She Treads Softly: Cross My Heart

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Cross My Heart

Cross My Heart by Megan Collins
1/14/25; 320 pages
Atria Books

Cross My Heart by Megan Collins is a very highly recommended twisty tale of psychological suspense. This one's a winner!

Rosie Lachlan is a recent heart transplant patient who discovers that her donor’s husband is Morgan Thorne, a renowned crime fiction author. She begins messaging Morgan anonymously through a service called DonorConnect. Soon she becomes obsessed with him and believes that they could have a future together, if they ever meet. After a bad break-up a year earlier, she is ready for a new relationship. Her best friend Nina cautions her about becoming too optimistic about a relationship with him.

The more Rosie looks into Morgan and the death of his wife, Daphne, the more questions arise. It seems that there are rumors that Morgan had something to do with Daphne's death. Rosie is still looking at things through, as Nina tells her, her "Rosie-colored glasses." Half way through a plot twist occurs that changes and challenges everything.

At the beginning the narrative unfolds through the point-of-view of Rosie, with some of Morgan's voice included. Then the huge shake up happens. After you pick your jaw up off the floor and are able to breath again, the plot takes off at a terrifying gallop and is un-put-downable. You won't know who to trust, who to believe, and the twist just keep coming.

Rosie is a fully realized, emotionally complex, sympathetic narrator. You will not know, however, if she is a reliable one and as the tension rises, so will your questions about Rosie. Your belief in her will ping-pong back and forth between yes and no. At one point you will have doubts about almost every character in the novel.

The quality of the writing is spectacular. The tension is palpable throughout. The anxiety and uncertainty continue to rise while the misdirection and twists keep coming as the complex plot unfolds. Cross My Heart is an excellent novel of psychological suspense. Thanks to Atria Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via Edelweiss. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.