The Girl With a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson

Author: Peter Swanson
Publisher: William Morrow
Date of publication: February 2014

George Foss, a forty-year-old employee of a Boston literary magazine, has passed the age when he thinks he might fall madly in love or take the world by storm, or have anything truly remarkable happen to him. He spends most of his evenings at his local tavern talking about the Red Sox and the minutiae of everyday life, and obsessing over a lost love from his college days who vanished twenty years earlier. Until she reappears.

George knows Liana is trouble. But he can’t say no—he never could—and soon his quiet life is gone as he is pulled into a terrifying whirlpool of lies, betrayal, and murder from which there is no sure escape.


The premise of the book is that George's college girlfriend allegedly committed suicide.  When he goes to visit her parents, he discovers that the woman he thought of as Audrey is actually a con artist.  She returns 20 years later and asks him for help.  He soon finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery where he is a suspect.  I wasn't able to connect with George.  I didn't understand his obsession with Audrey/Jane. 

When I read the synopsis for the book, I was excited to read it.  I was hoping for a good mystery,.  Sadly, the book fell short for me.  I didn't finish it as I was a bit bored with the story and just couldn't get beyond the first half of the book.  I really didn't like how the story waffled between past and present. Maybe because the two story-lines were too similar.   I kind of felt like I was re-reading the same story again.  I also had an issue with the couple of love scenes that I read.  I didn't find anything remotely sexy about them, instead they were a bit cold and probably could have been left out all together.

There was one thing that I did like about the book.  Being from the Boston area, I was able to picture a lot of the locations that the author included in the book.  That was kind of fun. The Girl with a Clock for a Heart has gotten some good reviews, so try it out for yourself.  I'm in the minority as it just wasn't for me.  

 About the author:
 
Peter Swanson has degrees in creative writing, education, and literature from Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College. His stories and poems have appeared in the Atlantic, Mysterical-E, Vocabula Review, and Yankee Magazine. He lives with his wife in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he is at work on his second novel.

Find out more about Peter on his website and follow him on Twitter.

Peter’s Tour Stops

Wednesday, February 5th: Stephany Writes
Thursday, February 6th: Drey’s Library
Monday, February 10th: The Infinite Shelf
Tuesday, February 11th: From the TBR Pile
Wednesday, February 12th: Unabridged Chick
Thursday, February 13th: Joyfully Retired
Friday, February 14th: Good Girl Gone Redneck
Monday, February 17th: cupcake’s book cupboard
Tuesday, February 18th: A Dream Within a Dream
Wednesday, February 19th: Books in the Burbs
Thursday, February 20th: Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile