Group Fiction Read – Sept / Oct 2019 - The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

[Paul]

This is the thread for discussion for the fiction book of the month.

Things to consider:

1. Were you hooked immediately by the book or did it take a while to get into?
2. Did you like the plot?
3. Did the characters drive the plot or were they just passengers?
4. Did it come across as a credible story?
5. Did you connect to any of the characters in the story
6. Did you like the ending?
7. Did you have any quote or lines that stood out for you?
8. Would you read any other titles by this author?

[Olga]

I haven't yet read it, so I hope you don't mind this comment. I went to hear Stuart Turton at the Edinburgh Book Festival, and he said he mapped out every single character's whereabouts in two-minute segments for the duration of the plot, to make sure they were all in the right place at the right time.

[Paul]

Olga wrote: "I haven't yet read it, so I hope you don't mind this comment. I went to hear Stuart Turton at the Edinburgh Book Festival, and he said he mapped out every single character's whereabouts in two-minu..."

I hope the time line in the book is very short!

[Olga]

Seven days!

[Paul]

Ah right

[Olga]

I'm rubbish at maths, but by my calculation, he would have to have over 5,000 piece of information for each character. That would exhaust me so much, I wouldn't have the energy to write the book.

[Becky]

I read this last year and really enjoyed it.

I love isloated closed circle mysteries so really liked the fact that they were stuck in a country house trying to figure out who done it. The groundhog day style twist made it more unique and added an interesting dimension.

I really liked the way each body he inhabited affected his abilities, whether that was physical or mental.

I was less sure about the plot twist/explanation. Although it wasn't bad and there needed to be a reason why these things were happening, it seemed to change the tone of the book.

I hadn't heard that about him mapping out time, that is a lot of detail!!!

[Pamela]

I felt pretty much the same as Becky. I liked the different characters that the protagonist took on, and the different twists in each days events. I was also unsure about the explanation, it seemed to come too early and from then I felt the book dragged a bit.

I think I would recommend anyone reading this book to pay really close attention to the first few chapters, things then become much clearer as each death takes place.

I hope Turton writes more books, he is obviously very talented and clever and I think he could easily iron out the few issues that this debut had in his future writing.

[Summerdale]

This was my first murder mystery for a reason. I didn't think I would enjoy the genre. I was on the right track and this will probably be my only one. Not to say it wasn't nifty. The groundhog day twist and how each character he inhabited effected his journey was nice.