Overall Enjoyment: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Plot: ⭐⭐⭐
Characters: ⭐⭐⭐
Writing: ⭐⭐⭐
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Synopsis:
Heart of Glass by Jennifer Hillier follows a cast of characters connected to the town of Seaside. When Barb and Nicolette were teenagers, they had a chance encounter with a man who would become known as the Carnival Killer. He later confessed to the murder of five women, including their friend, Lorelei. Twenty-Five years later, he recants his confession to Lorelei’s murder just as another missing woman’s body washes ashore in Seaside and a documentary series on the Carnival Killer is coming out. Barb and Nicolette are forced to revisit the demons and secrets of their past.
Review:
Hillier takes her readers on a journey through the troubled town of Seaside. She establishes a rich history for this fictional oceanside town in Washington, a history that can be felt through the very fabric of the storyline. It is so deeply interwoven into the narrative that, even towards the end, new pieces of Seaside’s history continue to be revealed. This creates a world that feels real and tangible, allowing Seaside to become a character in its own right. The town has its own personality, its own secrets, and its own saying: “Seaside is gonna Seaside.” There is an unspoken understanding among its residents that Seaside protects its own.
The characters, while at times overexaggerated, reflect different aspects of society. At the center is a small friend group of Barb, Nicolette, and Lorelei. While they are best friends, their relationship teeters towards toxicity. Each has dreams of making it big and escaping their small town, but leaving Seaside is never quite that simple. Barbera, an aspiring writer, finds herself with an obsession with reality TV that borders on unhealthy and works diligently with a therapist to put her past behind her. She was never able to find herself outside of Seaside for very long, unlike Nicolette, who seemingly succeeds in getting away and making it big. Both of these characters show us the different lengths that a person will go to when attempting to survive their past. One shows us how we work to survive in the life we’ve been given, while the other demonstrates how far someone will go to escape the memories of their haunting pasts.
In the beginning, certain details feel odd or out of place, particularly the amount of information surrounding reality television. However, by the end of the novel, many of those seemingly disconnected details weave together to create a much larger story. Hillier layers multiple mysteries throughout the narrative, and what initially appears to be the central mystery isn’t necessarily the one that ultimately carries the most weight. Unfortunately, not every storyline receives the same careful development. There are characters who seem to come out of nowhere and never feel meaningfully connected to the rest of the narrative, yet eventually become important to one of its central plotlines. Their motivations remain largely unexplored, making that particular resolution feel less satisfying than the mysteries that are more deeply rooted in Seaside’s history and its characters.
Ultimately, Heart of Glass is as much about the secrets people construct around themselves as it is about uncovering a decades-old crime. Seaside becomes a place where history, identity, and memory are almost impossible to separate, leaving its characters to discover whether escaping their past is ever truly possible.
I hope you enjoyed this review! Stay tuned for my next one! – Jules Grant, Associate Editor & Literary Critic