Book Club–Heartsick

Happy MLK Day! Well, Happy Monday for those who don’t get the day off! I hope all of you had (are having) a good weekend. I mentioned in my post Sunday that I arrived back in Chicago on Saturday, just in time for book club with some other Chicago bloggers! Wouldn’t miss this for the world!

This month our book of choice was Heartsick, by Chelsea Cain. Because the book is about serial killers, we joked about bringing cereal dishes… haha get it? Only a couple girls came through though. I was hoping to make something but I had about 45 minutes, so I just grabbed a bottle of wine…

Book club this month was hosted by the lovely Kelsey:

And we actually had what I think was a record attendance – 15 bloggers! Normally it’s the same group of us every month, but we got a few new faces this time, and we actually discussed the book! A day of firsts.

As I mentioned before, the book this month was Heartsick by Chelsea Cain. As Kelsey discovered, it’s actually the first book in a series of 7 books. Although we all loved Heartsick, Kelsey said the other books weren’t very good and seemed forced. Haha I think I’ll stick with this one, then.

Heartsick is told from several perspectives, but the reader mainly understands that of Susan, a young reporter who follows around the head detective on the current case: Archie Sheridan. Archie has a tortured, literally, past when it comes to serial killers. He spent 10 years working on the case of The Beauty Killer, a notorious serial killer with over 200 victims, until he suddenly became one of them and eventually her only survivor. The Beauty Killer, Gretchen Lowell, is currently in jail in this book, however she still has a hold over Archie. He visits her every Sunday on the premise that she will reveal hidden bodies, some of her 200 victims, but in reality he goes because he needs her, he’s drawn to her. As the book goes on, we unfold both the past between Archie and Gretchen, but also the main plot of the current investigation: high school girls, all looking eerily alike, are going missing and turning up dead on river banks.

I don’t usually read these mystery books (my mom loves them!) but I really enjoyed this one. It was just creepy enough to keep me on the edge of my seat but not completely freak me out. Although I’m glad I read it when I was at home in Kansas City and not living alone here in Chicago! I enjoyed during book club when really discussed the women in this book, and the fact that it is rare that a serial killer is a woman, which made Heartsick a more notorious novel.

If you’re interested, there’s actually a Q&A with Cheslea Cain on Amazon about the novel.  If you reviewed the book, feel free to send me your link!

Biting Life by Miranda

Ready Set Feast by the amazing Kelsey

Next months’ book is Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, recommended by book club attendee Cate.

Here is the synopsis from Good Reads:

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood.  Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared.  It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard.  So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini.  In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails.  As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile.  But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater.  Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion.  His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

If you’d like to read along, be sure to send me your review link, or a copy of your review if you don’t have a blog!

Do you like mysteries or books about murders and serial killers?

What’s one thing you do with friends that you’d never miss?