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Playing Dead: A Novel by Julia Heaberlin
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Playing Dead: A Novel (original 2012; edition 2012)

by Julia Heaberlin

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2962388,226 (3.54)5
Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:

â??A compelling family mystery that kept me turning the pages. Highly recommended.â?ťâ??Margaret Maron, New York Times bestselling author of Three Day Town
 
â??Dear Tommie: Have you ever wondered about who you are?â?ť
 
The letter that turns Tommie McCloudâ??s world upside down arrives from a stranger only days after her fatherâ??s death. The woman who wrote it claims that Tommie is her daughterâ??and that she was kidnapped as a baby thirty-one years ago.
 
Tommie wants to believe itâ??s all a hoax, but suddenly a girl who grew up on a Texas ranch finds herself  linked to a horrific past: the slaughter of a family in Chicago, the murder of an Oklahoma beauty queen, and the kidnapping of a little girl named Adriana. Tommie races along a twisting, nightmarish path while an unseen stalker is determined to keep old secrets locked inside the dementia-battered brain of the woman who Tommie always thought was her real mother. With everything she has ever believed in question, and no one she can trust, Tommie must discover the truth about the girl who vanishedâ??and the very real threats that still remain. 
 
â??[Julia Heaberlinâ??s] voice is pitch perfect, and her story of one womanâ??s fierce struggle to reconcile her past with her present is gripping and powerful. An outstanding debut.â?ťâ??Carla
… (more)

Member:scoutlee
Title:Playing Dead: A Novel
Authors:Julia Heaberlin
Info:Ballantine Books (2012), Edition: Original, Paperback, 352 pages
Collections:Your library, Donated - read
Rating:****
Tags:TLC Book Tours, review copy, new author 2012, read 2012, Texas, thriller, debut 2012

Work Information

Playing Dead by Julia Heaberlin (2012)

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» See also 5 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 22 (next | show all)
Read it in one day on a flight from Key West to Chicago. Could not put it down. Great multi-layered mystery with a little bit of everything. Mystery, danger, action, and veiled sexual tension. Loved it! ( )
  Jen-Lynn | Aug 1, 2022 |
I so enjoyed Black-Eyed Susans, by Julia Heaberlin that I picked up her debut novel, Playing Dead¸ and finished it at 1:00 a.m. this morning! It’s a great mystery, with characters so real, you’d think they lived in your neighborhood (if y’all are from Texas)!

Tommie McLoud has just moved back home to Ponder, Texas, population 1,101, to handle her recently deceased father’s business affairs and help her sister, Sadie, with their mom, who is suffering from dementia. Unexpectedly, Tommie receives a letter from an unknown woman in Chicago who claims to be Tommie’s birth mother and states that Tommie was kidnapped as a baby 30 years before. What follows is a suspenseful mystery as Tommie follows clue after clue that somehow links her life with the slaughter of a family in Chicago, the murder of a beauty queen in Oklahoma and a mafia don named Anthony Marchetti.

Tommie is a great narrator, a former rodeo queen who pokes fun at southern quirkiness, yet still extols the vast beauty of the land and skies of her native state. The reader will get caught up in the suspense of the story as Tommie comes to understand that everything she thought she knew about her childhood is suspect. With the help of a former lover, a hippy sister, a gruff newsman and a suspicious writer, Tommie unravels her past and uncovers unexpected secrets and lies about the family she thought she knew. This one kept me turning the pages, and had some fantastic twists I didn’t see coming. Can’t wait to see what Ms. Heaberlin comes up with next!
( )
  KellyWellRead | Dec 17, 2020 |
If this had been an audible purchase I'd never have gotten through it. The narrator drove me crazy. All the male voices sounded like Eeyore. Only dumber. Not that Tommie was a bright light herself. Now that it's done and I've moved on I can't even remember how it ended. ( )
  Bookmarque | Mar 10, 2020 |
beautiful, haunting and a page turner to the end. ( )
  AnnaHernandez | Oct 17, 2019 |
Showing 1-5 of 22 (next | show all)
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Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:

â??A compelling family mystery that kept me turning the pages. Highly recommended.â?ťâ??Margaret Maron, New York Times bestselling author of Three Day Town
 
â??Dear Tommie: Have you ever wondered about who you are?â?ť
 
The letter that turns Tommie McCloudâ??s world upside down arrives from a stranger only days after her fatherâ??s death. The woman who wrote it claims that Tommie is her daughterâ??and that she was kidnapped as a baby thirty-one years ago.
 
Tommie wants to believe itâ??s all a hoax, but suddenly a girl who grew up on a Texas ranch finds herself  linked to a horrific past: the slaughter of a family in Chicago, the murder of an Oklahoma beauty queen, and the kidnapping of a little girl named Adriana. Tommie races along a twisting, nightmarish path while an unseen stalker is determined to keep old secrets locked inside the dementia-battered brain of the woman who Tommie always thought was her real mother. With everything she has ever believed in question, and no one she can trust, Tommie must discover the truth about the girl who vanishedâ??and the very real threats that still remain. 
 
â??[Julia Heaberlinâ??s] voice is pitch perfect, and her story of one womanâ??s fierce struggle to reconcile her past with her present is gripping and powerful. An outstanding debut.â?ťâ??Carla

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