Jennifer Hillier: Heart of Glass

Twenty-five years ago teenagers Barb, Nicolette and Lorelei were inseparable. One night at the Wonderland amusement park, they met a charismatic drifter. Days later, Lorelei was dead, and the man eventually identified as the Carnival Killer confessed to her murder along with four others.

Now, decades later, he has withdrawn that confession and a young woman’s body washes ashore as Wonderland prepares for its grand reopening. For Barb and Nicolette, the past suddenly becomes impossible to avoid.

While Barb remained in Seaside and became a reporter for a small local paper, Nicolette left town and constructed an entirely different life. Their friendship fractured from that evening, but both women know far more about the summer Lorelei died than they will ever admit.

Hillier moves effectively between past and present, gradually showing how memory, guilt and self-preservation can reshape the truth.

There are plenty of twists here and Heart of Glass reveals the dangerous consequences of believing that the past can remain safely buried.