Heart of darkness

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This article was published 18/01/2025 (433 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An unreliable narrator, unpredictable plot and sharp dialogue define this thriller by American author Megan Collins.

Collins debuted as a writer of thrillers in 2019 with The Winter Sister, a sinister tale of family secrets and deception.

Cross My Heart, her fifth novel, combines themes of intimate-partner abuse, silenced female voices and romantic obsession with an insightful critique of the thriller genre itself.

The novel opens in the present day, in a small town outside of Boston.

Twenty-something Rosie Lachlan is recovering from a doubly broken heart — in the last year, she was both dumped in her wedding gown and received a heart transplant.

Now recovering from both, Rosie manages her parents’ bridal salon while obsessing about finding her own groom while she still has time:

“…I feel each beat of my heart like the ticking of a clock. I’ve done the research, spoken to my doctors: heart transplants last, on average, fifteen years,” Rosie mourns.

There may be an easy solution: Rosie unintentionally discovers that her heart donor was Daphne Thorne, wife of local celebrity writer Morgan Thorne.

She begins messaging Morgan via an anonymous service called DonorConnect. As their connection deepens, she begins to believe she and Morgan are meant to be together.

At this point, readers may be forgiven if they’re reminded of the 2000 film Return to Me starring David Duchovny and Minnie Driver, a romcom in which a woman who received a heart transplant falls in love with the widow of her heart donor.

In Cross My Heart, things turn decidedly dark. As Rosie continues messaging Morgan, she struggles to reconcile her feelings for him with her growing suspicions that he had something to do with Daphne’s death.

Collins’ strength lies in her narration, character development and dialogue. Rosie isn’t always likable — she’s so naive and eager to explain away bad behaviour that it’s hard not to get impatient with her.

For example, when she learns that Morgan was busily writing on his laptop while his wife was dying at the hospital, she protests, “I’m sure he was scared out of his mind, and writing is just how he copes.”

But these qualities also make her narration delightfully unreliable and readers can’t be quite sure if she’s completely stable.

Morgan comes across as charming and witty in his messages to Rosie, but readers will find something sinister lurking beneath his sentences.

For example, Morgan tells Rosie in the same paragraph that he knows it’s unfair to brand women as “crazy” then goes on to describe his wife as “not well.”

Along with being well-established as an author, Collins teaches creative writing and serves as managing editor of a literary journal. So it’s perhaps not surprising that Collins uses her novel to examine the thriller genre.

Even though Morgan plays a decisive role in the story, Collins keeps him firmly in the background. The female characters take centre stage and drive most of the plot.

Collins takes direct shots at men appropriating women’s voices, with a local librarian commenting of Morgan, “He knows what he’s doing. Women made his genre what it is. Gillian Flynn with Gone Girl. Paula Hawkins with The Girl on the Train, so when readers see someone named Morgan writing thrillers about women, they’re going to assume the author is a woman… he didn’t have his photo on his website, and his bio didn’t use any pronouns. It’s a disgusting sales grab.”

Collins keeps readers guessing with well-executed plot twists, although the ending isn’t as strong as the rest of the book.

Still, it’s a great read. Cross my heart.

Kathryne Cardwell is a writer in Treaty One Territory.