Title/Author: The Kill Club by Wendy Heard

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

In a nutshell (Publisher):

A haunting thriller about a woman who attempts to save her brother’s life by making a dangerous pact with a network of vigilantes who’ve been hunting down the predators of Los Angeles.

Jazz can’t let her younger brother die.

Their foster mother Carol has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time.

Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution. There are others like her, people the law has failed. They’ve formed an underground network of “helpers,” each agreeing to murder the abuser of another. They’re taking back their power and leaving a trail of bodies throughout Los Angeles—dubbed the Blackbird Killings. If Jazz joins them, they’ll take care of Carol for good.

All she has to do is kill a stranger.

Jazz soon learns there’s more to fear than getting caught carrying out her assignment. The leader of the club has a zero tolerance policy for mistakes.

And the punishment for disobeying orders is death.

My thoughts:

Joaquin didn’t get the care and love he deserved from their foster mother, Carol. He was diabetic and she wasn’t giving him the insulin he needed, and it infuriated Jazz. Jazz sought help from DCFS and the police, but neither showed concern nor urgency to help. If this continues, Joaquin’s life will be in danger and this definitely didn’t sit well with Jazz.

Then one day, she received a call and was given an opportunity to get her life and Joaquin’s back on track. She’d get to live the life she wanted with Joaquin, with one condition: that she’d kill a stranger. This call came from a flip phone she swiped from a brawl she got involved in when she was playing with her band at a pub.

She was appalled at first, I mean, who on earth would agree this! But as the caller revealed the details of the assignment, she found herself agreeing to it, to kill in order to save Joaquin, hence being part of, what she called ‘the murder club’, whose participants, who were victims of abuse, agreed to kill to get rid of the person who made their lives a living hell. Jazz was determined to succeed in her assignment, but things didn’t go as planned, and everything spiraled out of control thereafter.

Woah. What a thrilling ride this was! The novel was fast-paced, kept me turning the pages, and when I wasn’t, I kept thinking about Jazz. She is unlike any other protagonists in the psychological thrillers that I have read so far, a reliable narrator for one, and not an alcoholic! She’s tough, no-nonsense, smart, funny and one helluva bad-ass! She is also one of those friends you know you can rely on.

And my, those curveballs and plot twists that came one after another. It was just brilliant. I was only correct on one occasion, and the rest were unpredictable and they came when least expected. Very masterful.

This book also made me question, how far would one go to save a loved one? And who are we to say who’s right or wrong? Carol was suffering too, she, to me, had either been misled by the people around her, or just mentally unstable. She needed help just as much as Joaquin and Jazz did. Did she really deserve to die? Was Jazz rash in accepting the assignment, thinking it was the best way to save her one and only family?

And of course, things won’t go well when humans try to play God.

Also, at the end of the book, the author noted that the victims’ stories in this novel are all based on true life accounts, which made it even more compelling than it already is.

Overall, a fantastic read! Just one thing though, without giving anything away,..Jazz did something really wrong at the church, and it bugs me a lot what had or had not happened after that. Did I miss something? If you’ve read this, enlighten me please!

Thank you Harlequin Mira for the invitation to this blog tour! I totally enjoyed reading The Kill Club!

About the Author:

Author Bio: Wendy Heard, author of Hunting Annabelle, was born in San Francisco and has lived most of her life in Los Angeles. When not writing, she can be found hiking the Griffith Park trails, taking the Metro and then questioning this decision, and haunting local bookstores.

Buy Links:

Harlequin

Apple Books

Barnes & Noble

Books-a-Million

Google Play

Indie Bound

Social Links:

Author website

Twitter: @wendydheard

Instagram: @wendydheardFacebook: @wendydheard

Have you read this book? What did you think? If you haven’t, do you intend to? Please share with me your thoughts!

Once again, thank you for stopping by!