of Hitchcock and reminiscent of the classic movie Body Heat. It is the story of a man swept into a vortex of irresistible passion and murder when an old love mysteriously reappears.

On an ordinary Friday evening at his favorite Boston tavern, George Foss’s comfortable, predictable life is shattered when a beautiful woman sits down at the bar, a woman who vanished without a trace twenty years ago.

Liana Dector isn’t just an ex-girlfriend, the first love George couldn’t quite forget. She’s also a dangerous enigma and quite possibly a cold-blooded killer wanted by the police. Suddenly, she’s back—and she needs George’s help. Ruthless men believe she stole some money . . . and they will do whatever it takes to get it back.

George knows Liana is trouble. But he can’t say no—he never could—so he makes a choice that will plunge him into a terrifying whirlpool of lies, secrets, betrayal, and murder from which there is no sure escape.

Bold and masterful, full of malicious foreboding and subtle surprises, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart is an addictive, nonstop thriller—an ever-tightening coil of suspense that grips you right up to its electrifying end. 

The Girl With a Clock for a Heart is a gripping noir thriller that will have readers guessing until the end while holding on to the edge of their seats. It follows main character George Foss - an average man with an average job and life. He has spent years searching for his freshman college love, a girl from Florida who supposedly committed suicide over Christmas break their freshman year. George was heartbroken over the loss and has sworn he's seen her in the years since her "death." His instincts are proven right when she appears one night at a local bar and asks George for help. He knows that she's had a shady past and has been caught up in some bad things. Now she's back from the dead (or hiding) and asking George for a favor that only he can provide.

I found this novel to be right up my alley since one of my favorite genres is thriller fiction. The author creates a detailed and intricate story line comprised of both the present and the past, from the backstory of the two characters and their complicated histories.  I loved learning the details of the story and piecing them together to attempt to figure out what was really happening. The book took a little while to get going, but after the action and intrigue picked up, it didn't stop until the very end. I found every aspect of the novel to be well written - from the characters and setting to the twists and turns of the plot and the smaller details of the story line. Definitely recommended for fans of mysteries and thrillers and those who wish to step outside their comfort zone into a great noir suspense.

Peter Swanson’s stories and poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Measure, Mysterical-E, Soundings East, The Vocabula Review, and Yankee Magazine. He has degrees in Creative Writing, Education, and Literature from Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College. He lives with his wife and cat in Somerville, Massachusetts. This is his first novel. His second novel, The Kind Worth Killing, will be available in hardcover from William Morrow on February 3, 2015.

Find out more about Peter on his website and follow him on Twitter.

 

Purchase Links:

Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

Tour Schedule:
Tuesday, January 6th: BoundbyWords
Thursday, January 8th: The many thoughts of a reader
Tuesday, January 13th: Dreams, Etc.
Wednesday, January 14th: Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
Thursday, January 15th: Life Between Reads
Monday, January 19th: A Dream Within a Dream
Tuesday, January 20th: Staircase Wit
Wednesday, January 21st: Ace and Hoser Blook
Thursday, January 22nd: Vivacious Hobo
Monday, January 26th: Time 2 Read
TBD: Man of La Book
TBD: Spiced Latte Reads

The Girl With a Clock for a Heart Blog Tour: Review

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Girl With a Clock for a Heart! Today I have my review of the book to share with you. Enjoy!

The Girl With a Clock for a Heart

Author: Peter Swanson

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Release Date: February 4, 2014

Publisher: William Morrow

Description:

George Foss never thought he'd see her again, but on a late-August night in Boston, there she is, in his local bar, Jack's Tavern.

When George first met her, she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman from Sweetgum, Florida. She and George became inseparable in their first fall semester, so George was devastated when he got the news that she had committed suicide over Christmas break. But, as he stood in the living room of the girl's grieving parents, he realized the girl in the photo on their mantelpiece - the one who had committed suicide - was not his girlfriend. Later, he discovered the true identity of the girl he had loved - and of the things she may have done to escape her past.

Now, twenty years later, she's back, and she's telling George that he's the only one who can help her... 

The Girl With a Clock for a Heart is a gripping noir thriller that will have readers guessing until the end while holding on to the edge of their seats. It follows main character George Foss - an average man with an average job and life. He has spent years searching for his freshman college love, a girl from Florida who supposedly committed suicide over Christmas break their freshman year. George was heartbroken over the loss and has sworn he's seen her in the years since her "death." His instincts are proven right when she appears one night at a local bar and asks George for help. He knows that she's had a shady past and has been caught up in some bad things. Now she's back from the dead (or hiding) and asking George for a favor that only he can provide.

I found this novel to be right up my alley since one of my favorite genres is thriller fiction. The author creates a detailed and intricate story line comprised of both the present and the past, from the backstory of the two characters and their complicated histories.  I loved learning the details of the story and piecing them together to attempt to figure out what was really happening. The book took a little while to get going, but after the action and intrigue picked up, it didn't stop until the very end. I found every aspect of the novel to be well written - from the characters and setting to the twists and turns of the plot and the smaller details of the story line. Definitely recommended for fans of mysteries and thrillers and those who wish to step outside their comfort zone into a great noir suspense.

Peter Swanson’s poems, stories and reviews have appeared in such journals as The Atlantic, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epoch, Measure, Notre Dame Review, Slant Magazine, Soundings East, Rattapallax, and The Vocabula Review. He has won awards in poetry from The Lyric and Yankee Magazine, and is currently completing a sonnet sequence on all 53 of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. He has earned degrees in Creative Writing, Education, and Literature from Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College. His debut novel, The Girl With a Clock for a Heart, is forthcoming from William Morrow. He lives with his wife and cat in Somerville, Massachusetts.

LINKS: 

Author website
Twitter