The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Spoilers, obviously.

I really enjoyed this book. The prose were brilliant, the characters were (mostly) incredibly written, and the plot device was honestly unique and completely new to me. Murder mystery books aren’t normally my thing, and so this was a really pleasant surprise. I was about 70% done, everyone I knew was hearing me recommend it, I honestly thought it would be in my list of favourite books I’ve ever read.

And then…

I don’t want to say the ending spoiled it for me, Seven Deaths still holds a place in my heart, but it was just really disappointing for a book with such potential.

– The world had so many amazing characters with such complex and overlapping motivations and desires. Why was the twist that Evelynn was CrAaaZy?? _”They’re just a psychopath”_ is easily the most boring character motivation, and there was so much more in her character to work from.

– Turton did such a good job of laying out the world for the first few loops, I could honestly follow the day in my head and was acutely aware of where the gaps were. As it went on though, I just completely lost the threads. Maybe it was just me, but I didn’t know where characters were for the last few runthroughs of the day.

– The reveal of the Footman as just some guy was… I dunno. The twist is obviously around Michael being the real villian, but it turned the Footman from being this invisible and omnipresent force of evil, to a weird guy who’s waaay to happy to commit horrific violence. It felt a bit like those restaurants that bring out a smoking golden briefcase held by two chefs, and open it to reveal a small slice of normal pie.

– The body-double twist was fine, but it felt undercooked. That could just be me though, people more familiar with the genre might have picked up clues I missed. I was also listening as an audiobook, so maybe not being able to flick back and double-check things wasn’t helping.

– Again, might just be a ‘me’ thing, but I had it in my head that Bell passed out at 11ish with the dead rabbit. All through the book I was thinking “right, he has about an hour left as Bell. That will be important.” but it just wasn’t. When Rashton and Derby were saved from the Footman, I also thought they’d come back up. Kinda nitpicking, but it was a little distracting to me.

– I actually liked the final resolution between Anna and Aiden. I know some others have criticised it, but ‘letting go of revenge’ is a tried and true trope, and I thought Turton did it pretty well. 

I’d like to hear what other people thought as well, because all my friends are sick of hearing me talk about it but I’m still on it. This book really gripped me, and it was such a sinking feeling when I began slipping away from it towards the end. I’m really looking forward to reading more of Turton’s work, and I might even be turned on to murder mysteries as a genre.

by happycatsforasadgirl