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Suicide Blondes
Some blondes do NOT have more fun...
A cruel teenage game ends in suicide...twenty years later, it looks like someone else wants to play.
In high school, Mary Ellen Hanneford and her best friends used the internet to trick a kid into committing suicide.
Now, she's a low-level coder at a start-up in Seattle. She's tried to downplay her past, but it always seems to catch up with her.
When she moves back to Nashville to care for her ailing mother, Mary Ellen learns that her friends are being stalked by an unnamed person online.
It seems like someone wants to finish the game that was started twenty years ago.
Will Mary Ellen be able to uncover the killer's identity, or will that require her to be the next victim?
A cruel teenage game ends in suicide...twenty years later, it looks like someone else wants to play.
In high school, Mary Ellen Hanneford and her best friends used the internet to trick a kid into committing suicide.
Now, she's a low-level coder at a start-up in Seattle. She's tried to downplay her past, but it always seems to catch up with her.
When she moves back to Nashville to care for her ailing mother, Mary Ellen learns that her friends are being stalked by an unnamed person online.
It seems like someone wants to finish the game that was started twenty years ago.
Will Mary Ellen be able to uncover the killer's identity, or will that require her to be the next victim?
291 pages, ebook
Published March 12, 2019
16 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 16, 2021
This was outside of my genre of usual reads, and I'm glad I picked it up! I really enjoyed this book. The book follows a 'soul searching' main character, re-visiting her old hometown of Nashville after twenty years of hiding. She's been tattooed by a dark past from her high school days, and once back in the swing of things, is forced to tackle it head on. There were a lot of great plot twists with her past, don't want to give away too much, but will say that Braddy's writing is both captivating and descriptive. Real page turner!
March 14, 2019
Suicide Blondes
A Nashville Suspense Novel
T. Blake Braddy
I loved the book. Turning predator into prey. To a point anyway. part of me was thinking if they never bullied that kid non of this would have happened. I thought it was a gripping tale with enough twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. I loved it.
A Nashville Suspense Novel
T. Blake Braddy
I loved the book. Turning predator into prey. To a point anyway. part of me was thinking if they never bullied that kid non of this would have happened. I thought it was a gripping tale with enough twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. I loved it.
April 30, 2019
A page-turner with plenty of twists and turns. 5 stars!
April 13, 2021
Suspense builds and builds as you watch Mary Ellen Hanneford go home to Nashville to her sick mother and find that the story that drove her to jail and then to the West Coast is alive and still on peoples minds. She hooks up with her old school mates who, with her, drove a fellow student to suicide. The unraveling that takes place will keep you guessing about what really happened. The author spoon feeds the reader and Mary Ellen information that places her and the others in extreme danger. I liked this book because of the suspense and the well crafted characters.
July 2, 2019
TWISTED BLONDES
Twenty years after they committed a horrible act, resulting in a death, some southern belles are on the receiving end of some comeuppance. The unexpected twist was great.
Twenty years after they committed a horrible act, resulting in a death, some southern belles are on the receiving end of some comeuppance. The unexpected twist was great.
January 7, 2020
Suicide Blondes
Cyber bullying is too often in the news these days as are sad stories of youth suicides which are often the tragic result. Suicide Blondes brings such stories painfully to life.
T. Blake Braddy's main character, Mary Ellen Hanneford, is one of the guilty parties in a teen suicide that took place two decades earlier. Desperate to be part of the popular set at high school, Mary Ellen got involved in activities that she has bitterly regretted ever since. Now in her thirties, she has reluctantly returned to her Nashville roots to care for her ailing mother. Her relationship with her mother is complex and forms a useful sub-plot. While she is in Nashville, she reconnects with those erstwhile friends, the other "suicide blondes".
Mary Ellen is a complex and interesting young woman; one empathizes with her despite her history. Her friends are an unpleasant group of women, but they are lightly drawn. Their teen victim could also have been more fully developed.
As the story progresses, we begin to realize that Mary Ellen is seriously messed up. Pieces of the back story are revealed bit by bit and while initially we put full trust in our narrator, by half way through the book, that trust is shaken. This adds another layer of suspense.
The story moves deftly between the past and the present by the simple mechanism of labeling each section "Now" or "Then". I loved the simplicity of that device as I like to know where and when I am. As we get deeper into the book, the plot accelerates into a series of violent events and some of the twists and turns left me confused.
Suicide Blondes is clean, well edited and skilfully written. One small quibble is that Mary Ellen has a tendency to scream a lot. But overall, it's a successful contribution to the genre.
Cyber bullying is too often in the news these days as are sad stories of youth suicides which are often the tragic result. Suicide Blondes brings such stories painfully to life.
T. Blake Braddy's main character, Mary Ellen Hanneford, is one of the guilty parties in a teen suicide that took place two decades earlier. Desperate to be part of the popular set at high school, Mary Ellen got involved in activities that she has bitterly regretted ever since. Now in her thirties, she has reluctantly returned to her Nashville roots to care for her ailing mother. Her relationship with her mother is complex and forms a useful sub-plot. While she is in Nashville, she reconnects with those erstwhile friends, the other "suicide blondes".
Mary Ellen is a complex and interesting young woman; one empathizes with her despite her history. Her friends are an unpleasant group of women, but they are lightly drawn. Their teen victim could also have been more fully developed.
As the story progresses, we begin to realize that Mary Ellen is seriously messed up. Pieces of the back story are revealed bit by bit and while initially we put full trust in our narrator, by half way through the book, that trust is shaken. This adds another layer of suspense.
The story moves deftly between the past and the present by the simple mechanism of labeling each section "Now" or "Then". I loved the simplicity of that device as I like to know where and when I am. As we get deeper into the book, the plot accelerates into a series of violent events and some of the twists and turns left me confused.
Suicide Blondes is clean, well edited and skilfully written. One small quibble is that Mary Ellen has a tendency to scream a lot. But overall, it's a successful contribution to the genre.
April 6, 2021
Mary Ellen Hanneford has discovered that if you trick someone into committing suicide, it’s not the kind of thing you can ever really live down. For the rest of her life she’ll be one of the Suicide Blondes.
It’s coming up on the twentieth anniversary of the biggest mistake she’s ever made—her mother couldn’t have picked a worse time to die. Now Mary Ellen’s got to travel back to Nashville, the scene of the crime, technically, although really it happened in cyberspace, as a result of internet bullying. But Nashville is where the other Suicide Blondes still live.
And once she’s there, they all try to suck Mary Ellen back into their orbit. Audrey and Gillian, the hanger-on at court. Even Madeline, the mad queen of the group. Suddenly they all want to be friends with Mary Ellen again, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, the one who shouldered the blame for Everett Coughlin’s suicide, went to juvie, and then moved away.
But being part of that group only ever brought Mary Ellen misery in the past, and nothing appears to have changed. When a prowler breaks into her house, the pictures she took on her phone are replaced with an image of the murdered body of Madeline. Evidence only the murderer should have. It appears that someone’s out for revenge after all these years…
What grabbed me from the onset was the strong voice from the first person protagonist. From the first page, Mary Ellen is a strong character. But what her character truly believes and who she really is—that’s intentionally shrouded in doubt in this psychological thriller.
Told in a series of flashbacks and present-day vignettes labeled then and now, the story unfolds with brilliant clarity. I don’t normally read books in this genre, but if gradually unearthing the motivations of a killer interests you, Suicide Blondes will likely prove a satisfying read.
It’s coming up on the twentieth anniversary of the biggest mistake she’s ever made—her mother couldn’t have picked a worse time to die. Now Mary Ellen’s got to travel back to Nashville, the scene of the crime, technically, although really it happened in cyberspace, as a result of internet bullying. But Nashville is where the other Suicide Blondes still live.
And once she’s there, they all try to suck Mary Ellen back into their orbit. Audrey and Gillian, the hanger-on at court. Even Madeline, the mad queen of the group. Suddenly they all want to be friends with Mary Ellen again, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, the one who shouldered the blame for Everett Coughlin’s suicide, went to juvie, and then moved away.
But being part of that group only ever brought Mary Ellen misery in the past, and nothing appears to have changed. When a prowler breaks into her house, the pictures she took on her phone are replaced with an image of the murdered body of Madeline. Evidence only the murderer should have. It appears that someone’s out for revenge after all these years…
What grabbed me from the onset was the strong voice from the first person protagonist. From the first page, Mary Ellen is a strong character. But what her character truly believes and who she really is—that’s intentionally shrouded in doubt in this psychological thriller.
Told in a series of flashbacks and present-day vignettes labeled then and now, the story unfolds with brilliant clarity. I don’t normally read books in this genre, but if gradually unearthing the motivations of a killer interests you, Suicide Blondes will likely prove a satisfying read.
December 28, 2019
I was quickly drawn into the life of Mary Ellen, a coding pro and the original suicide blonde who receives a call from a hospital saying her mother is critically ill. Growing up in Nashville, Marry Ellen has not returned to the city since the death of one of her schoolmates - a burning memory that haunts her to date. The story is told in the first person, and Mary Ellen’s painfully honest, razor-sharp yet complex and scrambled thoughts about the past tugged and tore at me. How easy it is for teenagers to be drawn into school cliques that go to any length to exert control and destroy lives. The story raises questions about the very essence of young girls' friendship and loyalty. It is heart-wrenching to see Mary Ellen navigate her way back into town, meeting her old group of friends- if they can be called friends. The story is filled with twists and turns and the suspense escalates when one of her friends is murdered – and then another. Mary Ellen is determined to find the killer and the answer is tied to the events the occurred twenty years ago. This is a story of high school girls experimenting with control and manipulation with destructive consequences - but at the same time it is a story of hope, redemption, and rebuilding one's life.
January 19, 2020
Gripping and Gritty
Cyber bullying is rarely out of the news and this gripping story is driven by a murderous event 20 years earlier which haunts the narrator. She is a tortured and damaged soul who reluctantly returns to her hometown long after the fateful death that she, as one of the infamous Suicide Blondes, was responsible for. The tale gradually unfolds with flashbacks to her student days and how she ended up in thrall to the bitchiest of bitch queens and her circle of friends, but most of the plot revolves around her in the present day as she seeks to come to terms with what happened back then as the Suicide Blondes become the target for a vengeful serial killer. It’s a really well crafted thriller with some great twists at the end.
Cyber bullying is rarely out of the news and this gripping story is driven by a murderous event 20 years earlier which haunts the narrator. She is a tortured and damaged soul who reluctantly returns to her hometown long after the fateful death that she, as one of the infamous Suicide Blondes, was responsible for. The tale gradually unfolds with flashbacks to her student days and how she ended up in thrall to the bitchiest of bitch queens and her circle of friends, but most of the plot revolves around her in the present day as she seeks to come to terms with what happened back then as the Suicide Blondes become the target for a vengeful serial killer. It’s a really well crafted thriller with some great twists at the end.
March 19, 2019
I have never read anything by this author before and this is one awesome introduction to his writing! This is about karma; a woman does something terrible that causes another to commit suicide and eventually karma comes around and begins preying on her. The plot is brilliant and extremely relevant in today’s society, he adds lots of twists and turns to keep the suspense so high that before you realize it you are consumed by the story. My advice is to book a few hours so you can sit and read this cover to cover because you are not going to want to put it down to cook or eat dinner!
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
October 8, 2019
Extremely quick read. I liked the plot twist, even though I predicted who was behind it all in the end. Three stars for the simplicity of the novel, would have appreciated more development in the characters. Did not like the inconsistency in the Detective character. He was either a good-hearted cop wanting to get to the bottom of things or a dirty cop who would stomp on your rights to get what he wanted.
*unrelated to the content* the Kindle version has an insane amount of typos and errors. At one point, a chapter repeats itself.
*unrelated to the content* the Kindle version has an insane amount of typos and errors. At one point, a chapter repeats itself.
May 1, 2021
To be honest, not at all what I'd expected, but very well-paced and cleverly plotted.
Don't want to give the game away, but all is certainly NOT what the reader is led at first to expect!
Mary Ellen is a deeper character than she appears, and the unravelling of what REALLY happened, several decades before, in the characters' high school days, provides most of the book. It's mostly lightish, escapist, thrilleresque fiction, BUT Mary Ellen's scenes with her mother, which go deeper, might be the book's greatest strength.
Recommended.
Don't want to give the game away, but all is certainly NOT what the reader is led at first to expect!
Mary Ellen is a deeper character than she appears, and the unravelling of what REALLY happened, several decades before, in the characters' high school days, provides most of the book. It's mostly lightish, escapist, thrilleresque fiction, BUT Mary Ellen's scenes with her mother, which go deeper, might be the book's greatest strength.
Recommended.
January 21, 2020
An interesting psychological thriller based around the power of peer pressure and social media.
If you enjoy thrillers where you're not sure which direction the story will take you'll enjoy this read.
If you enjoy thrillers where you're not sure which direction the story will take you'll enjoy this read.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews