Book Review - Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howad

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Amazon UK

Title: Rewind

Author: Catherine Ryan Howard

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Corvus

Publication Date:  5th September 2019

Rating: 4 Stars

PLAY
Andrew, the manager of Shanamore Holiday Cottages, watches his only guest via a hidden camera in her room. One night the unthinkable happens: a shadowy figure emerges onscreen, kills her and destroys the camera. But who is the murderer? How did they know about the camera? And how will Andrew live with himself?

PAUSE
Natalie wishes she'd stayed at home as soon as she arrives in the wintry isolation of Shanamore. There's something creepy about the manager. She wants to leave, but she can't - not until she's found what she's looking for...

REWIND
Psycho meets Fatal Attraction in this explosive story about a murder caught on camera. You've already missed the start. To get the full picture you must rewind the tape and play it through to the end, no matter how shocking...

Well I had absolutely no idea who the murderer was until it was revealed.  I also spent a fair part of the book mildly confused about the time frame of everything. 

I got that the the time was jumping about as though you were watching a video, but with chapter headings that were in minutes... and then some of the earlier sections being years before everything else. while reading on kindle which admitted makes flicking back and forth a bit harder to try to understand - I was muddled on the time span, time frames. 

That being said once I focused on the words I was incredibly interested in the murder, and all of the motives which is what I couldn't work out. 

There was a focus on many unsavoury characters, and small snippets of info coming out at regular intervals to really keep you on your toes, and make you continually re-evaluate your own guesses. 

I've certainly not read anything like it which is both a big positive, its different, its unique, but equally as thi isn't the genre I read the  most of, perhaps I didn't fully appreciate just how it was present. 

The story though is great, the writing certainly had me gripped, and Catherine Ryan Howard has had me hooked in places,  and the premise behind the book was fabulous. 

Certainly a book that I feel works best if you are tempted by it, to read for yourself without too much known about the plot.  There are a large number of characters and to even try to describe them, I may give out hints that I would rather not, for fear of spoils 

Thank you to Corvus and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - The Liar's Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard - Blog Tour

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Amazon UK

Title: The Liar's Girl

Author: Catherine Ryan Howard

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Publisher supplied copy

Publisher: Corvus

Publication Date: 1st March 2018

Rating: 5 Stars

Her first love confessed to five murders. But the truth was so much worse.

Dublin's notorious Canal Killer, Will Hurley, is ten years into his life sentence when the body of a young woman is fished out of the Grand Canal. Though detectives suspect they are dealing with a copycat, they turn to Will for help. He claims he has the information the police need, but will only give it to one person - the girl he was dating when he committed his horrific crimes.

Alison Smith has spent the last decade abroad, putting her shattered life in Ireland far behind her. But when she gets a request from Dublin imploring her to help prevent another senseless murder, she is pulled back to face the past - and the man - she's worked so hard to forget.

Catherine Ryan Howard is definitely an author for me to keep an eye on.  I loved her first book Distress Signals, and had worried this new one may suffer from second book syndrome, plus I'm not always keen on anything with lie / liar in the title.  But I need not have worried this was also fabulous, it was addictive and even when I did have to tear myself away from reading, my mind was still pondering just how it may all turn out. 

At no point did I correctly guess the outcome, I really wasn't sure if Will was the correctly convicted Canal Killer, and if it wasn't him who it really was.  

I found it interesting to see the story unfold, both in Alison's past when the original killings were happening, and that section felt like a regular start of university story, until there were dead bodies of people close to her.  And the present day unfurling of new activity, is worrying and is making Alison confront feelings and situations she has spent the previous 10 years trying to forget. 

For Alison was the girlfriend of Will,  when he confessed to the murders  She is convinced she never wants to lay eyes on him again, but agrees to try to help the police  with the new killings.  

This is a cleverly plotted story, that kept me guessing throughout.  I was hooked on trying to work out the truth before the characters could. I could really picture everything clearly, and really enjoyed my time with The Liar's Girl.  

Thank you so much to Anne Cater and Corvus for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Please do check out all the other wonderful blogs also supporting this book. 

Book Review - Distress Signals by Catherine Ryan Howard - Rachel Reads Randomly Book #37

Amazon UK

Title: Distress Signals

Author: Catherine Ryan Howard

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Purchased

Publisher: Corvus

Publication Date: 5th May 2016

Rating: 5 Stars

Did she leave, or was she taken?

The day Adam Dunne's girlfriend, Sarah, fails to return from a Barcelona business trip, his perfect life begins to fall apart. Days later, the arrival of her passport and a note that reads 'I'm sorry - S' sets off real alarm bells. He vows to do whatever it takes to find her.

Adam is puzzled when he connects Sarah to a cruise ship called the Celebrate - and to a woman, Estelle, who disappeared from the same ship in eerily similar circumstances almost exactly a year before. To get the answers, Adam must confront some difficult truths about his relationship with Sarah. He must do things of which he never thought himself capable. And he must try to outwit a predator who seems to have found the perfect hunting ground...

What an incredibly impressive debut novel, from the first moments I was hooked on the action, and couldn't put the book down at all. I had to drag myself to bed, with a promise that the only thing I would do in the morning was finish reading. 

Distress Signals is the sort of story that really gets under my skin, all I really knew before I started it, was that it was a psychological thriller that involved a cruise ship. I'm a huge fan of cruising, and even after various things were explained in the book, that make it clear how if things go wrong on a cruise, its pretty much a perfect crime due to the various laws involved, I did find myself just wondering where would I be cruising next, and would I be brave enough to actually travel alone again in that case. 

There are a lot of what appear to be coincidences in the story and I really did feel for Adam, and his frustration with his local police who really weren't worried about Sarah's disappearance. All could be explained fairly logically, and as Adam goes digging himself for answers as to where his beloved girlfriend of 10 years has gone, he doesn't always  like the answers. 

The descriptions of the Celebrate, that ship it turns out Sarah was on, made me feel as though I was on a cruise myself, I could picture the ship quite clearly in my minds eye, and couldn't help but wonder which real cruise line it is modelled on (I suspect its the one that is mentioned in the book, but only because of a couple of features). 

The pacing of the story is brilliant, and there were so many times I thought I had figured it out, and then was proved wrong almost on the next page. The story is split into four main parts, but what really intrigued me where the chapters written from Romain's point of view. I can't say who he is, or how he connects in, but his early childhood is in part terrifying and in part intriguing, as is the way he describes himself. 

Distress Signals has certainly affected me, and its only because I love cruising so much that I will have to force myself to forget this book at some point, so I can continue having the holidays I love so much, or else I fear this may destroy a love, such is the power of this story. 

I can't thank the 7 of you that voted for this book last week enough, I had been becoming disillusioned with psychological thrillers recently, and was worried they were no long having any affect on me. Based on my reaction to this I can now conclude that the other books definitely just weren't right for me, whereas this one was brilliant, and I am so glad. Thank you.