Heart Of Glass by Jennifer Hillier
Book 2: Wonderland Series
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: August 25, 2026
Format: Hardcover - 368 pages
Audiobook - 12 Hours 57 Minutes
Kindle - 351 pages
Nook - 368 pages
ISBN (Hardcover): 978-1250763181
ASIN (Audiobook): B0FN8RGKRJ
ASIN (Kindle): B0FLYNQ275
BNID (Nook): 978-1250763198
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Buy The Book:
Disclaimer: I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I also purchased a hardcover edition from my Book Of The Month (BOTM) monthly subscription.
Book Description:
A serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a small-town high school girl―and her then-best friends are forced to confront what really happened that night and what's happening now.
Seaside is a small coastal town, known originally for the local amusement park. But twenty-five years ago, a serial killer dubbed The Carnival Killer confessed to the murder of a local high school girl. Now, he's recanted that confession.
Barb, Nicolette, and Lorelei were best friends - then they met "Sam" at Wonderland, the local amusement park. After hanging out with him there, and accompanying him to the drive-in movie, where the twenty-something handsome drifter made out with Lorelei in the backseat. That night was the last time Lorelei was seen alive, her murdered body surfacing a couple of days later in a local cranberry bog.
Barb's dreams of leaving Seaside and becoming a successful writer never materialized and she is a freelancer for the local newspaper and, secretly, writes anonymously about reality tv stars for a hugely successful gossip website called Reality Bitch. Specifically, she writes savagely about a long-running show set in Canada called Trophy Wives.
Nicolette left town shortly after Lorelei's body surfaced, never to return. Ultimately, she married a very rich man, moved to Toronto and rebranded herself as Cole Lennox, one of the stars of Trophy Wives.
With the amusement park about to reopen, revitalizing the dying town of Seaside, the Carnival Killer recants his confession about killing Lorelei, the dead body of young woman washes ashore, and the truth about what happened that night twenty-five years ago - and what is happening now - threatens not only the carefully constructed lives of Barb and Nicolette, but the very fabric of Seaside itself.
My Book Review:
In Heart Of Glass, the second book in the Wonderland series, author Jennifer Hillier weaves a riveting thriller that easily draws the reader into a dark storyline that follows a twenty-five-year-old murder that resurfaces when the convicted serial killer decides to recant his confession, setting the small coastal town of Seaside, Washington in a tizzy.
Twenty-five years ago, fifteen-year-old best friends Barb, Nicolette and Lorelei meet an older drifter named Sam Figg at the Wonderland amusement park, and they all go in Sam's car to the Starlight drive-in where a tragedy occurs to Lorelei. Sam Figg confessed to Lorelei's murder, but now with terminal cancer, he decides to recant his confession in a docuseries that is being made, Criminal Confessions - The Carnival Killer. If Sam recants the murder, and the truth about what really happened that night comes out, it can threaten the lives of Barb and Nicolette.
Heart Of Glass is a complex and multi-layered tale that is told in the third-person narrative focused on Barb, Nicolette and another reality star, Kylie Kahl. The reader is taken along for the ride when the twenty-five-year-old murder is revisited in alternating past/present timelines. Just when you think that is enough to keep you turning the pages, the author throws in an intertwining storyline where three reality stars go missing over a span of six years in the Seaside area, with Barb and Nicolette thrown into the mix of it all.
This is a slow-building thriller that has so many riveting twists and turns that kept me guessing. With the uncovering of long-buried secrets, the intertwining connections between the past and the present mystery of the latest disappearances, this complex story kept me in suspense until the surprising conclusion!
Heart Of Glass is the second book in the Wonderland series, but it can also be a stand-alone book.
Heart Of Glass is an intense thriller that will keep you in suspense!
Rating: 4 Stars
About The Author
Jennifer Hillier imagines the worst about people and then writes about it.
She's the author of seven psychological thrillers, including the USA Today, Toronto Star, and The Globe and Mail bestselling Things We Do in the Dark, winner of the ITW Thriller Award for Best Audiobook. Described as “an intoxicating thrill ride” by the New York Times and “propulsive and chilling” by People magazine, it was a Book of the Month Club selection, an Indigo Top Ten Best Book of the Year, an Amazon Editor’s Spotlight Pick, a Loan Stars pick, and her third consecutive novel to be honored as a LibraryReads pick, which places her in their Hall of Fame.
She's also published six other novels, including the USA Today bestselling Little Secrets (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Anthony Award), and Jar of Hearts (winner of the ITW Thriller Award for Best Hardcover Novel and shortlisted for the Anthony and Macavity Awards). She also wrote Creep, Freak, The Butcher, and Wonderland, which have been recently reissued by Gallery Books in beautiful trade paperback formats. Her books have been published in twenty-four languages so far.
Jennifer is Filipino-Canadian, born and raised in Toronto, but she spent eight amazing years living in Seattle, which is where she first became a published author. She's a Seahawks fan who married a Packers guy, and they have a son in middle school who wishes she wrote books like Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (she does too, kid, she does too).
She's afraid of the dark and can’t sleep unless she's checked the locks on the doors several times. She loves writing when it’s raining, sleeping when it’s sunny, and reading after everyone else has gone to bed. She's a cat person without a cat, which makes her sad. But she's now back in the Toronto area permanently with her family, which makes her happy.
Heart of Glass, her newest thriller, will be coming August 25, 2026 from Minotaur Books.
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