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Small Town Nightmare

(Lucy Hush series #1)

Anna Willett (Goodreads Author)

4.14 · Rating details · 821 ratings · 68 reviews

A young drifter is in deep trouble, his sister is his only hope...

Lucy’s younger brother has gone missing. When she sets out to find him, the trail takes her to Night Town. It’s a rural backwater deep in the forests of south western Australia.

Lucy tries to enlist the help of the local police, but she is met with hostility. She befriends a man who might help her cause. ...more

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Kindle Edition, 227 pages

Published August 26th 2018 by The Book Folks

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Lists with This Book

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Best Australian crime by women 2019

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Community Reviews

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Average rating 4.14 ·

Rating details

· 821 ratings · 68 reviews

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Start your review of Small Town Nightmare (Lucy Hush, #1)

May 28, 2019 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018-release, thriller, mystery, suspense, aussie-authors, read-on-kindle, own-read, psychological-thriller

Small Town Nightmare, first in the Lucy Hush series by Aussie author Anna Willett was exceptional! Gritty, intense, breathtaking – I’ve discovered a new Aussie author (which is a cause for celebration) in a genre I thoroughly enjoy. And she has more 😊

Lucy’s younger brother hadn’t returned home for her birthday and that in itself was cause for alarm. Tim had lost himself a little after the death of their parents, but he always returned from wherever he was for her birthday. She’d received a text ...more

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Feb 08, 2021 Marie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: kindle-owned-read, ha-2021-a-z-challenge, ha-2021-mt-tbr-challenge, crime-thriller-anna-willett

This was a mysterious and suspenseful story!

A small backstory:

Lucy hasn't heard from her brother (Tim) in a few days and she is worried that something has happened to him. The last time she talked to him, Tim had given her a location of where he was camped out.

So Lucy heads that way to find out what she can learn of his disappearance in the last town where he had been. Along on her journey she comes across a man (Damon) that is also looking for someone that has disappeared in that same area ...more

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Apr 28, 2019 Kim rated it really liked it

Shelves: kindle-read

This is my first read of this author's books and, if this is anything to go by, I'm glad that I've got another couple downloaded and ready to read! A gripping tale as reporter Lucy Hush travels to a small Western Australian town in search for her missing brother - and stumbles on a town of secrets where no-one will tell her anything and she feels very much under threat. Fortunately she meets up with a private detective who is looking for another missing young man, who also disappeared having las ...more

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Feb 18, 2020 Bandit rated it liked it

I didn’t know this was book one in the series, I don’t care for series as a format, but the author I kind of like. She frequently posts kindle freebies and I was able to grab and enjoy a bunch of them, usually short thrillers set in Australia. Some have been more fun than others, this one was sort of in the middle. Lucy, the intrepid protagonist, journalist by training, comes to small creepily named Night Town to look for her disappeared drifter brother Tim. The locals are cagey and unfriendly, ...more

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Oct 15, 2018 Diane Dickson rated it it was amazing

Another super novel by Anna Willett. Anna is able to write characters who really do live on the page. Because of this you care about them, about how they feel and what they suffer. You really care about whether they are able to triumph in the face of disaster - and she certainly ratcheted up the danger and tension in the latter stages of this book. Do they triumph - Well that would be telling and there are bad bad people at work here and real life isn't all about rainbows and butterflies.

There ...more

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Nov 26, 2018 Hobart rated it liked it

Shelves: 2018-reads

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---

She wondered how much she should reveal. Her history was painful, and rehashing it for a stranger wouldn’t really help.

“It’s complicated, but I know he wouldn’t not show.”“Not unless something stopped him?” Damon asked, finishing her thought.

“Something or someone.” As she spoke, they rounded a bend and the road tapered downwards. In the distance she could see a cluster of buildings dotted with patches of open fields and circled by forests

...more

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Nov 26, 2018 Bucks, Books & Beyond rated it really liked it

As with any good book that fits into the ‘thriller’ category there is a good twist at the end! I won’t say more than that as I don’t want to ruin any surprises but it’s worth reading on for. I really enjoyed this book, it encompasses a well thought out, well written plot with likeable characters and a good ending.

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Dec 31, 2018 Jaime Melton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book was a wild ride for me. I felt it had lots of twists and turns and suspense. I had to put it down a few times, hehe. (I read romance typically for a reason.) I found the ending to be a bit surprising. Very easy and enjoyable.

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Aug 02, 2020 Selma D. Jennings rated it it was amazing

Very good

Plenty of suspense, let out in proper dribbles. Nicely twisted plot, about twisted people. The absence of typos and syntax errors was refreshing (only one misuse of a word near the end, "sight" should have been "site," referring to the place of the head injury). The slow development of the friendship between Lucy and Damon also was refreshing. Would enjoy more by this author. ...more

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Oct 14, 2018 Eileen Parker rated it it was amazing

Excellent

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Dec 15, 2019 Miss Dizzy Read rated it really liked it

Another good read, will read the others, not sure why she likes the word bitumen so much though!

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Feb 18, 2020 Dee rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-thriller, 200-300-pages

Engaging thriller. Love that it's set in Aussie. ...more

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Sep 18, 2020 Steve rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, lucy-hush

This was difficult to put down, but I can't find it in my heart to give it five stars. The action picked up from the first page, and very quickly grabbed my attention. The characters all seemed a little too two dimensional to me, I'm hoping that changes in a longer form. The plot twists were all unexpected, with the climax coming as a sharp shock. I would preferred a tiny bit more resolution, but I'll have to read more in this series. ...more

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Sep 14, 2020 Jennifer Eades rated it it was amazing

Absolutely loved this book

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Aug 19, 2020 Tammy R. Blackwell rated it liked it

This book has a lot of twists and turns that keep you interested. It's a good read. ...more

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Aug 19, 2020 Barbara Dunbar rated it it was amazing

Small town nightmare

A missing brother and a stranger and a creepy little town. Then it gets worse with a nasty police officer.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Sep 09, 2020 Eion Williamson rated it really liked it

Enjoyed this read, although found it somewhat predictable due to desire not to kill off main characters.

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Nov 27, 2018 Julie Morris rated it really liked it

Well, this book does exactly what it says on the tin! The story of Lucy who is looking for her missing drifter brother in a tiny, remote rural town in Western Australia and finds a horror more awful than she could have anticipated. The book was gripping from the opening pages to the end and kept up the suspense all the way through and anyone picking up the book because of the title will not be disappointed. The author really brought the environment and setting to life and I particularly enjoyed Well, this book does exactly what it says on the tin! The story of Lucy who is looking for her missing drifter brother in a tiny, remote rural town in Western Australia and finds a horror more awful than she could have anticipated. The book was gripping from the opening pages to the end and kept up the suspense all the way through and anyone picking up the book because of the title will not be disappointed. The author really brought the environment and setting to life and I particularly enjoyed this aspect of the book, as it is not a place I have read much about, but is a harsh and barren land very fitting to the story.

The author has set the book in a town where community are close-knit and suspicious of outsiders and, as the story is kept largely within its confines, we feel intimately the constrictions of the setting which gives an intense sense of claustrophobia to the story and heightens the tension to almost unbearable levels, particularly towards the end of the book. There were plenty of moments which had my nerves jangling and would be ‘peeping from behind a cushion’ scenes if this were a TV drama.

The book was well-plotted and had a surprising narrative, one which some people might find disturbing as parts of it involve fairly graphic examples of torture and violence. There is a theme of sadism and disturbed mentality in the book that will not suit everyone but makes for a compelling story for the reader. Lucy is a strong protagonist, which is always a pleasure in a book, although I did find her very reckless and naive to a degree that didn’t quite ring true for an investigative journalist if you really stop to examine it closely, so it requires a suspension of disbelief. Quite why she trusted one particular person so quickly and readily, given the circumstances, was the main sticking point for me.

The one other issue I had with the book was that I felt there were couple of loose ends which were adequately explained for me which left the book slightly hanging. I one way, the ending was great and exactly right and the motives of the main antagonist were clear but there were some developments at the end which happened rapidly and weren’t fully fleshed out and left me guessing. This may have been deliberate but it left me feeling faintly dissatisfied with that particular thread. It is hard to say more without giving away the plot so I apologise if this doesn’t make too much sense. You’d better read the book yourselves and then come back and tell me if you know what I mean and whether or not you agree!

This book is quite a quick read, but packs a lot of punch into the pages and definitely is one I would recommend. It was tense, disturbing and gripping thriller set in an environment not much written about and the author really captured a sense of menace and insularity in the pages. A worthwhile read.
...more

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Aug 13, 2020 Judy rated it it was amazing

Suspense thriller.

The book left so many clues, but the constant twists only confuses you. Just when you think you have it all figured out, a new twist pops up. I loved the book and recommend it to all mystery lovers.

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Nov 10, 2018 Noemi Proietti rated it really liked it

I read SMALL TOWN NIGHTMARE in one evening, not only because the novel is not that long, but especially because I was completely engrossed. The author’s clear and flowing writing style kept me glued to the pages and I loved the well-crafted plot and the engaging characters.

Lucy is a journalist and she is looking for her brother Tim. Tim is a drifter, moving from place to place, but he would have never missed Lucy’s birthday a few days earlier, so when the police is no help, Lucy jumps into her c ...more

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Nov 21, 2018 Nicola Smith rated it really liked it

The small town of the title is what drew me to Small Town Nightmare. It all kicks off when Lucy Hush, a journalist, arrives at Night Town, in Western Australia. She's looking for her brother, Tim. He's what you might call a drifter but Lucy knows that Tim would never miss her birthday and that's exactly what's happened, so she goes to try and find out what has happened to him. Along the way she has a chance meeting with Damon, who turns out to be an unexpected ally in her search.

Anna Willett cap ...more

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Nov 26, 2020 Diana Febry rated it really liked it

Enjoyable, well-thought-out story. Fast-paced with plenty of suspense.
Recommend to mystery/suspense readers.

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Jun 19, 2020 C P rated it it was amazing

A story a substance

Well written. Tough story w some tough characters who find a way to have courage and strength to survive. Enjoyed It was set in Australia, a place I loved when I visited.

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Feb 23, 2020 Alisa rated it really liked it

I enjoyed Anna Willett's writing style very much. The story took a strange turn, which was certainly unexpected. But I feel like there were some unanswered questions at the end - maybe it was just a red herring, but everything in the plot didn't tie up quite as nicely as it could have. Nonetheless, an enjoyable read. ...more

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Aug 29, 2018 Anouska rated it it was amazing

Sensational writing from Anna Willett in her latest thriller. Dramatic, sometimes traumatic, and full of heart. Relatable characters, troubled villains, and a plot that keeps you compulsively turning pages.

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May 05, 2019 Barbara Williams rated it really liked it

Gripping for sure!

I found myself immersed in a thriller that included kidnapping, torture, murder, corruption, multiple personality disorder, intrigue, PTSD, drugs and even a little bit of love. What a way to spend an afternoon. This was a great recommendation. Thank you.

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Feb 25, 2020 Ted Tayler rated it it was amazing

"Tense thriller"

I thoroughly enjoyed my first book by this author. Strong characters, tough, uncompromising settings and a story line with several facets. The pace was consistently built to an exciting, nerve-shredding conclusion. A well-written page-turner indeed. ...more

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Dec 17, 2018 brenda wilson rated it it was amazing

Small Town Nightmare

I really liked reading these stories,if I could I would give it a 10.They have everything a mystery could have.

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Mar 14, 2019 marlin1 rated it really liked it

Shelves: ebook, australian-author

New Austalian author for me and excited to see she has a few more books written.
Good suspense and I enjoyed the unexpected teamwork.

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Dec 07, 2019 Adrienne rated it really liked it

Shelves: australia, mystery

Small Town Nightmare has some of the creepiest characters I ever met in a novel. Engrossing story with some good nail-biting moments as well as some romantic ones in this enjoyable quick read.

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