Title: Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly
Publisher: Dutton
Genre: Contemporary, Horror, Suspense, Supernatural Elements (Ghosts)
Length: 396 pages
Book Rating: C+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss
Summary:
An utterly propulsive and unpredictable psychological thriller from stunning new talent T. Marie Vandelly.
She didn’t run from her dark past. She moved in.
For the lucky among us, life is what you make of it; but for Dixie Wheeler, the theme music for her story was chosen by another long ago, on the day her father butchered her mother and brothers and then slashed a knife across his own throat. Only one-year-old Dixie was spared, becoming infamously known as Baby Blue for the song left playing in the aftermath of the slaughter.
Twenty-five years later, Dixie is still desperate for a connection to the family she can’t remember. So when her childhood home goes up for sale, Dixie sets aside all reason and moves in. But as the ghosts of her family seemingly begin to take up residence in the house that was once theirs, Dixie starts to question her own sanity and wonders if the evil force menacing her is that of her father or a demon of her own making.
In order to make sense of her present, Dixie becomes determined to unravel the truth of her past and seeks out the detective who originally investigated the murders. But the more she learns, the more she opens up the uncomfortable possibility that the sins of her father may belong to another. As bodies begin to pile up around her, Dixie must find a way to expose the lunacy behind her family’s massacre to save her few loved ones that are still alive—and whatever scrap of sanity she has left.
Review:
Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly is an intriguing mystery with horror and supernatural elements.
Twenty-five years ago, Dixie Wheeler is the sole survivor of her father Bill’s killing spree in which he killed her mother and three brothers before taking his own life. Raised by her Aunt Celia and her Uncle Ford, Dixie has finally gotten her life together. She and her longtime boyfriend Garrett are ready to purchase a house and settle down. When Dixie discovers her old family home is on the market, she cannot resist taking a tour. Although she is ready to buy the house, Garrett is not at all on board with her plan. Dixie instead rents the house on her own and moves in with her family’s old furnishings. After discovering the police file about her family’s murders, she contacts the detective in charge of the investigation. Now retired, Stanley Cullins agrees to take a second look at the old case after Dixie notices some troubling inconsistencies which leads her to believe Bill did not murder her family. Will she and Cullins unmask the real killer? Or will they find definitive proof her father is, in fact, responsible for her mother’s and brothers’ deaths?
Right from the start, Dixie is a shockingly unreliable narrator. She suffers from horrible nightmares and she has trouble telling what is real and what is not. Dixie has also exhibited obsessive behavior in the past as she stalked and acted inappropriately with one of her brother’s friends, Rory Sellers. Rory is also connected to the her family’s murders since he stumbled onto the grisly scene not long after their murders. Dixie has not seen Rory in years so she is somewhat surprised when he unexpectedly shows up not long after she moves in her family home. His recollections of the day of the murder are the impetuous for doubts about her father’s guilt.
Theme Music is an interesting mystery with a unique premise. While evenly paced for about the first half, the story soon becomes repetitious as Dixie’s life goes into a downward spiral. Bouts of insomnia skew her perception and she becomes an increasingly unreliable narrator as she makes one mistake after another. With quite a few startling twists and slightly unbelievable turns, T. Marie Vandelly brings this macabre mystery to a dramatic conclusion. All in all an enjoyable novel, but readers will definitely have to suspend disbelief for some aspects of the storyline.
