The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was another one of those books that was all over the internet. I was intrigued, but again slightly cautious about the super hype surrounding the book and kept umming and ahing about actually reading it. Once my friend at work read it and also said it was the most original thing she’s read in a long while I found myself at a book store and picked up a copy for myself. I bought the book, but still didn’t read it straight away. Scaredy-cat.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
5 out of 5
Published in 2018 by Raven Books
You can order a copy from Amazon, Waterstones
Blurb: At a party thrown by her parents, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed – again.
She’s been murdered hundreds of times, and each day, Aiden Bishop is too late to save her. The only way to break this cycle is to identify Evelyn’s killer. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And someone is desperate to stop him ever escaping Blackheath…
My thoughts: Much to my surprise and delight I found that the hype was totally worth it. It seems to me that the time-travel type books are right up my street, along with the usual crime/legal thrillers.
Without trying to repeat the blurb, the book followed Aiden Bishop throughout the 8 days he had to solve the murder of Evelyn, who dies every night at 11pm. What Aiden needed to wrap his head around was that not only did the day restart every time he woke up but he also woke up as someone else every time.
I loved the fact that although there were MANY, oh so many, characters in this book they were all introduced in a way it made it easy to follow. I thought the main characters’ development was incredible. By the end of the book I felt like they were my own friends.
Writing was incredibly easy to read and the pacing was perfect for me. Things happened on every corner and I didn’t get bored for one moment. I was totally sucked into the murder-mystery-time-travel-body-hopper story and tried my hardest to work out the villain. I was surprised that I did, but don’t let this the book fool you. As soon as you think you’ve had it worked out- boom there’s a twist you DID NOT see coming. Absolutely thrilled that The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was not a predictable, non twisty, boring crime novel. Instead it was thoroughly mind dazzling, perfectly original and utterly disturbing mystery, that kept me reading for hours on end.
With this being Stuart Turton’s debut novel, I’m expecting many good things from him in the future. I truly hope he doesn’t stop with The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Even if it takes another 15 years.
Have you read it? Come talk to me about it!
I absolutely loved this book – it’s definitely one of my favourites!