A mother on the run.
It’s been three years since Daphne Monroe’s family were brutally murdered in a home invasion. Her once perfect life is in ruins: no husband, no children – and no respite from the police who suspect her of committing the crime herself. Only one thing keeps her alive: the transplanted heart beating in her chest. But when an intruder breaks into her home, Daphne realises the killer is back to finish what he started.
A killer on the move.
Years of unsolved murders across America have left law enforcement baffled. The victims lived different lives and died in different ways. There was nothing to connect them to a serial killer. Until Daphne discovers a chilling link...
Nowhere to turn.
The police blame Daphne for the death of her children: she can’t ask the authorities for help. If she wants to clear her name, she must do it alone – and find the killer before he finds her. What she uncovers draws her into the hidden world of organ donation, medical obsession, and a beautiful girl's tragic death that made Daphne's own survival possible.
Can Daphne uncover the truth before the killer hunts her down? And can the truth ever mend a broken heart?
I'm thrilled to be hosting the blog tour for Heartbreaker by Jude O''Reilly today. Many thanks to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me and to Pellerin Books for my advance digital copy of the novel.
It's to my shame that before Heartbreaker, I've only managed to read one of Jude O'Reilly's previous books but as I loved Sleep When You're Dead, I didn't hesitate when I learned she had written a new thriller. Heartbreaker is a standalone set in the US and is an emotionally intelligent rollercoaster of a read from start to finish.
The opening chapter is one of the most viscerally moving I can remember reading. The sense of foreboding agonisingly builds as Daphne awakes and initially believes she has overslept before she realises the horrific truth about her husband and two young children. Her husband's death is shocking enough but, although not as violent, it's the cruel tableau at breakfast which is utterly heartbreaking.
The novel then skips forward three years and while Daphne is still alive, it's clear she has become a mere shell of a person. As she sits by the bedside of her dying father as he takes his last breath, she is alone in the world. Alone, except for Detective Mercy Graham who was part of the still unsolved investigation into her family's murders and who firmly believes that rather than being a tragic victim, Daphne is a cold-blooded killer. The relationship between Daphne and Mercy is compelling and their scenes together are electric, especially as Mercy is now heavily pregnant herself.
Daphne might be alone in life but Jude O'Reilly ensures we understand what sort of woman she is at her core. Her acutely bittersweet memories of them are a constant feature throughout the book and are a painful reminder of her fierce love for them. It also quickly becomes apparent that with nothing else to live for, her work as a criminal defence lawyer has been what continues to drive her, particularly when she recalls her father's words, "Stick up for the little guy, Daphne. No one else will." Heartbreaker is not a courtroom thriller but there is one terrific scene which gives us an insight into the way her ruthless abilities to eviscerate the opposition juxtaposes with her empathetic concern for her vulnerable client.
Most of the book, however, is about Daphne as a wife and primarily a mother who will stop at nothing to seek justice for the deaths of her children. When she learns more about the donor who saved her life after she was struck down with cardiomyopathy as a young woman, she determines to discover more about her. She reluctantly ventures back into her family home but in one of the many nailbiting developments in this gripping thriller, she realises somebody else is there – and they want her dead.
What follows is a masterclass in irresistibly dramatic plotting and taut pacing as Daphne attempts to stay one step ahead of both a twisted, merciless killer and the police who are also desperate to track her down. Jude O'Reilly ratchets up the sense of tension still further by introducing us to the people who we quickly realise are destined to become the killer's next victims. The link between them is soon obvious but the motive behind their grisly deaths isn't revealed until Daphne endures almost unbearable levels of mental and physical turmoil. The brief snapshot we are given into the lives of the victims reveal some are more sympathetic than others but Judith O'Reilly makes sure we witness the humanity behind their flaws too. Meanwhile, Daphne is a likeable protagonist but we are also given the opportunity to see her through the eyes of others who consider her arrogant, deranged and perhaps most damningly, as guilty.
The twists just keep on coming even after the nerve-wracking climax to this harrowing, breathlessly suspenseful psychological thriller; heart-racing AND heart-rending, Heartbreaker is aptly named and is an absolutely cracking read. One of my top books of the year – I very highly recommend it!
Heartbreaker is published by Pellerin Books and can be purchased here.
Follow the blog tour, details are below.
Using the pen name Judith O'Reilly (see what she did there), Jude has also written two memoirs, Wife in the North and A Year of Doing Good. Wife in the North reached number three in the UK bestsellers’ chart and was a top ten bestseller in Germany. It was serialised by The Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and was based on Jude’s eponymous blog which, at the time, was named as one of the top 100 blogs in the world by The Sunday Times.
Jude is an award winning short story writer whose latest book is an anthology of crime short stories called In Our Crime. She is also a former political producer with BBC 2’s Newsnight and ITN’s Channel 4 News. She’s a former education correspondent with The Sunday Times where she also covered politics, undercover reporting and general news. She lives in Durham with her family and a miniature poodle called Joey.
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