HeartSick

Chelsea Cain has been a writer on the scene for a while, having written many articles and nonfiction books. This is her first novel. I read a lot of reviews, online and in Entertainment Weekly, about how great this book was, so my expectations were high. There are really two plots going on, much like The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. One follows Archie Sheridan, a detective who was once kidnapped and tortured by twisted serial killer Gretchen Lowell, but escaped within an inch of his life. The other follows Susan Ward, a reporter writing a feature about Archie. A new serial killer is on the loose as well. The freaky part of the whole thing is that Archie is in love with Gretchen, his torturer. There are many other highly developed relationships in the book as well, and I think that's what makes it so great. It's suspenseful, but the character development is amazing, and the writing itself is so smooth it's practically transparent. And Cain is writing two sequels, so I think this first novel is a setup for what could be a great trilogy.