The Witch Elm in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 25, 2022 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library, library-request, overdrive, lib-has-audio, favorite-authors, on-dj2, 2022

4.5 stars. I love Tana French so much. Although the main character in this slow-burning thriller can be unlikable, especially in the early third of the book, there are a couple of other main characters in here that I loved completely.

French’s books are so much more than thrillers. They are character studies. They can be family sagas, as this one was. She can conjure up a scene, indoors or out, that is visceral: the reader moves right in! And her characters. They are so real. Love them or not, y ...more

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Sep 03, 2019 Gabriella rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Very hard to make this a short review, but I'll try. It was my first Tana French book.

I loved the language and found the story compelling. I like stories about self-deception with unreliable narrators, so I wasn't let down by this aspect of the book, unlike a lot of readers who seem to prefer her police procedurals.

For me, the book was a little irritating at the beginning since Toby was such a complacent asshole (even though he didn't know it!). Then, once he'd been beaten up and retreated to t ...more

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Sep 24, 2019 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: z-read-2019, author-woman, a-reviewed, genre-fiction, genre-crime, europe, europe-ireland

Donna Tartt’s Secret Histories meets Patricia Highsmith. An atmospheric crime suspense psychological novel with a buried secret and twists and turns (piled on somewhat towards the end). The characters did come to life for me, especially the genial eccentric elderly uncle, and the brokenness of the main protagonist, his groping for an identity after trauma, was engaging to read. The Irish setting was nice and was the description of weather.

Given that it was a crime investigative secrets kind of b ...more

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Oct 10, 2021 Rachel N. rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, ireland, read-in-2021

Toby works doing PR for an art gallery. After a night out with his friends he's awakened to find burglars in his apartment. The burglars end up attacking Toby and causing him serious head trauma. Toby and his girlfriend Melissa go to stay with his Uncle Toby, who is dying from brain cancer, while Toby is working on recovering. Eventually, nearly 200 page into the book, a skull is found in a tree on Hugo's property. This book was very slow moving and full of way too much unneeded detail. Toby was ...more

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