Daily Archives: June 19, 2015

This is the second book by Julia Heaberlin I have read and enjoyed. I actually enjoyed reading “Black-Eyed Susans” even more than “Lie Still” – which surprised me as I really enjoyed the first book. I will certainly be looking for this author again in the future and will make a point of buying her first book “Playing Dead” as I will probably like it as well as the others.

The setting for the story is the Ft. Worth area of Texas. I’ve lived in Texas for more than 10 years now – most of it in the Hill Country near Austin but most recently in the Northern Dallas suburbs. I can attest that the author’s descriptions of the locale and the people who inhabit the area are absolutely spot on. Picking up her book and reading some of the conversations mimic ones that I have with my neighbors. Not, thankfully, the ones about murder, but the rhythm and cadence of the conversations strike a familiar cord. Her descriptions of the landscape are spot on. There is a terrible beauty to the vastness of the land and the heat that scorches it year in and year out. The author has even put what we call cold and ice and snow in its place. Minimal compared to the Northern states but deadly here.

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