If She Did It

I got so irritated with the outline of this book. I hated that it kept going back in time in the middle of Hanna's thought process. It was painful to keep reading and the only reason why I stuck it out was to see who killed Joe.

By the time I finished reading Jessica Treadway’s breathtaking new novel, Lacy Eye, I was so knocked out that I had to recover for a few days before I could pull my thoughts together. I reread the end. I reread the beginning. It was just as stunning and true on the reread as it was during the first read. It begins like a thriller—there’s a horrible crime, a murder to solve, which has already taken place. But instead of reading like a detective novel, Treadway knows the unconscious minds of her characters the way only a wise therapist, after years and years, knows her clients, and she reveals them in compelling original language. There is a deep psychological puzzle at the heart of this novel, but Treadway doesn’t neatly fit the puzzle together for the reader. Instead, she holds the pieces above the place where you think they should go until you think you can’t stand the suspense for one more page, but the writing is so good, that you keep on reading and breathlessly waiting. The miracle is that she never completely solves the puzzle, but leaves you actively wondering about what might have gone wrong. When the puzzle pieces land in a place where you hoped they wouldn’t, you look back and see how perfectly Treadway has plotted it so that it could only end the way it does. She gives a lovely metaphor at the end of the novel when the narrator is taking her young granddaughter and her aging dog to the vet. The granddaughter asks about the meaning of “A dissimulation of birds.” The narrator answers, “Well, if you dissimulate, it means you’re pretending. Say you’re a mommy bird and you leave the nest to get some food for your babies, and when you come back to the next, you see that another bird is about to swoop down on it. You could make a noise and pretend you’re hurt or something, so the bird that’s about to go after your children will come after you instead.” The granddaughter answers, “You should just say you’re pretending.” And you realize that’s what is at the heart of the story—pretending—and the terrible damage it can do. There are no pure villains in the story, only those, who, to their own demise and the destruction of others, believe “things because they were more appealing than the truth.”

The story starts with Hanna hearing that the man who killed her husband and almost killed her in a viscous attack three years ago that left her disfigured and without any memories of the attack, has been granted an appeal. Would she be willing to testify again? Can she recall anything? The DA and many of the folks in town believe she’s covering up her youngest daughter’s involvement. But she couldn’t be involved, could she?

A great deal of the story is spent in the past on the things that Hanna does remember, jumping back and forth with the present. This can seem somewhat annoying, but it’s also rather realistic with how our minds work, and through it she works at putting together what she does know to paint a picture for both herself and the reader.

This is not a gripping page-turner, there’s really no climax to the story, nor is this a comfortable read. And the characters, for the most part, aren’t especially interesting. But it is thought-provoking and will have you wondering what things in your life you aren’t seeing clearly because reality would be too harsh. I would imagine this could have a bigger impact on parents.

This is outside the normal genre I read, but a friend highly recommended it while warning me it was a slow moving story. I’m glad I read it.

I wobbled on this one between 3 and 4 stars, but upon looking at the books on my 4 star shelf, Lacy Eye just couldn't compare.
So where to begin? There's so much to say here - it's been a while since a book made me feel so WRONG about the characters - that they were bad people ... and these are people that I presume I was supposed to like! I am mainly talking about the mother here. It just felt as if the entire family treated Dawn as the cast-off, the puzzle piece that was cut wrong - it just doesn't FIT. And the mother makes no qualms about the ill-will that she feels towards her daughter. She's ugly, untalented (except for the later discovered fact that she's a brilliant singer, but HEY, let's not explore that avenue for her), certainly not popular. And then when Dawn was facing some sort of crisis, Mother here would just ignore it, sweep it under the rug, ACT AS IF IT WASN'T THERE. Do I need to say that I'm glad she wasn't my mom? Granted, this doesn't call for the horrible excuse for a daughter that Dawn becomes as an adult, but I couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for the child-Dawn. Adult-Dawn was attempted to be explained away by some pretty pathetic excuses - the only one I'm even mildly buying is that yes, maybe Dawn had some sort of mental disability - that she "wasn't all there." Nonetheless, the author used up so much of the book explaining Mother's life and relationship with Dawn, that by the time any real action happened, it just felt rushed and unbelievable. By that point, I was just ready for the novel to be over with.
All in all, a good read, but not a great read.

Lacy Eye
By: Jessica Treadway Pages. 352
Grand Central Publishing March 10, 2015
Copy Courtesy of Thereadingroom Advance copies.
Reviewed By: tk

I am in near hysterical condition! My heart is pounding, hands are sweaty, thought is traveling at 3000 miles an hour…How is it my reaction to the written words in the story be so incredibly powerful.

Hannahhhhh, my heart aches for her. I can NOT imagine a wrong done so severely, her incredible strength in remaining upright is beyond a miracle. Dawn…you terrible, heartless, useless human waste of space! Why?

I can only hope that this story would become a major motion picture in the coming months. The word must be spread. The brilliant narration of this story by the author, the amazing writing, and unfolding of events is a force I can see no other author I know of right now could possibly come close.

To say this has touched me is an understatement. As a reader there are times that a book will come around that will change your inner being. This is one of those books! A must have. A must read. 5/5

Lacy Eye has a very intriguing premise: a woman and her husband were attacked 3 years ago, resulting in his death and severe trauma, including some memory loss, for her. The convicted attacker is her daughter's boyfriend. Her daughter moved away, but now her ex-boyfriend is up for parole and she wants to move back in with her mother. This seems like a terrible idea and I was desperately curious as to how this would play out.

The premise is good and the plot is suspenseful. Hanna recalls her past in interesting flashbacks. It is very emotional and sad at times. Jessica Treadway is excellent at doling out details to tease you through. I could not put it down. And it did scare me! But I think being attacked in your bed while sleeping is pretty unusual and therefore horrifying.

My one complaint is the end seems tacked on. The abrupt ending is a small low in an engaging and thrilling book.

This book is different from other thrillers I have read. I love the starkly personal and emotional story. I recommend this book.

Three years ago, Hanna had a wonderful life. A loving husband, two girls and a job she loved. Then things went awry. The older daughter, Iris, was doing fine, married with Hanna's first grandchild. Dawn, the younger daughter, had always been awkward. But Hanna was optimistic when she went off to college that she would finally find herself and make new friends in her new environment. When Dawn comes home, her parents are thrilled. That is, until they meet the boyfriend she is bringing home with her. Rud is good-looking but there is something sketchy about him and they definitely don't like the way Dawn idolizes him.

After a heated argument, the couple stalk off. Hanna and Joe, her husband, agree that he is not the right man for Dawn. But that is their last agreement. That night, they are savagely attacked in their bedroom. Joe is killed and Hanna survives, although she is left for dead. The police quickly hone in on Rud and he is found guilty and sent to jail. Town sentiment is that Dawn was also involved but Hanna will hear nothing of it.

Three years later, Hanna has put her life back together as best she can. After several operations, she is back at work although still damaged so that strangers stare at her. She still doesn't remember much about the night of the attack but she is fine with that. She has a good relationship with Iris, although Iris believes the talk that Dawn was involved and refuses to have anything to do with her. Dawn moved away and has been living out west.

Then another nightmare. Rud has won the right to an appeal and his case will be retried. At the same time, Dawn calls Hanna and asks if she can come home. Hanna agrees immediately as she still believes in Dawn even though Dawn still believes that Rud was innocent of the charges and hopes to reunite with him. But as Dawn moves in, Hanna starts to remember more and more about that night. Will she survive her memories?

Jessica Treadway has written a haunting tale about parents and their children. We all want the best for our children and hesitate to identify characteristics and deficits that may cause them trouble. Those who say anything negative about a child are quickly cut off so that the parent can remain in denial and hope that things will turn around. This book is recommended for suspense readers and those who wonder about someone close to them.

“There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle.” — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Three years ago, Hanna Schutt and her husband were bludgeoned in their bed with a crochet mallet. As a result her husband perished, she has a disfigured face, and she suffers from traumatic brain injury. Her youngest daughter’s boyfriend is in prison for the crime, but there has always been uncertainty in Hanna’s mind as to his guilt. Now, his case has come up for review and the lawyers want Hanna to testify. The press have renewed interest in the case, and Hanna finds herself at a crossroads…

Before the vicious attack that disseminated Hanna’s family, they were an average American family living in Upstate New York. Her husband was an accountant, she loved her work as a nurse and she loved to garden. Iris, their eldest daughter was engaged to be married. It was only their youngest daughter, Dawn, that marred the image of the perfect family. Dawn was always a little bit ‘different’. It wasn’t just the fact that she had a ‘lazy eye’, it was that she was an awkward child who seemed vacant sometimes. Her cruel schoolmates (and her sister) often called her ‘Ding Dong Dawn’. Ostracized by her peers, she was a solitary girl who seemed immature for her age.

Hanna always felt close to Dawn. They spent a lot of time together due to Dawn’s lack of friends. Dawn brought out Hanna’s protective instincts. Hanna felt needed. Her eldest daughter, beautiful, popular, and her father’s favorite, didn’t need her in the same way.

Before the attack Hanna had a best friend, Claire, with whom she could share her feelings. This was quite unusual in Hanna’s case. She usually held her feelings back from others. She blamed it on her upbringing, the Swedish reticence. That friendship ended after the attack due to what Claire considered Hanna’s willful blindness. Claire just couldn’t condone or understand how Hanna wanted to believe something opposite to what is true because the truth was just too painful to accept or contemplate. Nor could Claire understand why Hanna is still living in the house where the attack took place.

When the lawyer pressures Hanna into testifying at the new trial, Hanna claims that she cannot remember anything from that horrible night, but she maintains that her daughter Dawn had nothing to do with the crime despite evidence to the contrary. When Dawn hears of the new trial she moves from her home in New Mexico to live once again with Hanna. Iris, who has always suspected Dawn had a role in the vicious attack is appalled by her mother’s decision to welcome Dawn back into her life.

It is hard for me to believe that Jessica Treadway is not a parent herself because she has such a firm grasp of the unconditional love and the inherent guilt that accompanies parenthood. They say that a mother can only be as happy as her unhappiest child…

The title came about as a result of the author making a typo. She meant to type ‘lazy eye’ but typed ‘lacy eye’ instead. It was a happy accident that brought about the perfect title for this novel! I loved how the term lacy eye was incorporated into the novel. The family used the phrase ‘lacy eye’ to describe trying to make something more positive than it actually was – another way of saying looking through rose colored glasses.

I would recommend reading this book with the obvious proviso that the subject matter is difficult to say the least. The novel was equal parts engrossing and disturbing.

This review was originally published on my blog: Fictionophile

Lacy Eye, Jessica Treadway, author, Ellen Archer, narrator
When the novel begins, the reader learns that on the same day that the Schutt family was robbed, by an unknown thief, Joe Schutt was awakened and murdered in his bedroom, and his wife Hanna was brutally bludgeoned and left for dead on the bed. She suffered a brain injury and was severely disfigured, but did survive. We later learn that Joe’s inhaler had sadistically been smashed, and the phone was ripped from the wall to prevent a call to 911, in this horrific home invasion.
While suspicion falls upon their younger daughter Dawn, for orchestrating both crimes, she is not indicted. It is her boyfriend, Rud Petty who is sentenced to prison, largely based on witnesses to Hanna’s responses to questioning on the night of both crimes. Because of a technicality regarding her “death bed nodding”, and the severity of her injuries, Petty has been granted a new trial. At the same time as this happens, Dawn, who had left home and moved to California after her boyfriend was sentenced, declaring she no longer loved him, decides to return home to help her mother get through the ordeal of another trial. The community is leery of her as many believe she committed or participated in the horrific crime, including her older sister, Iris, who never wants to see her again. Dawn is ridiculed and compared to Lizzie Borden.
Dawn Schutt has always been in the shadow of her sister who is the achiever in the family. Dawn is different. She had a lazy eye as a youngster and was bullied. She also seems to have an arrested emotional development, often reacting in unexpected immature ways. She has a lack of confidence, exacerbated by the way her fellow classmates and “friends” tease and torment her, calling her fish face and ding-dong because of how she looks and responds to them. Her reactions are often inappropriate and naïve. She seems to withdraw from confrontations, rather than respond with anger.
When she agreed, unexpectedly to go away to college, her parents were surprised but happy. There, she met and fell in love with Rud Petty. He is the first boy to ever really look at her, and although a decade older, she never even stops to wonder why he has such an interest in her, although everyone else seemed to be surprised. Dawn had created an entirely false persona for her friends at school, telling everyone stories about her background that had nothing to do with the truth. To hear her tell it, she was pretty much an heiress with a trust fund.
Next door to the Schutts there is a family with a child who is also different. Emmett Furth is the neighborhood troublemaker. Suspicion was immediately cast upon him because of his previous vandalism and malicious behavior around the neighborhood. Even Dawn tries to cast suspicion upon him regarding the robbery, murder and attack on her mother.
Now that there is going to be a new trial, the prosecutor has contacted Hanna. Gail wants her to help in the new trial by giving testimony, and she encourages her to try to remember anything she can about that horrible night. She does not want the original conviction reversed, but Hanna is beginning to wonder if Rud is guilty. She has begun to have strange flashes of memory and she doesn’t want to have the wrong man pay for the crime. She is determined to try and remember, but she has always been the “procrastinator in chief” and she keeps doubting the veracity of her flashbacks. Hanna, who generally tries to avoid confrontation, keeps lots of secrets, and she continues to do this with her recent thoughts about that fateful night. She attributes this closed-mouth behavior to her Scandinavian background. She insists to both the prosecutor and Dawn that she remembers nothing of that night.
While some of the clues misdirect, the solution to this whodunit is always at the edge of the reader’s vision, just waiting to come into full view. It is read expertly by Ellen Archer. When she engages the character of Dawn she is Dawn, and her diabolical nature shines through. With Hanna, her personality and practice of avoidance becomes so obvious I wanted to scream at her to wake up. The author’s descriptions of the characters, major and minor truly brought them to life. Once I started listening to this book, I couldn’t stop. I listened until the wee hours of the morning to finish it. It is a page turner or an ear burner!

A great psychological thriller by a new-to-me author about families and the question do we really know who we love. Hanna feels like she has always marched to the same beat as her younger daughter, Dawn, who is socially awkward, shy, and has very negative feelings about her "lazy eye". Hanna herself always kept to herself as a child and feels a strong kinship with Dawn and especially protective when other children tease her about her eye or her lack of social grace, earning her the nickname, Ding-Dong Dawn. Even Dawn's older, more popular sister starts to tease her as they grow older because Dawn just never seems to "get it". Hanna and her husband, Joe, even wonder during Dawn's teen years if something is wrong because Dawn isn't maturing socially like all the others. They feel like Dawn is clueless as to what is going on around her, even unaware of obvious pranks on her in her childlike ignorance of the facts in her longing to belong.

As Dawn enters college, Joe and Hanna hope that she can come into her own. When Iris, her sister, gets married, Dawn informs her family that she is bringing her boyfriend. Her parents are hopeful, but when they meet Rud Petty, they learn that he is a much older 27, a low-paying vet technician, yet very handsome. The family immediately senses something is off with the charming Rud, who apparently comes from money, and they wonder "what does he want?" When the family dog is "accidentally" poisoned and Rud is there to care for her there suspicions are further aroused.

When Dawn and Rud come home again for Thanksgiving, Joe and Hanna aren't thrilled but they will put on a happy front for their daughter. Soon things start spiraling downhill. The morning after Thanksgiving when Hanna and Dawn are shopping and Joe is at work, Rud is left alone in the house. They all come home to find tat the house was burglarized and immediately suspicions fall on Rud because he was the only one home. But he denies the claims and they leave the house in anger. Tragically, that evening, Joe and Hanna are bludgeoned with a crochet mallet in their own bed. Joe is dead and Hanna is rushed to surgery. Before she is taken away, she tells police that it was Rud and Dawn that did this. Rud is arrested and found guilty but Dawn has a strong alibi and was never taken to trial.

Now, 3 years later, Rud is granted a new trial and fearing that Rud will go free, Hanna vows to do her best to remember the events of that night. Even though Hanna cannot remember what happened due to her severe brain injury, most believe she is lying to protect Dawn and in fact they also believe that Dawn is guilty, including her sister. Hanna is the only one who defends Dawn thinking Dawn could never attack her parents in such a violent manner and surely Hanna herself must have been mistaken in implicating Dawn in the attack, blaming it on shock and her head injury. Dawn has been living out west since the trial and when she hears that her mother is going to try to testify she moves home to help her mother during this difficult time.

As memories spark back to life, Hanna doesn't know what to believe and who to trust. Is she in danger in her own home or is a Dawn really just home to support her mother. As more information comes to Hanna, she has to divide fact from fiction.

This is a compelling look at families, love, memory, and trust. Even though I gave a summary in a chronological timeline, the book starts with Hanna finding out about Rud's new trial. The story of their lives is told through flashbacks, memories, and stories told throughout the book. I want the reader to have the information that the writer did a great job in telling the story in a non-linear fashion that was understandable and so compelling it me on the edge of my seat. When I picked the book up, I just wanted to keep reading to find out what came next. I highly recommend this book for any murder/ mystery, thriller/psychological thriller fan! I will certainly be checking out more from this author! This is a quality 5 star read for sure!!!

An absolutely stunning plot and complex characters make for brilliant reading with this taut psychological thriller that makes you question it every step of the way, seeking the truth. I loved this book, I love the way it's written, the plot, the characters (some I loved, others I despised), the suspense and most of all the reveals, oh the reveals! Just when I thought I had made my mind up!

What if you began to suspect your child of an unspeakable crime?

When Dawn introduces her family to her new boyfriend, Rud, they hide their unsettled feelings because they're glad that Dawn, always an awkward child, seems to have finally blossomed.

Then Dawn's parents are savagely beaten in their own bed, and though Hanna survives, Rud stands trial for Joe's murder. Claiming her boyfriend's innocence, Dawn initially estranges herself from everyone she knows, but when Rud wins an appeal, Dawn returns home saying she wants to support her mother.

Hanna knows that if she could only remember the details of that traumatic night, she could ensure her husband's murderer remains in jail. But Hanna hadn't realised that those memories may cause her to question everything she thought she knew about her daughter...

How could you not love that for a plot?

Hanna is picking up the pieces after surviving a brutal attack in her own bed that has left her disfigured in her face and with psychological scars for life, her memories of that night are gone. Her daughter and boyfriend stood trial, imagine that - your own daughter accused of trying to murder you and killing your husband. Shocking. Appalling. The case against Dawn, her daughter closes down whilst her boyfriend is put away in prison for the crime.

The book is very character focused as well as taking us on a journey with a brilliant story. Shocking right from the start, the book then pads out in the middle, really introducing the main players in the book to us. The characters are done so well. I thought the way Dawn's boyfriend was written was so clever, just dark, but in such subtle ways. Very clever character development.

Hanna doubts her memories, many still think her daughter was involved, but she says she was not, Dawn comes home to live with her and it changes all the dynamics of Hanna's life with Dawn's other sister. In fact, it changes everything.

This is a clever psychological thriller that has you making decisions on people and events then changing them over and over, it's part crime obviously but mostly a good psychological thriller, it really taps into the minds of human beings to give us some solid shocks and surprises.

I don't want to share more of the plot but it builds up towards reveals and truths at the end that just blew me away, I was riveted to this book, unable to put it down. It's a book with depth and one that I would happily recommend to anyone looking for a good read with plenty of twists and questions left up in the air. If you like flawed, damaged characters, you will find them here too.

4.5 paw prints from the Booklover Catlady for this book, I recommend it with ease to any reader. One that will sit with me for a while as I go over parts of it in my head.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review.

When you read the story synopsis for this novel you may be taken aback by how dark and disturbing it sounds. Author Jessica Treadway tackles some heavy stuff here and comes up with an amazingly complex and intricate intelligent psychological thriller. What we get added in is the full concept of the family dynamic. Sadly the story here is not one unheard of in true crime. Parents that have an awkward, different and somewhat troubled daughter are happy when she finds a boyfriend and seems to come out of her shell. But then disaster strikes and the parents are attacked brutally asleep in bed. The husband dies, mother survives and the boyfriend is found guilty. But he then receives an appeal and the daughter returns home. That is the story in a nutshell but what Treadway provides the reader is so much more. This is a deep and intelligent psychological thriller told with maturity, insight and truly complex characters that jump from the page. Treadway handles this very disturbing subject matter with full respect to the reader and takes them on a true journey. The story is told from the viewpoint of Hannah, the mother, who is forced to relive the nightmare event over and over and the multitude of feelings and emotions she goes through are both devastatingly realistic and believable. This novel may be difficult for some but it is told with such intelligence and literary prowess that the reader will feel safe while treading such subject matter. Disturbing but highly recommended. This is what quality literature is.

Lacy Eye
By
Jessica Treadway

When I read and then review a book...I like to organize my thoughts into the areas of the book that capture my attention. This gives me a real feel for every part of this book. Hopefully this will help potential readers of this book, too.

So...

The characters that I thought were the most interesting as well as intriguing...

Hanna, Joe, Iris, and Dawn...the family...were the key characters within this book. Dawn's boyfriend was also a "person of interest".

The settings for this book...

Most of the book took place wherever Hanna was...she was the character who narrated the story.

What I think is the main idea or theme of this book...

The main idea of this book is that Hanna and her husband Joe have been brutally attacked in their home. Hanna is left physically altered and without much memory of the attack or at least that is what she thinks about her memory. But...when the imprisoned attacker is working on an appeal...memories begin to surface. Hanna's youngest daughter Dawn has surfaced, too. After a three year absence Dawn wants to come home. Dawn has been under suspicion of being involved in this attack although no one has been able to prove this.

My thoughts about this book...

Ok...so...now I get to talk about Dawn...not a fun child, had an eye condition..amblyopia...that caused perception problems so kids were always making fun of her and playing cruel tricks on her. The way she continued to call Hanna "mommy" even as an adult...really creeped me out. Dawn is the kind of character that I loved to hate. Dishonest, underhanded, delusional...are all words I would use to describe her. But...also maddening was the way Hanna continued to give Dawn chance after chance...explaining away all of her odd behaviors even though everyone else saw a totally different person.

My thoughts for potential readers of this book...

This was a strange family...perhaps a bit old fashioned...Joe...the father...was odd and Hanna was a bit odd, too. They...sort of...ended up with a good daughter and a really bad daughter. The fact that they were just a tad "odd" made their story even more interesting. While I was reading it I just wanted to say...listen to your friends...or...don't let her come home...or trust your instincts...but...that just made the book even more addictive for me. I think that this book had the perfect ending...and I had much admiration for Hanna. So...readers who love this kind of tense chilling book...should really love this one!

My copy came from NetGalley and the store.

The possibility that your very own, flesh and blood child could be involved with a murderous attack on his/her parents is the premise for this novel, 'Lacy Eye'.

Believe we all know of a tragic instance, hopefully not in our own lives, of a child (teenager, young or older adult) who attack and sometime murder their siblings or parents. It is the heartbreak that never ends and indescribable.

Hanna and Joe...she, a fragile, forgiving, dominated, naive woman...he, a set in his ways, ruler of the family, dominator...often subtle in their roles.
Joe, confident in his leadership and moral strength; Hanna, trusting Joe despite supressed reservations. In their own ways, very gentle in raising two very diverse daughters.

Iris, the beautiful older sister and achiever, and younger Dawn, referred to by her peers as well as her sister as 'ding dong', not so attractive and underachiever...are the offspring.

Dawn has amblyopia, commonly referred to as lazy eye, and has a myriad of social disasters. At an early point in her childhood Dawn refers to her eye as 'lacy' despite her father correcting Dawn's belief...hence the title.

When a time comes round for Dawn to have eye surgery, Joe believes it is not a safe and effective procedure. Taunts and realities continue for Dawn and her reactions to so many instances from early childhood on...are off.

Then an attack, father bludgeoned to death, and mother barely able to survive.

Was it Rud, Dawn's handsome but suspicious boyfriend.? and was it Dawn? A trial ensues and Rud is convicted but Dawn is not prosecuted.

Rud is granted a new trial and now the questions and creepiness reach a new high as Dawn returns to her home town to support and shield her mother.

Can Hanna remember all that had happened that night? Can she put it together? Is she in danger? Is the young man next door, Emmet, the real perpetrator?

So very creepy...how does a mother know or not?

We meet Hanna Schutt three years after she was bludgeoned with a croquet club and left for dead. Her husband Joe was less fortunate, dying of his injuries before a friend discovered their beaten and bleeding bodies.

No one expected Hanna to live, so her 'dying declaration', which indicated the involvement of her daughter's boyfriend Rud Petty, sent him to prison for his actions. Many—including Hanna's other daughter Iris, the police and prosecutor—also believed Dawn to be involved... to some extent. But, although Dawn sided with her boyfriend against her family (maintaining his innocence throughout his trial), Hanna didn't believe her daughter capable of such an atrocity. And when Dawn's flatmate alibied her, Rud alone faced punishment.

If She Did It is compared to We Need To Talk About Kevin, so you know there's going to be some f*cked-up family stuff bubbling to the surface for the Schutt family. We're not surprised then, when Dawn turns out to be a bad egg.

The question is just how bad? Was she just so desperate for friendship and love she inadvertently inspired the attack on her parents; or was/is she capable of more? To complicate matters Hanna discovers some evidence which doesn't support the police's version of what happened, meaning they may even have the wrong person incarcerated.

This book really took me by surprise. I could not put it down which was problematic as I started reading it at about 9.30pm at night. I HAD to keep reading. Like Hanna, I HAD to know. I NEEDED answers.

4.5 stars

Read the full review in my blog: http://www.debbish.com/books-literature/if-she-did-it-by-jessica-treadway/

But like a few other reviewers, I really don't like any characters except for the family pet. Both crime victims are really pathetic & apologetic for the inspiration of the title, which really is the fault of no one stuck with it.

It's no wonder some kids take on a fantasy persona. "Lazy eyed", "flat featured", "clumsy", "not destined for sports", unlike her sister. The mother of this child never explained one GOOD quality she had.

And are the characters supposed to be of a decades earlier mentality, where so called "lazy eye" may have been a bigger deal for a child? Amblyopia is now treatable with everything from patching the strong eye only part of the day to glasses with prism lenses to surgery to realign the muscles.

There are drops that temporarily weaken the strong eye as well as opaque contact lens to weaken it for those able to go that route. I'm not sure where she found information that surgery is good only up to 12 years of age as some adults experience some benefit from it.

And has the author been in a pediatric or optometric practice lately? In one part of the book, the mother condemns the awkward daughter for reading "Goodnight Moon" at 6 years old in the Optometrist's waiting room.

Having been in such a practice and the mother of a 10 year old, the books available in the waiting room were all geared towards very young children.

It was clear Dawn was bullied by not only classmates, but hated at home by those who should have loved & tried to develop her good qualities.

I can't stand any of the characters, was actually laughing when the can do no wrong sister morphed into a 200 lb college drop out with a toddler & in a separation. But I'm drawn in by Professor Treadway's ability to tell a story & the level of my favorite genre--suspense. So I am interested in reading more of this author's work.

If She Did It is a very tense and often claustrophobic family drama/psychological thriller, told from the point of view of Hanna - recovering from a traumatic event in which she lost her husband, an event she has no specific memory of, the possibility that her own daughter may have been involved in that violent night haunts her - however much she tries to believe that it is not, could not be true.

There is a beautiful depth here - both to the psychology of the characters and to the unfolding story itself - as Hanna starts getting flashes of insight, under pressure from all quarters to remember - it is very gripping and extremely thought provoking. Hanna's inner turmoil is fascinating as she swings first one way then the other - as a reader you get very involved in all of her ups and downs.

Then there is the theme of mothers and daughters - as Hanna looks back over her relationship with both Dawn (the daughter causing concern) and her sister Iris, as well as the differing attitudes she and her Husband Joe had in their upbringing, a picture starts to emerge of a troubled girl - possibly even dangerous. Dangerous enough to kill? Well therein lies one of the great threads here, just like Hanna you will not be able to make up your mind.

Jessica Treadway manages to ask the hard questions as she spins this wonderfully complex web - just how far would you go to protect your child, is love enough, that age old nature v nurture debate. That Dawn has issues is never in question - but just how deep rooted these are, that is the heart and soul here, the hook that will keep you turning those pages to find out If She Did It.

Brilliant stuff. An intelligent and emotive novel that also stands out as a top notch mystery, a dilemma to get your reading teeth into and one that will leave you with a lot to think about.

Highly Recommended.

Happy Reading Folks!

**Copy given to me by a friend**

I really loved this book until the end. I didn't dislike the ending, but had hoped for more insight into the daughter and how the relationship between the mother and daughter turned out the way it did.

Sounds like readers either loved or hated the book...it really depends on what you are expecting. It's not an *action*-packed story and it's not one of those popular mass paperback suspenses. This really is more of a quiet psychological thriller, with emphasis on "psychological." As other reviewers have summarized, you are really taken inside the mother's head, as she goes back and forth from present day to the past...we read vignettes from her childhood, how she met her husband, her earlier parenting years. All of those, taken together, give you a portrait of Hanna, the mother, and the family. You see her history - her father was corrupt, and her mother, like her, was meek. Through the way she details scenes with Dawn, the problematic daughter, you see how weak she was as a mother and how she couldn't even speak up to her own daughter many times. You also see how Iris, the older daughter, is cruel to Dawn. As a reader I used this 'material' to try and do my own analysis of what could've gone wrong. As someone who is fascinated with psychology, I quite enjoyed this. Unfortunately, by the end of the book, I felt I needed to know more. I'd read and loved Defending Jacob, and Lacy Eye in comparison isn't as detailed or satisfying in terms of understanding the problematic child and the anguish of the protective parent. The end of Lacy Eye is very neat and clean and maybe unrealistically convenient - I found all the answers in terms of what happened but not as much in terms of why...not that one can ever truly know "why" someone turns out the way that s/he does but in the case of Dawn I thought there were too many gaps and unexplored questions.

In terms of pace, it really didn't bother me at all. In fact, I loved the way it was written and if I had the time, I would have read it in one sitting. Hanna's voice is intimate and accessible, and the book was both an easy and intelligent read in my opinion. I am definitely interested in reading more from this author.

Lacy Eye / If She Did It is a well written debut novel, with a perfectly thought out chilling plot.

Hannah is disfigured, slightly cognitively impaired and suffering from a memory block of the night her husband was bludgeoned to death and she was left for dead. Very simply, and without giving too much away – Rudd Petty is in prison for murder and attempted murder of Joe and Hannah. Rudd is their daughter, Dawn's, boyfriend. He's just got his appeal and this means that Dawn could be indicted for the attack on her own parents. Hannah 'knows' that Dawn wasn't involved – Dawn had an alibi, didn't she? But a neighbour saw her car in their driveway. Hannah needs to get her memory back – not for herself, she's quite happy not to have memory of that horrifying night, she needs to remember to clear Dawn's name.

The story is uncomplicated in that there are few characters and everything is slowly being laid on a plate for the reader to digest, BUT, it is psychologically complex. What did Joe's best friend mean when he asked if he was sure Hannah was enough for him? The overhearing of that comment plays in the back of Hannah's mind for years, making her question her own flaws. Joe himself seems to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, not quite comfortable within his own family. Their daughter Dawn, cruelly bullied and teased as a school girl, grows into a duplicitous adult, almost to the point of being a bully herself. Her main let down is the fact that she was never very bright at school and she's not very bright as an adult either – ding-dong. She thought it was all about her eyes, suffering with amblyopia (lazy eye), but it goes much deeper than that, she's teased and disliked because she's who she is, slightly strange. And then there's Emmett, the weird scoundrel living next door. Not quite off the hook, he's still on the horizon as possibly being involved with the attack.

As the pages are turned there are new revelations. I wouldn't so much say that it's full of twists and turns as revealing memory and divulging supressed emotions to fill in all the holes surrounding the events leading up to that night as well as the murderous assault itself.

A very good psychological thriller, gripping and entertaining but not quite a five star read for me. I will certainly recommend to friends and will watch out for more books by Jessica Treadway.

I would like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

**** 4 out of 5 Stars
Review by: Mark Palm

In The Family...

If you want to see me bolt like a vampire from a wooden stake, call a novel “Psychological.” I lay the blame for this a a former Literature professor who had an unusual fondness for psychological analyses of books, along with a belief that the works of Henry James was the pinnacle of fiction. When you combine the two I spent the majority of the class either gnashing my teeth or trying to catch a nap in the back row of the classroom. At the base of my aversion is a dislike of viewing a work as “psychological” when it is not.

Then there is Lacy Eye by Jessica Treadway, which is a psychological thriller, and an exceptional example of how effective such a book can be when the right touch is applied.
The story starts quickly when we discover the narrator, Hanna Schutt, is trying to put her life back together after suffering a brutal assault in her own home; an attack that killed her husband Joe, and left Hanna with serious injuries and a gap in her memory. The D.A. who prosecuted the case three years ago informs Hanna that the man convicted of the attack, Rudd Petty, will have the case appealed. The rub is that Rudd was the boyfriend of Hanna’s younger daughter, Dawn, who met the older Rudd while she was away at college. While many believe that Dawn was involved, Hanna does not, and even though she cannot remember the attack she is resolved to try, so she can testify and keep Dawn from being indicted.

As a child Dawn was withdrawn, socially awkward, and suffered from a “lazy eye.” Being a solitary child herself Hanna is very close to her daughter, and with her husband Joe they do their best to help Dawn as she is relentlessly teased and taunted by her classmates, and sometimes even by her older more popular sister, Iris. Still, they feel a bit uneasy about Dawn’s inability to mature and her willingness to ignore reality in her desire to fit in. Then, as her mother is trying to dredge up memories of the attack that shattered her life, Dawn, who has been gone since the trial come back to live with Hanna.

Unreliable narrators have become as ubiquitous in suspense novels as hunky Monster-boys in YA books, and for a few moments in the beginning I was thinking that I would be led down the same old road, but I was quickly proven wrong. Ms. Treadway’s use of Hanna’s loss of memory is solid and assured. The story continues with Hanna and Dawn living together as Hanna tries to regain her memory, all the while visiting her older daughter, Iris, now married with a child, who still believes that Dawn may have had a part in the attack. As the date of Rudd’s appeal grows closer the story artfully shifts from past to present, revealing more and more details as it goes. There are no car-chases or gun-fights or double agents, but with her nuanced language and carefully-crafted plot Ms. Treadway makes this low-key story a grueling exercise in suspense.

Oddly enough for me, one of the main things that makes it so tense is the psychology. Ms. Treadway knows these characters, and brings them to such life that you feel that she has spent her life with them, and that it what finally makes this novel as good as it is.

Full reviews available at: [...]

3.5 Jessica Treadway's latest novel is Lacy Eye. The cover's tag line......What if you began to suspect your child of an unspeakable crime...had me intrigued.

Hanna and Joe's youngest daughter Dawn, was always socially awkward and a step behind, "like there's something missing." When she goes away to college, they have high hopes that she will settle in and find her place in the world. What she does find is an older boyfriend, one who isn't quite what he says he is. Shortly after a visit by Dawn and Rud, Hanna and Joe are the victims of an unthinkable crime. Rud is convicted, but with an appeal looming, the crime must be revisited. Hanna's memory of that night is completely blanked out. While others question if Dawn was involved, Hanna steadfastly defends her daughter.

Steadway does a great job of drawing the reader into Hanna's mindset - the fear of reliving what happened, the frustration of not being able to remember and worst of all, the uncertainty that clouds her relationship with Dawn. Treadway takes us from present to past and back again as she slowly reveals more about Dawn, Hanna, Joe, their relationships and what might have led to where they are now. I was conflicted about the characters - I had a hard time liking Hanna and her husband, despite them being victims. Dawn is just as much a victim in many ways. I think it would have been interesting to 'see' things from Dawn's point of view as well.

The title? Lacy eye - "trying to make something prettier than it actually was." Choosing to see only what we want to see, not necessarily reality. Turning a blind eye you might say.

Treadway has taken inspiration for her book from a real life case. Those looking for a mystery or fast paced thriller won't find it in Lacy Eye. Instead, it's a slow building read to the final (expected) answer of whodunit.

I read this book really quickly and found myself sucked into Hanna’s life and memories. She suffered a brutal home invasion attack which left her disfigured and her husband dead, and there was suspicion cast on her youngest daughter. That sounds like a complete nightmare to a parent.

The story focuses mostly on Hanna and her quest to remember what happened that night, as she’s been asked to testify at an appeal trial for her daughter’s boyfriend, who was found guilty of the attack. At the same time, her daughter comes to live with her, and Hanna struggles with figuring out exactly who her daughter is.

I found this to be a very powerful read as it makes you realize that you can’t possibly fully know someone, even when they are extremely close to you. Everyone has secrets and sides to themselves that they shield from the people around them.

Overall, I was struck by how fragile life is, and how importance knowledge is. Ignorance is not bliss, and turning a blind eye to trouble can come back to bite you in the end. It’s better to face the truth, even when it hurts at the time.

The story of a mother recovering from a brutal attack by her daughter's boyfriend that left her husband dead and her own memory shattered.

Told in first person by Hanna, the mother, it begins almost three years after the original assault, with the news that her convicted attacker is being granted a new trial, forcing Hanna to confront so much she's kept hidden, namely was her troubled younger daughter Dawn involved?

Hanna struggles to move on with her life, and regain her memory of that night, all while not really knowing whether or not she wants to remember the brutality that cost her everything.

This is a page-turner of a story -- I read it in one long gulp -- with a few issues of pacing and tone. I found Hanna incredibly frustrating; almost as much so as Dawn, though I think that was likely the author's intention. My biggest gripe would be with the ending, which, following a let's just say (to avoid even the hint of spoilers) odd, somewhat rushed resolution to the main plot, then continues with an afterwards/wrap-up that seemed both unnecessary and gratuitous, and actually diluted the power of the book itself for me.

The familial relationships are fairly well-described and the few key characters all strongly, if not always compassionately, drawn. Elder daughter Iris probably gets the shortest shrift in the story -- she had less character development than the dog, Abby, perhaps the story's most sympathetic, and poorly treated figure -- but that's understandable as Iris was never meant to be the centerpiece. The portrait of the marriage that emerges between Hanna and Joe is also well thought out and real-feeling.

While I didn't flat out love this, I definitely wanted to know where it was going and it was a quick, engaging read.

Hanna is a woman full of love. For her husband, Joe, she says, “I loved him for not trying to be anything other than what he was.” For her daughters hers is a love that only wants to see the best in them. As all mothers do, don’t they?
The novel moves as smoothly as a river from past to present as pieces of the puzzle are revealed. Treadway dispels the advice often given to writers to keep flashbacks to a minimum. The novel relies heavily on flashback and Treadway’s brilliant handling of them proves that she’s a pro not afraid to take risks.
This is a psychological thriller revolving around family dynamics and the horror that arises from wanting too much to be loved. The novel left me wondering how I would react if I were in Hanna’s position. Lacy Eye is every mother’s nightmare.

Do we ever really know anyone? is it possible to miss what is before our very eyes? Jessica Treadway explores how our emotions, expectations, guilt and even upbringing impact our perceptions and what we choose to see about the people we love. Lacy Eye is similar to We Need to Talk about Kevin, Cape Fear and the Bad Seed but its approach is unusual and the culprit isn't clearly identified at the beginning of the novel.

At first glance the title, Lacy Eye appears to refer to the lazy eye of one of the main characters. The title is much deeper and reflects the basic theme of the book: Love is blind.

Hanna and Joe meet in college. Both are products of deceptive fathers. Together they decide their life will be different, everything will be transparent, controlled and orderly. Joe, an accountant runs sums of figures and Hanna is a nurse and homemaker. While they live in an upscale neighborhood near Albany, New York, in a good school district, their home is modest by neighborhood standards. They have two daughters - Iris and Dawn. Iris is blessed with stunning good looks, talent, confidence, intelligence and intellect. Dawn lacks confidence, is cowed by her sister and has a lazy eye that turns out. Joe favors Iris and Hanna favors Dawn.

Joe's life is orderly and organized until he his skull is smashed in while he is sleeping his bed. Hanna is also attacked but despite serious wounds, survives. Three years later she has no memory of the attack.

When the story opens Rud Perry, the attacker and former boyfriend of Dawn has won an appeal for a new trial. The DA is pressuring Hanna to search her brain for anything that might open up her memory of the attack. Dawn who has moved to Santa Fe New Mexico to start a new life. When she hears about the new trial, she offers to come home to support her mother should her brain unlock its grip on what actually happened that night.

As Hanna grapples with her reluctance to testify she must come to terms with her former life. She begins to see Joe not only as a loving family man but rigid in his ideas. She wonders how she failed Dawn so spectacularly that her beloved younger daughter took up with a mad murderer who destroyed their family. What did Hanna fail to see as their family grew and her children made choices?

Often fiction that deals with violent, unexpected attacks are usually attributed to the horrific but cliched reason of abuse of some sort. In this book there is none of this and that is what makes this killer so fascinating.

A disturbing book. A superb book. A book worth reading

Does a mother 'make' a child be popular or unpopular or sly or cunning?
Any mother who has ever looked at her child and wondered, " What did I ever do to deserve being treated that way?" , will empathize with the mother in this story.
Are some children born with 'badness' in their psyche? Can any amount of care and loving make a child 'right'?
Lacy Eye is stunning in its frank approach to a situation many parents experience, but no one talks about. Being fearful of your own child is a terrible experience. Covering up for that child until the unthinkable finally happens becomes a road of no return.
Some things...and some people...aren't fixable.

I received a copy of this book from the Reading Room in exchange for an honest opinion.

The premise of the book was good, as were the characters. I got frustrated by the slow pace of the book, and while I realize the trips down memory lane were intended to give us more background to the story or the family's life at the time, sometimes it just wasn't pertinent to what was going on (or not as the case may be) now.

I think it was a good portrayal of how much we believe what we want to believe, rather than what is the truth. Oh how willingly we deceive ourselves in a myriad of ways!!! And yet, the truth nags away at us, hoping that we come to recognize it when and as we're ready. That for me was the real story - watching the mother pull everything together and come to terms what her daughter had done. Also intriguing is the question, just how well do we know anyone? Even those we love with all of our heart... Overall, a good and worthwhile read.

This is one that I chose because the description sounded interesting, and it more than lived up to those expectations. Even with a frustrating narrator, this is one of the quickest page-turning reads I've found so far this year.

Hanna is still dealing three years later with the effect of an attack that left her husband dead and Hanna with memory loss. The man convicted of the crime is her daughter's boyfriend, and when his trial comes up for appeal, this same daughter decides to move back home. Hanna then spends the rest of the book trying to remember the events of that night, and trying to figure out Dawn's intentions in moving home. Hanna is a well-drawn character, and her unreliability due to memory loss adds that much more mystery to the book.

There's not much here that's groundbreaking, but it's just a well-plotted and fun read that drew me in immediately.

This was an intriguing book displaying the violent tendencies of a family destroyed from within by hiding behind the history of the sins of others before them. If you don't see evil does it still exist?
Hanna and Joe had the American dream of two beautiful daughters and a solid middle class life. When tragedy strikes and they are attacked in their own bedroom and Joe dies the trial that follows convicts one of her daughter's boyfriend. When he comes back up for trial on his appeal she has to try to fill in the gaps in her memory to see if Rud was the only actor or if her daughter was complicit in killing her own dad.
What follows is a glimpse inside a family that unveils evil that was there all along or did it happen because of Rud inserting himself in Dawn's life?
The flashbacks in Hanna's journey towards the truth were a bit excessive and I grew a bit weary of the jumping back in forth in Hanna's disjointed thoughts but it did keep me reading through the night to see if Dawn was an innocent as she proclaimed. I also loved the cover of the book and would read another book by this author.

I really liked this read for several reasons.
The first of which is that the main character,Hannah, is very likeable. Not at any time did I feel the author portray her totally naive or stupid in her reactions to her daughter Dawn and their situation.
The writing and pacing and reveals were so well done. The timing for how and what happened in Hanna's life was so perfect. I could see where she was coming from and really relate to her thought process and reactions.
I also appreciated how the author uniquely uses the title, Lacy Eye in explaining willful blindness.

Hanna is working to rebuild her life after an attack that killed Joe, her husband, and left her seriously injured. Rud, her daughter Dawn's boyfriend, is convicted for the crime. Dawn has a lazy eye and suffers from all of the childhood cruelties that come from being different than everyone else. Dawn comes home from a self-imposed exile right as Rud's appeal is soon to go to trial. Hanna had previously been unable to remember anything from the night of the attack, and she is determined to remember so she can testify at Rud's trial. As she goes through the process of remembering, events unfold that force Hanna to question her own childhood, how she raised her daughters, and Joe's treatment of Dawn's challenges.

This story is not only about Hanna's recovery and realization that life does continue after tragedy, but also about realization -- of Hanna's own strength, both of her daughters' personalities, and just how much childhood experiences affect adult life. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Thrillers/crime dramas are not my favorite genre, but this book has changed my mind.

This book immediately hooks the reader in with its premise. Hanna, the narrator, is still recovering the pieces of her life in the wake of the violent attack she suffered within her own home - an assault that resulted in the death of her husband nearly three years earlier. On the day the book opens, the man who is in jail - her youngest daughter’s boyfriend - will have his case appealed. Though Hanna does not remember the attack, she decides that she will do anything she can to remember so that she can testify to protect her youngest daughter, Dawn, from possibly being indicted as well. Popular opinion within the town holds Dawn responsible, and so she has not returned home in the three years. But Hanna has long done her best to defend Dawn against others, her difference marked her entire life not only in her social skills but also with her lazy eye.

But even Hanna’s elder daughter, Iris, is convinced of Dawn’s culpability. Hanna remains steadfast in her belief in her daughter’s innocence. But as Hanna reflects over her life and Dawn returns home, the tension increases as it is hard for the reader to be as certain as Hanna that Dawn is blameless. The added tension really makes the book impossible to put down and I read this one in virtually one sitting. It’s a gripping novel and while the plot is not entirely unpredictable, the book genuinely is un-put-down-able. Dawn herself remains more of an enigma in some ways that is entirely satisfying and it is refreshing to have so many characters not be physically attractive, and I think that this will be a good choice for inciting lively discussions amongst book discussion groups. It’s a smoothly written and definitely keeps the pages turning. I definitely plan on keeping my eye out for any of Treadway’s future novels!

One frightening night around the Thanksgiving holiday, someone entered the home of Joe and Hanna Schutt in Everton, New York, and clobbered them both with a croquet mallet, leaving Joe dead and Hanna near death.

Now, three years later, Hanna, our first person narrator, still struggles to put together the pieces of that night and fill in the missing blanks, as the man convicted of the crime, Rud Petty, who had been their daughter Dawn's boyfriend, has won an appeal.

There will be a new trial, and the pressure has escalated, as the DA hopes that Hanna will remember the moments she lost and help them with the case.

How can Hanna do that, as all she can recall are bits and pieces?

But then her daughter Dawn, who hasn't returned to the house since the crime three years before, calls to ask if she can come home from New Mexico, where she has been living. The older daughter, Iris, who believes that somehow Dawn was involved in what happened, is irate that she has returned. But Iris is married, with a young child, so she doesn't appear in the home very often.

Even though there is a mystery hovering overhead, the story, Lacy Eye, is a character-driven tale of a woman trying to discover who her younger daughter really is, by truly seeing her behavior and recalling the patterns that revealed themselves over the years. She struggles with the conflicts she feels whenever she realizes something truly disheartening about her daughter, like her inability to think of anyone but herself, with a special disregard for the feelings and possessions of others; her tendency to expect the care and attention of others, while giving nothing of herself. As a young adult, she seems unable to get up off the couch and do anything to help her mother, who works hard all day, and continually displays an attitude of entitlement. Her constantly addressing her mother as "Mommy" feels like a cloying attempt to garner favor.

I really could not stand Dawn, but Iris's attitudes were equally off-putting. Her condescending attitude toward her mother, as well as to Dawn, had a hint of arrogance about it. However, by the end of the book, she had redeemed herself in my view.

I felt sorry for Hanna, who was left with a disfigurement on the right side of her face, but I felt impatient with her tendency to give Dawn a free pass, who, as a child, struggled with amblyopia, from which the name "Lacy Eye" came--Dawn refused to call the condition "lazy eye." She was bullied by other kids, but there was always a sense that even before the "lazy eye" made its appearance, she was missing some major ingredient of likability.

The family dynamics of Joe, Hanna, and the girls had an undercurrent of denial threading through almost everything that happened. Joe was strict, but Hanna ignored most of what she didn't want to see and allowed things to happen, setting them all up for disaster, in my opinion. When Hanna appeared heavily steeped in denial, Joe often called her out on her "lacy eye," a term he used to describe her inability to see what was right in front of her.

It is easy to blame the victim, however, and throughout, I kept coming back to a sense of heavy uneasiness whenever Dawn showed up in a scene. What was going on beneath the surface with her? Would Hanna finally remember the significant details of that night? Would clarity allow her to truly see her daughter?

As events moved toward a conclusion, I could not help but grow intensely anxious, wondering how it would all play out. I was thoroughly immersed and connected with the story and the characters. The writing kept me engaged, and the characterizations were so fully developed that I left the story behind with a great sense of satisfaction. Definitely a 5 star read.

Though extremely difficult to read, this psychological thriller was fast paced and riveting. Jessica Treadway offers readers a well plotted novel. The story unravels bit by bit and the surprises twists are many and not telegraphed. Ms Treadway kept me reading until way too late in the night. The story is narrated by a woman who has survived a brutal and murderous attack, and the characterization is so vivid and disturbing that at times I found the events a bit too much. The settings were detailed and important. The character profiles were multi layered and interesting. I would definitely read more from Ms. Treadway.
*I received my copy from NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

It's been three years since Hanna and Joe were brutally attacked in their own home. Joe died as a result, while Hanna was left with permanent physical and mental injuries. Now the man charged with the crime is seeking an appeal, and Hanna is desperate to recover her memories of the night her youngest daughter's boyfriend tried to kill her, both to ensure he remains incarcerated and to put to rest any suspicion that her daughter, Dawn, was complicit in the attack.

The narrative unfolds from Hanna's perspective and can at times feel claustrophobic. Hanna is isolated, her belief in Dawn's innocence angers her older daughter, Iris, the case prosecutor and even strangers.

Hanna's wilful self deception is frustrating though it soon becomes obvious she has a long history of avoiding uncomfortable truths. And though her past reflects somewhat poorly on her, it's difficult to blame Hanna in the aftermath of the attack, for what mother would willingly entertain the idea that her daughter, whom she loves, wished her such harm.

While Treadway makes clear her sympathy lies with Hanna she demonstrates compassion for Dawn who struggled as a bullied child in the shadow of her older, popular sister. Nature vs nurture is a theme obliquely explored in Lacy Eye, through the relationships between mother and daughter and the differences between the two sisters.

The pace is measured as Hanna recalls the past and struggles with the events of the present. There isn't a lot of dialogue or action but the tension is palpable as Hanna comes closer to understanding the truth of what happened that night.

Lacy Eye is a powerful psychological drama, inspired by a real life incident. It's not an easy read but it is interesting and thought-provoking.

This is an intriguing psychological thriller. Three years earlier Hanna and her husband Joe Schutt were brutally attacked in bed. Joe died, and their daughter's boyfriend was convicted. When the case comes up on appeal, Hanna tries desperately to remember what happened, despite the brain damage she suffered in the attack. At the center of the story is the question of whether Hanna and Joe's daughter, Dawn, was complicit in the attack of which her boyfriend was convicted. Unpacking what actually happened that night creates a complicated and suspenseful story. There are numerous pieces which all ultimately fit together, but it is unclear how until the end. This is a stay up late to see how it ends sort of thriller.

What a good tale of suspense this was ! The story of a couple who had an intruder come into their bedroom one night while they were sleeping. Her husband was bludgeoned to death and she was very close to death, with brain and facial damage . At the trial , her youngest daughter's boyfriend was found guilty of the crime .
After several years go by, and an appeal is coming up ,with the possible chance of a new trial, her daughter suddenly reappears in her life .
A very suspenseful story, told just right. By the last few chapters, you are turning the pages faster and faster to find out how it will all end .
Very good book !

Set in the Albany, New York area LACY EYE is an above average novel of psychological suspense. The premise for the story reminded me of some of the real life stories I sometimes watch on television programs like 48 Hours or Dateline. The narrator, Hanna's husband Joe was found bludgeoned to death with a croquet mallet belonging to the family some three years before the opening narrative. Hanna herself was found with life threatening and facial disfiguring injuries from the same manner of attack in the couple's bed and has accompanying memory loss but is mostly recovered and resuming her own life the best way she can. Suspicion as to the perpetrator of the crime quickly fell on their younger daughter Dawn's boyfriend who had seemingly sociopathic tendencies and was believed to have been involved in a burglary at Hanna and Joe's home earlier that fateful Thanksgiving weekend. Suspicion also fell on Dawn herself an
awkward college freshman who had often been teased for her "lazy eye" which gives the book its clever title. Dawn had been thrilled with
the attentions of her new and first ever boyfriend before the attacks though his actions raised many red flags with her friends and family. When her boyfriend is convicted in the murder of her father and the grievous injuries to her mother and Dawn is not sentenced by the Grand Jury she retreats to New Mexico while her mother remains recovering in upstate New York convinced Dawn is innocent of involvement. Dawn suddenly returns to the Albany area with a flashy car and no visible means of support to live with her mother when her old boyfriend
unexpectedly gets a new trial.

In LACY EYE the author gives the reader a thorough understanding of Hanna as we learn about her own father's criminal activity, her relationship with her addicted to routine husband Joe, her career as a nurse and her parenting of her always quick to achieve older daughter Iris as well as her problematic younger daughter Dawn. At times as Hanna thinks back on the tragedy that has destroyed her family the book acquires a nightmarish quality. Hanna is a very sympathetic character and even troubled Dawn is at times as we learn about her painful childhood and teen years where she was often bullied. I liked LACY EYE as I felt the author's storytelling, character development and use of setting were convincing and compelling. . Just a bit of awkwardness occasionally in the storytelling keeps me from giving it the full five stars. NOTE: I rated this as some sexual content but there is actually very little and what there is is implied.

Lacy Eye is straight out of the tabloid headlines “kids who kill” (a popular theme it seems). It is bursting with suspense. At the heart of the story is narrator, Hanna. She and her husband were bludgeoned in their sleep. Her husband died and her daughter’s boyfriend when to prison for the murder. With the boyfriends appeal looming Hanna prepares for another bout in court. However, as she tries to recover memory of the night of the attack she struggles with doubts about her daughter’s innocence. The story is a taut thriller that asks the question “how far does parental devotion go”.

This is a great study of a flawed character, our narrator Hannah, in whose mind we readers live as she struggles to recall the night that she and her husband were brutally beaten in their beds, a beating that resulted in her husband's death and her disfigurement. Immediately after the beating, she told the police that her daughter was involved in the beating, though she later claimed not to recall anything. The book begins as she is trying to remember that night, though it quickly becomes apparent how much she has to lose if she does, and the book becomes a fascinating study in a mother's denial. Treadway does a particularly amazing job of portraying the daughter, Dawn, who is unlikeable yet is presented with compassion and complexity.

Lacy Eye is aptly called a “psychological thriller,” meaning that it is less of a traditional whodunit than the portrayal of a mother who would do almost anything to avoid believing the worst about her child. Treadway does a finely nuanced job of presenting all the ways in which Hanna deceives herself, until the moment she has to decide whether that self-deception is worth more than her own life. This is a suspenseful page-turner that will keep you thinking even after you have finished the book.

A vicious attack left Hanna maimed, her husband Joe dead and her dog injured. Her youngest daughter's boyfriend was convicted. The police and prosecutor suspect the daughter was complicit but lack the proof to secure an indictment. After physical and emotional treatment, Hanna is hoping for a return to some degree of normalcy. But that is not to be as the boyfriend is granted a new trial. This precipitates a return pf the suspect daughter, an imperfect child who paled in comparison to her beautiful, popular, accomplished older sister. Hanna had no memory of the horrific event, partly due to the injuries but perhaps also due to a subconscious fear of the truth. But slowly, her memory returns. Will the prodigal daughter's return bring peace or peril?

This book is reminiscent of the Christopher Porco trial. Porco was a college student who brutally murdered his father and maimed his mother in an affluent Albany, New York suburb. The parallels are many including identification via a dying declaration and subsequent loss of memory. Although I usually find such ripped from the headlines stories lacking, this one engaged and interested me. The portrayal of the family dynamics and the younger daughter's narcissistic, anti-social personality was fascinating and believable. The conflict between the extent of Hanna's love and compassion and her growing realization that her daughter may be a monster is credible. There are two episodes of animal abuse, neither graphic, but upsetting nonetheless. It dragged a tad in the middle but overall a satisfying read.

LACY EYE struggles to explain how the malevolent become evil and, in the end, finds no simple answer. Hanna and Joe were viciously attacked in their bedroom after an argument with their daughter, Dawn, and her boyfriend, Rud. Joe died at the scene of the crime, and Hanna lost her memory of the night along with some of her mental acuity. At the scene, before she was taken to the hospital, she whispered to the police that her daughter and Rud were responsible. Later, because of Dawn's alibi and Hanna's inability to recall the night of the attack, Rud is sent to jail while Dawn is not indicted but leaves town to start a new life. No one seems to believe Dawn is innocent other than Hanna; Hanna's other daughter and the rest of the town are shocked when Rud's appeal brings Dawn home to live with Hanna while Hanna tries to remember what happened that night so that she can testify.

Although, or maybe because, Dawn was socially inept and bullied throughout her childhood, something she blames on her lazy eye, she has always been Hanna's favorite. Hanna's memories of Dawn emerge slowly throughout the book, with Hanna seeming to play the meek mother to Dawn as manipulative daughter. Because Dawn's character is developed through the lens of Hanna's memories, the reader is caught between understanding Dawn as a victim of childhood cruelty or as a budding sociopath. The author, Jessica Treadway, convinces us that Dawn is a little of each without taking the easy route and implying that one leads to the other. It takes Hanna substantially longer to come to that conclusion than it does the reader. Because the reader views Dawn's actions through Hanna's eyes, it is not clear until the end of the book whether Dawn was involved in the attack on Hanna and Joe or not. The lacy eye of the title refers not only to the childhood name of Dawn's condition, but also to the way Hanna has of looking at the world through a gauze that obscures its harshness.

As Hanna confronts the past, she begins to grow beyond the timid and reserved woman she has always been, belatedly growing the moral core that had been missing prior to the attack. Although Treadway takes us back to Hanna's childhood, providing some of the circumstances that influenced Hanna's lack of a backbone, she doesn't allow Hanna to make excuses and take the easy way out. While the book is a thriller, it is also the story of Hanna's awakening. LACY EYE is complex and nuanced, and Treadway is an author to watch.

This review first appeared at www.reviewingtheevidence.com.

Lacy Eye by Jessica Treadway is an intriguing and thought-provoking novel that is also rather heartbreaking. Loosely based on a real-life crime, this tightly plotted novel is a suspenseful mystery about a family whose lives have been torn apart by a vicious attack that left Hanna Schutt permanently disfigured and her husband, Joe dead. Also deeply affected by the tragedy are the couples’ adult daughters, Iris and Dawn. Three years after the bludgeoning, Iris continues to struggle with depression while Dawn cannot escape the cloud of suspicion that has plagued her since her boyfriend Rud Petty’s arrest and subsequent conviction of the horrific crime. Hanna has always adamantly believed Dawn’s assertion Rud acted alone, but with no recollection of the crime, how certain can she be of her daughter’s innocence?

On the surface, the Schutt family appears to be the typical suburban family. Joe is a hardworking CPA who is incredibly organized and very comfortable in his skin. Hanna is a dedicated wife and mom who defers to Joe on most issues. Oldest daughter Iris is beautiful, smart, talented and popular. Youngest daughter Dawn struggles to fit in as she contends with bullies who make fun of her because of an eye condition. Of course Joe and Hanna are concerned about Dawn but they are hoping now she is in college, she will finally “come into her own”. At first, it appears their prayers have been answered as she forms a close friendship with her college roommate and she begins dating Rud.

But when Dawn brings Rud home to meet the family, they become suspicious of Rud and his reasons for dating their daughter. A confrontation between the four during a holiday visit occurs just hours before the horrific attack on Joe and Hanna, and the police quickly zero in on Rud and Dawn as their prime suspects. Without enough evidence to indict Dawn, the district attorney charges Rud and although most of the evidence against him is circumstantial, he is convicted of the crimes. After Rud wins an appeal three years after his conviction, the pressure is on Hanna to testify in the upcoming trial, but she truly has no memory of the attack.

Hanna’s blind faith in Dawn begins to falter as she reminisces about her daughter’s difficult childhood. Has she overlooked key aspects of Dawn’s personality that could indicate serious psychological problems? Were she and Joe too quick to dismiss teacher’s concerns about Dawn over the years? Is Hanna somehow responsible for Dawn’s ongoing issues? When Dawn returns home after a long absence, Hanna is forced to admit that everything might not be quite right with her daughter, but does that mean Dawn is capable of murder?

Written in first person from Hanna’s perspective, Lacy Eye is a contemplative story with quite a few twists and turns. This mesmerizing character study is quite compelling despite its sometimes dark and disturbing subject matter. It is an exceptionally well-written and fascinating mystery that Jessica Treadway brings to an stunning and absolutely chilling conclusion.

I received a complimentary copy for review.

It's been three years since Hanna and Joe were brutally attacked in their own home. Joe died as a result, while Hanna was left with permanent physical and mental injuries. Now the man charged with the crime is seeking an appeal, and Hanna is desperate to recover her memories of the night her youngest daughter's boyfriend tried to kill her, both to ensure he remains incarcerated and to put to rest any suspicion that her daughter, Dawn, was complicit in the attack.

The narrative unfolds from Hanna's perspective and can at times feel claustrophobic. Hanna is isolated, her belief in Dawn's innocence angers her older daughter, Iris, the case prosecutor and even strangers.

Hanna's wilful self deception is frustrating though it soon becomes obvious she has a long history of avoiding uncomfortable truths. And though her past reflects somewhat poorly on her, it's difficult to blame Hanna in the aftermath of the attack, for what mother would willingly entertain the idea that her daughter, whom she loves, wished her such harm.

While Treadway makes clear her sympathy lies with Hanna she demonstrates compassion for Dawn who struggled as a bullied child in the shadow of her older, popular sister. Nature vs nurture is a theme obliquely explored in Lacy Eye, through the relationships between mother and daughter and the differences between the two sisters.

The pace is measured as Hanna recalls the past and struggles with the events of the present. There isn't a lot of dialogue or action but the tension is palpable as Hanna comes closer to understanding the truth of what happened that night.

Lacy Eye is a powerful psychological drama, inspired by a real life incident. It's not an easy read but it is interesting and thought-provoking.

Every child gets a good mother, but not every mother gets a good child.”

----Amit Kalantri, an Indian author

Jessica Treadway, an American author, pens a compelling as well as heart-wrenching tale of a mother and a daughter in her new psychological thriller, Lacy Eye that accounts the story of a family where the husband and the wife were brutally beaten on their bed, due to which the husband died whereas the wife suffered memory loss and physical injuries unfortunately three years later, the man who did this to them is seeking an appeal to the court and that wife must put all her energy to try to remember that horrific life. And surprisingly this man was the wife's daughter's boyfriend.

Synopsis:

Hanna Schutt never suspected that her younger daughter's happiness would lead to her husband's death and the destruction of their family. When Dawn brings her new boyfriend home from college for a visit, her parents and sister try to hide their doubts because they're glad that Dawn - always an awkward child - appears to have grown into a confident, mature young woman in her relationship with Rud. But when Hanna and her husband, Joe, are beaten savagely in their bed, Rud becomes the chief suspect and stands trial for Joe's murder.

Claiming her boyfriend's innocence, Dawn estranges herself from her mother, who survived the attack with serious injuries and impaired memory. When Rud wins an appeal and Dawn returns to the family home saying she wants to support her mother, Hanna decides to try to remember details of that traumatic night so she can testify to keep her husband's murderer in jail, never guessing that the process might cause her to question everything she thought she knew about her daughter.

Hanna and Joe are a married couple with two daughters- Iris and Dawn. Iris has always been a popular and self-confident woman all her life, whereas Dawn has always been meek and socially awkward with no friends and has forever lived in the shadows of her elder sister- Iris, so when Dawn invites her boyfriend Rud to her family home, her parents were glad that she finally met someone. Unfortunately, the night turned out to be uneventful for Hanna and Joe as they were brutally beaten. Joe died because of his severe injuries whereas Hanna survived her injuries that left her with both mental and physical scars. Dawn and Rud are soon accused of the attack, following which they were taken into custody. Dawn survived the sentence to prison life, whereas her boyfriend couldn't.

Now three years later, Hanna who is now living with her daughters, is trying hard to remember that horrific night with all her strength so that the appeal that Rud has seek to the court gets refused, in order to punish for his deeds. Whereas Dawn is adamant on her opinion that Rud is innocent thus creating a bridge between the Hanna and herself and also between Iris and herself.

The writing quality is very strong and the mystery unreels in fragments, not too revealing or not too concealing. The pacing is very fast and the story flows smoothly even though from Hanna's POV it is difficult to get a clear view of the memories of the past that gives a definition to every member of the family, since she is suffering from memory loss due to the attack. The mystery challenged as well as intrigued me all through out the book, more than the mystery, it's unraveling answers threw me off the edges. Seems like the author knows how to untangle a messy knot slowly and teasingly with just bits and pieces.

This is a character-driven psycho-thriller, thus the strongest factor of this book is it's characters not the plot or the mystery and that the author have done it brilliantly. The author has a deep psychological grip on her characters, who are portrayed as multifaceted, flawed and sympathetic human beings, all achingly vulnerable, all wracked by fear and need and guilt. And the characters are portrayed strikingly well mixed with their flaws and shortcomings, anger, hatred, insecurities.

There is an undercurrent of mother-daughter relationship insecurities as well as siblings rivalry. Not only the mystery is challenging but so are the fractured relationships. From Hanna's POV, it is evident that she has forever preferred her younger daughter, Dawn than her elder one, Iris, that leads to yet another insecurity between the sisters. Hanna's confusing mind made me to have an open mind on the perspective of the whole situation. Hanna feels Dawn's involvement in the beat up is incorrect as well as innocent whereas Iris and rest of the cast of characters feels just the opposite. Thus a shifting perspective made the story even more alluring with the complexities and the confusion lurking in the air of the family home. of Hanna. Also it questioned me with Hanna's parenting style with her daughters, the way one teats or prioritizes one daughter over another, whether a bad childhood can affect someone to take a drastic step like Dawn against her parents. In short, the book questions the society with it's faults that silently kills the balanced psychology of a human being.

The mystery of whodunnit and figuring out a child's involvement to her parents' brutal attack kept me engaged till the very end and the way the author have swimmed into the depths of the memories and past of each and every characters that I couldn't stop turning the pages until the very end.

Verdict: Psychological thriller and crime fiction lovers will love this book.

Everton NY. Hanna Schutt & Joseph Schutt tell Dawn Schutt (daughter) goodbye. She is off to Lawlor College.

Fast forward Iris her sister & Archie got married.
Dawn (Lacy Eye, Amblyopia) brings Rud Petty (27, current B/F, vet technician) for Thanksgiving.
Horrible things happen to her parents Joe is killed & Hanna is so badly injured she remembers nothing of the incidence.

A bloody croquet mallet was later found in the garage.
Rud is suspected as is Dawn.
D/A Gail Nazarian ask & is granted an appeal.
Dawn moves back home.
Hanna hopes she can remember & clear her daughter’s name. Most of all she hopes Rud cannot get out incarceration ever.

Will the killer(s) ever be brought to justice?

I did not receive any type of compensation for reading & reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers & authors, I am under no obligation to write a positive review. Only an honest one.

A very awesome book cover, great font & writing style. A very well written mysterious crime book. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make another great mysterious crime movie, or mini TV series. 1 book you ust read to the very end. There is no doubt in my mind this is a very easy rating of 5 stars.

Thank you for the free Goodreads; Grand Central publishing; hardcover book
Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)

A mother's love is often blind, but never more so than in Lacy Eye. This quick-paced thriller, written in first person from the mother's point of view is often (but not always) nimble and quick and I found it difficult to put down despite the fact I often wanted to punch the characters in the neck.

Dawn is the daughter of Hanna and Joe. She's an outcast, disliked, probably because she has a lazy eye and doesn't fit in due to her appearance. When she takes up with a sketchy creep named Rud, things go dark very quickly. Hanna and Joe are attacked with a croquet mallet. Joe is killed while Hanna is badly injured and suffers memory loss. (As a horror lover, I enjoyed the weapon choice - it felt like a bit of a nod to Stephen King's deadly roque mallet [a type of croquet mallet] in The Shining.) At the opening of the book, three years have passed and Rud is serving time for the crime and Dawn, the lazy-eyed daughter, is determined to have him set free. A retrial is in the offing and Hanna is struggling to recall what happened that night.

As Hanna tries to remember the past, the story jumps around quite a bit and gets complicated, and I very much enjoyed those aspects, but I was never engaged by the characters the way I like to be. Dawn was an interesting study, the father not terribly likable and, well, Hanna... She is a mother who can't come to grips with the idea that Dawn may be as psychopathic as her imprisoned boyfriend. While I know this is a normal maternal reaction, this is the main reason I occasionally wanted to administer that neck punch. She finds every excuse in the world to heap all the blame on Rud and excuse her youngest daughter of any wrongdoing.

The book is a dark one, and behind the murderous details, it deals with a woman trying to rebuild her life after tragedy. There is a message of hope here that relieves the darkness and rings true as Hanna remembers her own childhood and how she and Joe behaved as parents to the damaged daughter.

This is a good read if you love psychological thrillers. It's not my usual genre, but it hooked me from the start and despite a few quibbles, I was highly entertained. A caveat: If you dislike animal horror, be wary. While Hanna's dog is not killed, it's injured and it made me cringe even though it's not very graphic, but I seriously dislike animals-in-peril threads. Also, I wasn't crazy about the ending, and that's entirely due to the dog thread. I thought it totally unnecessary.

Lacy Eye: when you willfully cover the truth with something prettier than it really is, despite evidence to the contrary, like putting a pretty piece of lace over your eyes - usually a form of denial.

Lacy Eye opens on Hanna three years after a savage attack in her bedroom leaves her disfigured, her husband dead and her daughter's boyfriend, Rud, in prison for the crime. Most of the rest of the family and neighbors believe her daughter, Dawn, was involved as well. Hanna is struggling to remember the events of that night so she can testify at Rud's appeal, all the while convinced that Dawn is innocent. The mystery surrounding the events is compelling and at times, even the reader doesn't really know if Dawn was involved or not. I definitely had my suspicions, but didn't know for sure until Hanna did.

Hanna's daughter, Dawn, has always been an awkward child because of an eye condition. She endured teasing from other kids and everyone refers to her as "Ding Dong Dawn." Her own family even acknowledge that she's odd and doesn't quite fit in. As an adult, Dawn is a strange woman and has sometimes bizarre reactions to people and situations - maybe because of her childhood, maybe not. That's one of the questions this book poses. How much of what we become is because of the things that happen to us as children, how much is because of the choices we make and how much is just because that's how we were born?

Throughout the book we're pretty much inside Hanna's head - what she thinks, what she remembers - and it makes for some slow reading. There's little dialogue. Instead, it's mostly inner monologue. On one hand, that allows the reader to really see Hanna's insecurities and regrets and understand her. It also kept the reader from understanding the truth until Hanna did. On the other hand, this makes the pace of the book incredibly slow and even boring in parts.

This was a pretty disturbing read about how denial can affect a person - a parent in particular. It's about how even through all the evidence, a parent only wants to believe the best about their child. Hanna was a hard character for me to like. I wanted to just shake her and make her realize what was right before her eyes. That just shows the extent of her denial and how it shadowed her.

Overall, this was a good read, but not great for me. I liked the mystery element and I liked finding out what really happened as Hanna remembered. I also liked the questions posed. However, I did not like the pacing and found this book incredibly slow and sometimes boring. I also found it hard to connect with the characters. I liked it but didn't love it.

Note: I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

This was one of those books I just did not want to stop reading. It had a compelling plot and complex characters. A woman and her husband are brutally beaten; he dies and she survives; and the question throughout the book is whether or not one of the couple's two daughters was involved. The book keeps you guessing, and in the meantime, you learn much about the daughter in question—her troubles growing up, and the way her parents and sister dealt with it—and you see the mother struggling with both her inability to remember the attack and with how she feels about the daughter. The book includes so much—it's about marriage, about parenting, about the sometimes prickly dynamics of a small community—and it's a mystery that keeps you turning the pages. Highly recommended!

Lacy Eye kept me riveted from page one to the end. It's a gripping, harrowing tale about a couple who were beaten up in their home allegedly by their younger daughter's boyfriend. The father was killed, while the mother survived. The story revolves around whether the younger daughter was involved in the attack. But this is much more than your traditional murder mystery. It's a psychological drama, and throughout, author Jessica Treadway deftly brings each character to life with description and thoughtful nuance. I recommend this book highly. It's simply an amazing read by a skillful writer who layers emotion into every sentence.

I love the psychological thriller and here's one that is as tense and fast paced as they come. Yet, it's also a fascinating character study of the mother, Hanna and daughter, Dawn. It's intricate in parts (and that's why I love the psychological thrillers). In many ways, it's like reading Hanna's diary with all the complexities and details complete with dialogue in the diary. Mind you, it's NOT a diary, it's a first-person account of a story you won't soon forget.

3 years ago Hanna’s world was torn about when an intruder murdered her husband Joe and left her for dead. Daughter Dawn’s boyfriend Rud was tried and convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment and Dawn herself came under suspicion. In fact, it seems as if everyone except Hanna believes Dawn was involved. Now, however, Rud has been awarded an appeal and is waiting for a retrial. Hanna herself has no memory of what happened that night and in order for the prosecutors to get a guilty verdict she is going to need to get her memory back and testify against Rud.

The story is told entirely from Hanna’s viewpoint and reads more like a survivor’s memoir than a novel. Her tale jumps about in time and subject and doesn’t always feel as if it is flowing well. I expected the read to be a lot more tense and suspenseful but that just didn’t come across at all.

Eyes and sight and seeing are very much to the fore in this read. Dawn has a lazy eye, Hanna’s eye was shattered during the attack and her other daughter is named Iris. The focus of the book is how love can blind you to a person’s faults, whether it be a romantic partner, parent, sibling or child. We see what we want to see and ignore what we don’t want to see. The story itself isn’t bad at all, but it just wasn’t as tense and gripping as I expected it to be. Thanks to the publishers for the review copy.

For those of you who enjoy psychological mysteries that involve intricate family dynamics try Lacy Eye. Taking place in Everton, NY this is the story of Hannah and Joe Schutt each of whom has a favorite daughter. For Hannah it is Dawn who is the apple of her eye and for Joe it is the elder daughter Iris. When Joe is murdered and Hannah left for dead Dawn's boyfriend Rud is convicted of the crimes. Dawn remains a strong suspect but there is insufficient evidence for prosecution.

Three years later Rud is facing a retrial after an appeal. Dawn, who has been living in Santa Fe comes to support her mother whose memory is unclear and leaves room for another suspect to the gruesome attack. And here we have the tension and suspense- is a mother naive and in denial as to her daughter's guilt? Does Iris have good reason to be fearful of Dawn's return? Are there unknown motivations and if so what and with whom?
Worth the read.

What an unexpected surprise. An article about this book, in the Chicago Tribune, led me to this wonderful book. I thought I was reading a who-dun-it book similar to Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train. There was some mystery involved in the book, but nothing to the extent of the two aforementioned books. This book was a beautiful story about a mother's life and love of her family and children. It addresses the many decision mothers make as they raise their families, and the guilt mothers feel about the decisions they have made as they raised their children. I loved this book. I have to admit I felt a bit sad as the book ended; a sadness that nagged at me for hours after I finished the book.

This wildly intelligent, harrowing, suspenseful novel challenges readers to confront the question of how tightly would family loyalties bind them if they have been affected by a truly awful crime.

The voice of Jessica Treadway's narrator is seductive, willfully innocent, sometimes maddening in this willed innocence; it's really a virtuosic performance.

You should read all of her books - she's a master.

Three years ago, Hanna's husband Joe was bludgeoned to death - and Hanna herself very nearly killed - by their damaged daughter's shady boyfriend. Dawn, their younger daughter, was always difficult, not just because of her lazy eye, but because of her apathy to the world around her and her sort of willful blindness to normal human relationships. Despite that, Hanna and Dawn always had a special relationship, even though Hanna knows that most people think Dawn may have participated in the gruesome killings that night. Now the boyfriend, Rud, has been granted a new trial, an appeal, and the D.A. has asked Hanna (who claims to be unable to remember what happened) to testify against him. But if Hanna remembers that night, what will she remember about Dawn? And why has Dawn suddenly returned to town, after years of absence?

Lacy Eye in many ways is about willful blindness: how we delude ourselves into not seeing things that are just in front of us, how we keep a happy rose colored tint to unpleasant truths. In the book, "lacy eye" was a term that Joe and Hanna used to describe Dawn's habit, as a child, of ignoring unpleasant news. It's also how Hanna has lived most of her life, since her father was sent to jail when she was a child. That willful blindness may have almost killed Hanna once, and cost Joe his life.

This is an interesting, but flawed novel. The setup is really strong: the tension of the new trial, of Hanna possibly remembering that night, and Dawn's sinister return to town, and the shadow of Rud hanging over things, is a compelling story. I read quickly and was startled to find, when I was on page 250 and starting to get restless, that nothing had happened yet. For the first 250 pages, Hanna reflects on her life and her children's upbringing, and wonders what Dawn is up to. We see mounting evidence of something being broken inside of Dawn, and we see how Hanna contorts herself to explain it away. The writing is strong, too; it flows like water.

But the plotting is a bit strange. After a long period of setting the stage, everything happens at once, near the end. I don't want to give away details, because of spoilers, but the way in which we find out what really happened that night is kind of anti-climactic. And after about 25 or 30 pages of quick story development, it all ends, and then there's a long coda that takes place a year later. It's like a roller coaster ride with just one drop: there's a very long climb where you build tension, and then one drop, whoosh, and then the ride is over. I wish there had been a bit more plot twist, a few more ups and downs on this ride. So, not a terrific read in the end, but not too bad, either.

This year's GONE GIRL! A domestic thriller about an awkward girl who falls into the arms of a dangerous new boyfriend. The parents rightfully feel something is off about him.

They are beaten in their bed. They did not act on their intuition. One survives.

A fast-paced and unforgettable novel, LACY EYE, sends the reader into the dark world of teen angst, teen social pressure, and the feelings of the surviving victim. Could their own daughter have caused such misery and hardship? Was it all Rud's fault?

A family drama sure to keep you up late as well as be somewhat less cavalier about texts, phone calls, and dates with boys the parents do not know well.

This book is intelligently written but it left me with a heavy sad feeling. It is a dark depressing story. A rather peculiar couple has two children: one normal, one with issues. How much do Dawn's issues come from being bullied and how much of her being bullied comes from other children sensing that she is dangerous? Why is the father so clueless? He constantly says the wrong thing, unaware of emotional needs in his compulsion to be precise. Would Dawn have turned out differently if her parents had been different? Why is the mother such a weak and ineffectual presence in the home when she is apparently good with people on her job? There is some light at the end, but I had to watch some comedy on TV to shake the dark malaise of this story. I think I would've like it better as a short story with less depressing narration.

I loved the building tension in this story and the payoff was excellent. It was a fascinating look at the raveling and unraveling of events of an incident and a family. It's not all about "who did it" but the fragile nature of human beings. This was chosen for a mystery book club I'm in and one of the better picks.

Save yourself time and money and skip this one. There is no plot twist. The mother is incredibly naive to the point where you want to shake her. You don't feel a bond to any of the characters. Just disappointing all around.

Introspective, this tale is told from the viewpoint of Hanna, survivor of a savage attack she can remember very little about.

A young man goes to prison for the crime but the big question is - did he have help?

The premise of this book sounded just like something I would like to read but in actuality I had a hard time making my way through this book. Long, dense chapters full of Hanna's frustration made the reading tough on this one.

The characters never did come alive for me. And there was very little dialogue.

This was a book I wanted to enjoy, even though about a tough subject, but I never did find that spark that makes a story come alive.

NOTE: I received this book from Grand Central Publishing through Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

I loved Lacy Eye by Jessica Treadway, and cannot stop thinking about--I read this lovely psychological drama too quickly, because I could not wait to finish it.

The story is compelling and disturbing, yet a treat to read. That is the work of a talented author.

The book is beautifully written, and touches on so many issues that mater...how people cope with unspeakable tragedy, how much we know and trust ourselves, how much we know and trust others. An exploration of secret fears, worries, what we think we see as parents and what we may fail to see? Such great material for contemplation and conversation.

Through Hanna, the main character, we learn almost immediately that her husband has been murdered, and she nearly murdered, in their bedroom at home. Their daughter's boyfriend is convicted on circumstantial evidence. A central question of the book: Is Hanna's daughter involved in the crime? Public opinion says yes, Hanna and her daughter Dawn are steadfast in their belief that Dawn is innocent.

The characters are drawn as recognizable and ordinary; the circumstances extraordinary.

I found myself rereading sections, trying to better comprehend what is ultimately unthinkable. The book is the opposite of a thriller, despite its sensational story...reading the book is a quiet and chilling exploration.

In Lacy Eye, Jeassica Treadway tells the tale of a dysfunctional family in the suburbs. I enjoyed the narration of Hannah, the mother of the family whose husband is brutally killed while she suffered traumatic injuries in a home invasion and was left to die. The book begins as Hannah still cannot remember all of the details of the horrible night she lost Joe, her husband. The man in jail for the crime is none other than her own daughter, Dawn's boyfriend, Rud. While Hannah feels Rud should be locked up forever for the crime, certain people, including Iris, Hannah's other daughter, believe Dawn may have been involved and is guilty of the crimes as well.

This book claimed to be the 'most disturbing book' I will read all year. It's not the most disturbing book I've read this year so far so that claim is for someone else. What I did like about this book is the unfolding of the story. The book is almost entirely of memory. There is a good bit of the story in the present but Hannah recalls a lot about her life with her family and even before she married Joe. Some jaunts down memory lane were interesting and some were detailed and boring. I considered giving Lacy Eye three stars but I have to admit, for the most part I found the story intriguing and thought provoking-it was just a little long in places that didn't move the story forward and often interrupted the present storyline enough to irritate me a couple of times.

Lacy Eye is a domestic story that really isn't a thriller or a huge mystery. It's somewhere between the two. The book probably could have been more of a thriller if Hannah wasn't so demure and overly rational about everything and more than once, I questioned her common sense.
Having a couple of teenaged daughters myself, I don't want to judge too roughly but at times Hannah could have been more assertive and not relied on Joe for all of the judgment calls in the household.
This will be a decent beach read this summer but it may not shock people as much as the publisher claims it will. For me, Lacy Eye is a three and a half.

This is such an interesting story. It's an imperfect book. It wanders a little in the middle. It feels more drawn out than it needs to be.

But the story is very interesting. Cognitive dissonance is such a fascinating subject. The difference between what we know and what we allow ourselves to know is great subject for a story. What Hanna chose not to see combines with a head injury make her an interesting unreliable narrator. I did get a bit frustrated with Hanna. Some of her struggles to get things felt too drawn out. There are some unbelievable bits.

But the idea was interesting enough to carry the story.

The person that recommended this book to me told me it was riveting and it really is ... I usually read to help myself go to sleep, but this book does not let you do that. This book should be read when you have a block of time, as it is truly hard to put down. I honestly can't say I love the characters ... they are all definitely flawed (except maybe the man across the street ... I think I fully liked him!) but this is a fascinating story with realistic characters dealing with unbelievable events.

Hanna and Joe had two daughters, Iris and Dawn. Their younger daughter, Iris, had a lazy eye. However, that was not her only problem. She was different from the other children. Many thought she was slow. Others thought she was awkward.

One day, Dawn brought her boyfriend, Rud, home to meet her parents. Things became much worse after a misunderstanding between Rud and Dawn's parents. It was apparent that Rud had stolen the family’s valuables. Not only did he deny it, but later that night, Hanna and Joe were attacked in their bed. Joe was killed and Hanna was scarred for life. Rud was the suspect. After time, Rud won an appeal, so Hanna tried to remember the details of the attack. Coincidentally, at the same time Dawn asked to move back to the family home.

This is an intimate telling of the story by Hanna. In this book, the reader becomes privy to her every thought. I wonder if that is what makes this story so very terrifying. This is dark and sometimes difficult to bear. The terror is often intense. Although I liked the naïve character of Hanna, the mystery was lacking and predictable. After all the tension, I could not wait to find out how it would end. I was expecting a really amazing ending, but it falls flat.

Maybe this book seemed so familiar because I recently watched the trial of a young man who was accused of attacking his parents while they slept, killing the father and leaving the mother terribly scarred with no memory of the attack. Every day she came in to court on his arm and even when his car was identified outside her house at night and they showed videos of his car leaving and returning to the campus, going through toll booths, she still protested his innocence. I often wonder how a woman can raise a serial killer or live with someone like BTK or the green river killer for years and not see that something just isn't right.

The book was listed under the "mystery/thriller" category but it seemed more like a psychological family drama to me. The mother was the protagonist and spent most of the book mulling over the relationships with her daughters and dead husband and walking the dog. Oh, and the relationship with a widowed neighbor just to throw in a little romance. I spent most of the time just waiting for her to catch up and feeling like slapping her upside the head.

Hanna Schutt never suspected that her younger daughter's happiness would lead to her husband's death and the destruction of their family. When Dawn brings her new boyfriend home from college for a visit, her parents and sister try to hide their doubts because they're glad that Dawn - always an awkward child - appears to have grown into a confident, mature young woman in her relationship with Rud. But when Hanna and her husband, Joe, are beaten savagely in their bed, Rud becomes the chief suspect and stands trial for Joe's murder.

Claiming her boyfriend's innocence, Dawn estranges herself from her mother, who survived the attack with serious injuries and impaired memory. When Rud wins an appeal and Dawn returns to the family home saying she wants to support her mother, Hanna decides to try to remember details of that traumatic night so she can testify to keep her husband's murderer in jail.

Lacy Eye is told from Hanna's point of view. It's her telling the story as a look back at life and the traumatic event that ends her husbands life and severely disfigures her. Hanna spends a lot of time trying to rationalize Dawn's actions more than anything else. As a parent, I get that, but there was too much of that here. I did read a good deal of this book with a knot in my stomach. It was sort of like watching a horror movie and knowing the bad guy is coming but you never know the exact moment he will. You know what I mean? BUT I kept waiting for a plot twist. Something that would make me gasp out loud from disbelief. That moment never came ... the ending was what I suspected all along. I did enjoy that the author wrapped up the story and left me knowing how the characters ended up. There was no grey area where I, as the reader, needed to assume future events.

Lacy Eye was a quick, suspenseful read that I believe fellow fans of intrigue and suspense would enjoy.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Great book, great read
I finished this amazing novel in two readings-- wow, I couldn't stop turning the pages! It's so compelling and as always with Jessica Treadway, so compassionate. I love how she gets into all these characters, making me feel for the Mom even when I also wanted to shake her and wake her up. Each character is so vivid, well-rounded and well-drawn.
And I love the dark humor regarding our Tabloid Crime era media and much more. As Publisher's Weekly noted, the plot here is so deftly woven. Jessica Treadway keeps the surprises coming, but each twist feels believable, right up to the Trademark Treadway killer last lines. Fellow readers, don't miss this great read and great book!

This is a nail-biter! I like the pace that the author has revealed the relationships of the family involved, as well as the inner-most thought processes of the Mother involved and how differently she viewed her world
as the mystery progressed. Not for the faint of heart!

A dark family drama about delusional love. A woman named Hanna is nearly killed and her husband Joe is and the primary suspect is their youngest daughter's boyfriend. The book opens with him serving time for the murder but he has been granted an appeal to retry the case. The couple was bludgeoned with a croquet mallet along with the family dog. Their daughter, Lacy, is loyal to her boyfriend Rud and is dead set on helping him get released from prison. The book unfolds with her mother who had suffered from amnesia trying to bring back memories from that horrific night. A very intense read.

The writing is great and it did get me through the book. However, it became harder and harder to read because I started feeling where it was going, and I was right. That's where it went. I do agree with the reviewer who points out that the narrator, Hanna, isn't the real main character. However, it wouldn't have worked to have Dawn narrate it either.

This is a very depressing book with an horrific theme. No, it isn't really gory. But it is a downer. I understand why it is getting some rave reviews, and therefore, I won't discourage anyone from reading it. You will love it or you will hate it so give it a try, but it may be far better to get it from the library rather than buy it.

When I read the concept for this book I was thrilled to check it out. It sounded right up in my wheel house of genres and types of books that I like to read. Sometimes the concept can get missed or not relayed as well when put to paper. Which I want to make clear that my thoughts on this book does not diminish the crime or the real people that experienced this event in real life.

What I wanted out of this book: Grit, emotional connection to Hanna and maybe even Dawn, steady focus on the story, and intense moments. I did not experience any of these things from this book. In fact, this book read painfully slow. No worries about gore as not much detail is given on the crime. It was easy to see why Dawn turned out the way she did. I stopped reading at page 176 but I did skip to the last 6 pages to see how this book ended. A fine ending.

Very enjoyable read! I galloped through Lacy Eye in just a few, highly entertained sittings. Beautifully layered, complex portrait of a family in crisis. Something in here for everyone -- even dog lovers. I strongly recommend. I'd love to see this on the screen, too. Oh, Julianne Moore, are you out there?

I've been in the mood for thrillers lately and Lacy Eye by Jessica Treadway seemed to fit the bill, telling the story of Hanna, who can't remember the details of the night that she and her husband were savagely beaten with a croquet mallet by her daughter's boyfriend. Rud has been granted a new trial and Dawn has returned home. Hanna hopes to remember some detail from the night that her husband died, something that will keep Rud in jail and put to rest her fears that their daughter was somehow involved. I didn't love this one. While Hanna wasn't blind to the fact that there was something off about her daughter, I couldn't figure out why she'd let her move into the house.

Disclosure - the publisher provided me with an ARC

Lacy Eye is a psychological thriller about a mother and wife name Hannah, she is victim of violence and attempted murder. Her husband Joe had died in the incident. The suspected person is Rud, her daughter's Dawn's boyfriend. Unfortunately, Hannah has suffered a memory loss from a severe injury on her head. She cannot recall what happened that night.. Slowly, but surely the memories resurface and it questions everything Hannah has believed in.

First Thoughts: I like reading psychological thrillers so I was quite happy I won a copy of Lacy Eye in a giveaway. At first, I didn't want to read this novel late at night and fill my mind up with horrifying thoughts. I find crimes of passion like these more disturbing than actual psychopaths and serial killers crimes.. because these people are normal people and they committed something so horrifying. Atleast with psychos, you can state they're mad and case closed. When normal people commit crimes, it makes you question everything.. Lacy Eye has a unique concept, but it fairly common in reality. I have heard of teenagers who's boyfriends have attempted to kill their parents. I've read books from the teenager's perspective, so I liked the change and from the parent's perspective. Was Dawn involved? I tried not to guess on who's involved with the attempt murder in thrillers like these anymore because my guesses usually end up being wrong so I have given up on that. Although, in this case - I made a guess, and I was right on!

Characterization & Romance: Hannah is a character I can understand, who would want to believe their daughter had the possibility of aiding her boyfriend to kill you off? That just sounds wrong on so many levels.. Hannah is a strong heroine, she's compassionate and a loving mother and wife.. She was a wife. Dawn is not suspected of anything, because she has an alibi and Hannah simply cannot remember what happened at that night. Dawn is one strange girl, she's always been awkward with no friends, she has been bullied throughout her school years. I understand the background information given on her, but I wasn't a huge fan of her. She seemed like she was .. off. Of course, all the signs pointed towards her involvement, blame it on the lonely and "weird" kid - but I was hesitant to believe she had anything to do with her boyfriend's Rud violent act. It's pretty sad to kill your parents.. Although, I did figure out if she was involved or not before halfway of the book so the ending became predictable. I did enjoy that ending though! There's barely any romance in this novel, there are glimpses here and there - but nothing too serious since this is the mother's POV.

Plot: I loved the concept and the thrill feeling of Lacy Eye. This did remind me a bit of Gone Girl. It did lag quite a lot though, I did like reading the novel, but it was boring at some parts. The writing is not bad, however, it was fairly slow, thrillers should be fast paced otherwise it kills the thrill feeling off.. The novel is mainly all inner thoughts, did Dawn do it or did she not? It is told in flashbacks half of the time, which was great. The ending came a bit too late.. I was thinking, COME ON ALREADY! Simply, because I had already guessed what would happen next. Overall, it is a good read but fairly average - It wasn't a bad attempt at being thriller, I would rate Lacy Eye 3 flowers.

Recommended for fans of The Silent Sister, Criminal, and Gone Girl.

Lacy Eye was highly disappointing. Here's the thing: when it comes to mysteries and/or psychological thrillers, the only thing that I ask for is for it to not be boring. Lacy Eye failed this so epically. It was dull and very slow-moving. Another thing that I disliked was that it was all "telling" and very little "show". I don't necessarily like pretty purple prose for the sake of making a book seem well-written, but some descriptive writing is your friend. The ending of Lacy Eye also fell flat. I say skip it and read something else.

I read this book in one day, because I was absolutely engrossed. Hanna and her husband are attacked by intruders. The husband dies, but Hanna, who survives head injuries, can't remember if her grown daughter and her boyfriend were the murderers. All evidence seems to point to the boyfriend but there is a real question about whether the daughter was involved. Is Hanna refusing to see the obvious? Will she figure out what really happened in time to protect herself from another murder attempt?

The novel asks us to examine the ways people deceive themselves, and how that leads to evil consequences. It's a more psychologically sophisticated and reflective book than the usual thriller. The characterization is deft. The writing does not call attention to itself; it is clear, easy to read and direct but never insults your intelligence.

Overall, I thought this book was excellent and really had trouble tearing myself away from it before I read the last page. I wouldn't call it flawless--what book is? Personally I flinch at any reference to cruelty to animals. That part wasn't graphic here, but it wasn't necessary in my opinion, and in a book I read to be entertained, I could do without it. The bit with the dog just left me feeling sad. Also the ultimate answer to the central question comes not so much through the actions of the protagonist as through the breathtakingly stupid behavior of another person. I don't want to give spoilers but I found that one plot point very hard to believe. Hint: It involves a newspaper article.

My five star rating does not mean perfect. It means despite my quibbles I consider this one of the best books of this genre I have read.

3 years ago Hanna's husband, Joe, was beaten to death in their home in New York, leaving Hanna scarred physically,mentally and emotionally. Rud Petty, their daughter Dawn's boyfriend, was convicted but is getting a new trial on appeal. Dawn is living in New Mexico. Gail Nazarian, the prosecutor needs Hanna to testify but now Hanna thinks it wasn't Rud Petty she saw but a neighbor, Emmet Furth. Dawn's older sister, Iris, is horrified when Hanna allows Dawn back in their lives. The prosecutor and Iris think Dawn was involved in the murder and beating of her parents.

Very believable however I ended up up not liking Hanna all that much.

See more of my reviews on The YA Kitten! My copy was an ARC I got at BEA 2014.

Me and adult lit? Pfffft, almost never. But someone abandoned their poor copy of Lacy Eye beside a booth at BEA 2014 and I felt compelled to help the sweet little book. Once I took a break from the chaos and read the back of the book, I realized Lacy Eye did in fact sound like my kind of book. You know those Investigation Discovery series like Scorned: Love Kills, Behind Mansion Walls, Deadly Women, and the like? Those shows used to be my crack before I got bored of their sensationalism, but this novel sounded like it was along those lines. While still better than those awful ID shows, Lacy Eye is a middling novel that may suffer most from the perspective its tale is told from.

Though I did intend to read the novel all in one day because I returned to college the next day, Lacy Eye kept me at attention the entire day and didn’t lose me even once. One-sitting reads are getting increasingly rare, so this novel being one of them is far more praise than it seems. Treadway does a fantastic job of keeping readers on their toes and making them wonder just how much Dawn really is involved.

However, the novel’s fatal flaw is that it’s told from the point of view of Hanna and not her daughter Dawn. After the attack that killed her husband and nearly killed her too, Hanna states multiple times that her memory isn’t what it used to be and she often has trouble remembering even names. Even as she says this, she goes on long tangents about things that happened in the past in far more accurate detail than she should. That’s an awfully good memory for someone who claims her traumatic brain injury made it difficult for her to remember stuff. Her impacted memory is nonexistent except for when it’s handy for the plot, like her inability to remember the night of the attack. Everything else? You never see the problems she swears she’s having with her memory.

Hanna herself is just a narrator, not a character. But Dawn? That is a real character. I want to crawl inside her head and figure her out. She’s contradictory and mysterious and exactly what readers will latch onto in this novel even though we see more of her in memories than we do in the present time. She’s who our narrator should be because she has both a standout personality and a unique perspective. Many would agree the right narrator of any story needs both of those traits. It wouldn’t be an easy task to take a character like her and write her point of view for over 350 pages, but it can be done. Have you heard of Amy Dunne?

Hopefully, the copy you may or may not pick up won’t include the bonus of a dead spider pressed between the pages, which is A REALLY BAD SURPRISE FOR AN ARACHNOPHOBIC WOMAN. If you want something with the salacious premise of an Investigation Discovery show but would rather read instead of watch, Lacy Eye is what you want.

I just didn't find this book to be very "mysterious" and I kept reading hoping for some sort of surprise or twist. Nothing was a surprise to me. I found Dawn to be incredibly irritating, spoiled, and just plain dumb, which in hindsight I believe is the authors intention. Characters were dull and just uninteresting. I'm not sure if this is the authors only book, but I would not seek out any others.

Slow moving story, rather weak mystery, story takes place mostly in the mind of the main character.
So a singular perspective, that gets old after awhile.
Quite a few sections of flashbacks to earlier parts of the main character's life, that don't move the story along.
Overall it was a slog to read and the ending made me feel like I wasted my time.

Not recommended

After I read the blurb for this one, I just had to read it. Can you imagine being in that situation?!? The premise was terribly frightening and I thought that it would be such an amazing book. Unfortunately, that is not exactly how this played out for me. At all.

At first, Lacy Eye really read like Gone Girl. That's all I could think about as I read it because it was so full of an inner monologue that never seemed to end. The difference is that the inner monologue did eventually go away in Gone Girl and it never really did with Lacy Eye. You're mostly just reading what the mom is remembering (at first) and thinking. Due to there being hardly any actual conversations this book just really dragged for me. I won't lie. It was boring. Positively boring.

I think that the worst part is that I felt like I was wasting my time every moment that I had this book in my hands. That is horrible to say but the story really just didn't go anywhere for me. Sure, it went through the mom trying to recover her memory and then recovering her memory but it still felt like I was on this treadmill of death, just looking at a picture of a location in front of me and walking for forever but never realizing that I'll never actually get there. That's what this book was for me.

The characters weren't interesting to me or even memorable, for that matter. And I found the main character, Hanna, to be a bit unrealistic. Her "memory loss" was just totally unrealistic to me. Because she seemed to have an amazing memory when she was bringing up things that had happened 23 years ago and she knew what everyone was wearing, how their hair looked, EXACTLY what they had said ... maybe that is an exaggeration but that is how it felt. I just couldn't connect with her or any of the other characters. I wish that I knew more about them. Not just the stuff that they had done but about who they actually were.

I don't think that I'll pick up another novel by this author again. The writing wasn't bad, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Lacy Eye has really high ratings, which kind of surprises me but it shows that I am definitely in the minority on this one. But I'm totally okay with that.

A slow read, dull content. The author's writing style is tedious rather than flowing and paced, and I am struggling to read more than a few pages at a time. Since the pllot is thin and key details are repeated throughout, the storyline advances slowly, too slowly, as a result. A disappointment.