I admit to being totally confused for the first little bit, so lost that I answered the first big question of “How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home.” Without adding any spoilers allow me to say that this was an extremely clever and well thought out plot. Even if I wanted to pick it apart and offer a petty criticism I would have to unravel myself and the time it took me to join the party and follow along. What day, what time, which host, has it happened yet or not, or just about to or can I trust you, should I, probably not, but who knows.

The setting is Blackheath, a large estate surrounded by a forest. It is a lonely crumbling place with secrets, pain and malevolence. History is about to repeat itself and the loop is continuous with little chance of breaking. People are trapped in the house, wearing the bodies of guests and servants, only one will be allowed to leave. Aiden Bishop must solve the crime, unmask a murderer, look in a mirror, go mad, and maybe survive. Impossible for me to say more without giving it all away.

Completely engrossing, mentally challenging and very well written.

Thank you NetGally and Sourcebooks Landmark for a copy.

4.5 stars. This was not a quick read- at least not quick for me. My head is spinning still from this one! The author weaves quite the detailed story. It’s a Quantum Leap (referring to that might age me) meets Groundhog Day meets Agatha Christie kind of novel. Time travel and host jumping is always a hard one for me to wrap my head around. Instead of running the time line in a straight line, it also jumps back into previous hosts. I’ll admit that I was confused for the first part (Sebastian Bell’s part of the story). I had no clue what was happening. I’m glad I stuck it out although I wish I had taken notes!

The characters and plot were well thought out and planned. There were so many details to make it come together beautifully. Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC! I really enjoyed this one!

I enjoyed this book! I personally have never read a book like this and so was excited to get into it. I was not dissappointed! This was a real page turner, the story was so intricately woven that it was consistently interesting throughout and kept me wanting more. I loved finding out about all these characters and learning about them along side the main character. I was constantly intrigued and with more and more layers always being added to the plot, even when I wasn't reading I was thinking about this book.
I thoroughly enjoyed this read.

The premise of this book was really interesting - a man relives the same day in different bodies until he solves the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. The first half of the book was very hard to follow, with the body-swapping and the lackluster explanation of how the hero entered Blackheath and how he could escape it. Things started to pick up, of course, as Aidan began putting things together to solve the murder, but unfortunately took another downhill turn at the end. The explanation just wasn't satisfying. This book could have done with more editing. I do plan on reading Turton's sophomore effort, as I'm hoping his writing will improve.

EXCERPT: 'A party?' she says, shaking her head. 'Oh, my dear man, you really have no idea what's happening here, do you?'

'Perhaps if you- -'

'My brother was murdered nineteen years ago tomorrow, Sebastian. I don't know why, but my parents have decided to mark the occasion by reopening the house where it happened and inviting back the very same guests who were here that day.'

Anger is rising in her voice, a low throb of pain I'd do anything to make go away. She’s turned her head to face the lake, her blue eyes glossy.

'They're disguising a memorial as a party and they've made me the guest of honor, which I can only assume means something dreadful is coming for me,' she continues. 'This isn’t a celebration, it's a punishment, and there'll be fifty people in their very finest clothes watching it happen.'

ABOUT THIS BOOK: The Rules of Blackheath

Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m.
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.
We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.
Understood? Then let's begin...

***

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others...

MY THOUGHTS: Alice in Wonderland meet Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. . .with a few scenes from the movies Sliding Doors and Ground Hog Day thrown in for good measure. And speaking of movies, I think that this would make a brilliant movie!

I have had all night to think about The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and I still don't know what to say. This is one of the most perplexing yet compelling books I have ever read. I gave up trying to figure it out early on and just enjoyed the ride. The author does leave little clues that don't seem important at the time, that I didn't quite realize the relevance of until the end of the book, when I struck my forehead with the heel of my hand (very theatrically - it's that sort of book!) and said 'Of course! I see it all now!' and exited stage left, or was it right?

Complex. Clever. Multi-layered. Compelling. Mind bending. These are all words that can be used to describe The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, yet even put together they can't even begin to convey the depth and character of this novel.

My recommendation? Just read it. You will either love it and devour it hungrily, or you will hate it and, in all probability not finish it. This is a book that you can't sit on the fence about.

😍😍😍😍.5

THE AUTHOR: Stuart lives in London with his amazing wife and daughter. He drinks lots of tea.

What else?

​When he left university he went travelling for three months and stayed away for five years. Every time his parents asked when he’d be back he told them next week, and meant it.

Stuart is not to be trusted. In the nicest possible way.

He’s got a degree in English and Philosophy, which makes him excellent at arguing and terrible at choosing degrees.

Having trained for no particular career, he has dabbled in most of them. He stocked shelves in a Darwin bookshop, taught English in Shanghai, worked for a technology magazine in London, wrote travel articles in Dubai, and now he’s a freelance journalist. None of this was planned, he just kept getting lost on his way to other places.

He likes a chat. He likes books. He likes people who write books and people who read books. He doesn’t know how to write a biography, so should probably stop before he tells you about his dreams or something. It was lovely to meet you, though.

Stuart's debut novel is called The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in the UK and The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in the US. They're the same book. Don't fret.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

Wow wow wow wow wow wow.

I have been looking forward to reading The 7.5 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle for months now and I’m so very glad it did not disappoint!

The first thing that amazes me about the book is how the author ever managed to keep track of so many tiny yet crucial details to the story! The entire plot is woven together so intricately and I just loved it. There is no way for me to review such an amazing mystery without spoilers so instead I choose to talk about the writing itself. With excellent narration, amazing plot twists and a story you cannot get enough of, this book has surpassed all my expectations. If you are a fan of mystery/thrillers in general, please do give this wonderful book a shot!

This book was so different! It's a mystery about a murder at it's heart. While there may be hundreds of other murder mystery books out there, I don't think there's another book like this one. If Being John Malkovich and Groundhog's Day had a baby, this would be it.

Our narrator is trying to solve a murder that hasn't quite taken place yet. He wakes up in the woods one morning at Blackheath where a party is going to take place later that evening. He learns that he is tasked with finding out who is going to be murdering Evelyn Hardcastle at the night's party. How can he do that? He'll live the day over and over again while trying to solve the murder, and each day he is going to be "hosted" by one of the guests at the party. And by "hosted" I mean he is going to become that guest.

This was so hard to put down. They mystery is intriguing, the story line is twisted. You will have trouble forgetting this book once you finish reading.

After a 3-month reading slump, I have finally found a cure: “The 7 1/2 Deaths is Evelyn Hardcastle”.

Aidan Bishop is trapped at Blackheath, destined to relive the same day as a different person unless solves the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. This summary alone informs readers that this is so much more than your average murder mystery story. It’s incredible how detailed the plot is, and how the author is able to intertwine each characters movements. This novel can definitely use multiple rereads in order to catch the fine intricacies of the plot, and it’ll be a joy each and every time.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark, Stuart Turton, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Buy This Book
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a highly original début that defies description. It’s part gothic, part murder mystery and part science fiction novel but there’s a whole lot more to It than that. Innovative and unconventional, it is a unique reading experience.

He doesn’t know who he is, where he is or why he’s there. He only knows Anna. Anna whom he believes is running through the woods. He is afraid as he chases after her; he thinks she must be, too. His legs hurt, he’s cold and inappropriately dressed for a run through the forest. He stops when he hears the gunshot; he can’t move when a man comes up behind him and places a compass in his pocket, saying simply the word, “East.” After a while, when the discomfort of staying still outweighs his fear of going forward, he moves. He heads east, finds the dilapidated manor house, reports the probable murder and despises his own cowardice. He learns his name is Sebastian Bell. It’s obvious to him that whoever he is or was, he is a weak, unworthy man who let a woman die because he lacked the courage to rescue her.

But the reality, as he quickly learns, is actually worse than that. Bell is a guest at a house party thrown in honor of Evelyn Hardcastle’s return from Paris. She’ll be murdered that night while he watches. She’s been murdered hundreds of times already. He is one of eight hosts for the mind/spirit of a man named Aiden Bishop who is tasked with solving the crime. Aiden spends twenty-four hours with each host, cycling through them on a regular basis. He will relive the day of Evelyn’s demise over and over until he can identify the perpetrator. He must give the correct answer to the man in the plague doctor’s costume by the end of the eighth day or have his memories erased and begin again.

There are two other souls trying to figure out who the killer is and get out of the perpetual hell that is Blackheath House. Two people who will lose if Aiden wins. Two people who just might kill all eight of his incarnations to make sure that never happens. They’ve done it before. How will he keep them from doing it again?

Set in an English manor house in the years after the First World War, this is an atmospheric, chilling whodunit. The setting is cold, sinister, cryptic and deliciously eerie. It provides a perfect backdrop for a story where nothing is quite as it seems.

If you can imagine not knowing who you are, where you are, who anyone else is or what’s going on, you have a pretty clear idea of how Aiden feels throughout most of this novel. That untethered-to-reality quality might be annoying in some books, but the author does a good job of making it work here. By combining it with the mystery of the murder he gives the story the feel of a good thriller with an uncertain narrator.

The crime itself, when we come to the actual solution of it, is quite clever and thrilling. One of the benefits of the multiple hosts is that they allow Aiden to form a panoramic view of the murder so that he can move beyond the surface of the event and see a great deal more of what lies beneath than any single person could. It’s a riveting aspect of the tale and the author does a magnificent job of bringing the various views together into a coherent whole.

Another advantage to the multiple hosts is that it both limits and expands the number of people we are dealing with. It limits them in the sense that we have only one narrator, Aiden. However, that actuality is expanded since we are intimately introduced to eight other people via Aiden’s ‘possession’ of the hosts. I liked that each host had a unique physical form, mindset and history which Aiden had to grapple with and utilize to solve the mystery. It brings to mind for the reader how our physical limitations/abilities and thought patterns affect how we work through problems.

Aiden’s personas are all different. My favorite is easily Constable Jim Rashton, a kind and decent young man with a fantastic sense of justice and a loving heart. Bell is a conundrum; a man capable of making friends and being good but a with a dark secret and weak core. The lawyer Dance is much as his name implies; he has a nimble mind but it’s mercurial and mercenary. I loved Lord Ravencourt’s cleverness and Gold’s artistic eye. They each bring interesting talents to the job of sleuthing. I had only a few disappointments in regard to the hosts, one being that the author didn’t use a female host because I would have enjoyed seeing a contrast between male vs. female perspectives.

Another disappointment was that I deeply disliked the fat shaming that occurred with one of the characters. Aiden inhabits a drug addict, drug dealer, rapist and abusive father but the person who makes him “overcome by disgust and shame” is the obese host. It’s not that he likes the others, but from the way the weight issue is discussed, it seemed almost as if he considers this flaw equal to that of the others. When it was later alluded to that the obese character might also be gay, I was troubled. To be clear, nothing negative is said about gay people. Nothing. But I wondered why that particular characteristic was given to a host Aiden was somewhat appalled by. It just made me a little uneasy since the added characteristic was unnecessary.

In fact, Aiden’s disgust with several of his varying host’s flaws left me feeling less than charitable toward him. He was critiquing and condemning people while knowing only some of their story and it seemed on occasion to reveal a judgmental and vain character on his part. I wonder, if positions had been reversed, what kind of host would they have considered him?

The novel has themes of redemption and rehabilitation running through it which I found myself at odds with as well. I disagreed that this situation would result in positive changes to anyone’s heart or moral structure and struggled to accept that the ending in any way reflected reparation and atonement.

Those quibbles aside, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is an intriguing mystery wrapped in a clever, exceptional package. If you are a fan of science fiction, the movie Groundhog Day, the Netflix show Altered Carbon or just enjoy unique suspense stories, I think you will enjoy this. If you are a fan of all those things, I would say it’s probably a must read for you.

“Somebody’s going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won’t appear to be a murder and so the murderer won’t be caught.”

The main character has no memory of who he is. He is not in his own body. Each time he wakes he is in a new body. He has seven days to solve the mystery of Evelyn Hardcastle, and seven different bodies to examine different aspects of the day.

This book is mostly a murder mystery, a little bit of a historical fiction, and a tiny dab of sci-fi. I couldn’t put it down and the twists and turns went in directions I didn’t see coming. I enjoyed every second I was reading this.

I don’t want to say more because I believe you should go into a mystery knowing as little as possible. You don’t want to miss out on this one.

I loved this book! A very twisty, innovative mystery with intriguing characters and a satisfying payoff. The world-building was great and very convincing, with its classic Agatha Christie-style country house feel paired with a memorable concept. I found the action a little slow to get started, but once the narrator was all-in on solving the mystery, things really picked up. The last 100 pages or so kept me on the edge of my seat.

I am going to give my honest critique. This book had me bored from the start. I requested this book due to the description which made it seem like it was a thrilling mystery. I was horribly wrong. It had such a good premise but the writing and characters were bland and flat. I found myself swiping through it trying my hardest to find it engaging. Nothing. I would not recommend reading this book.

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton, absolutely blew my mind. It reminded me of a rather elaborate - and involuntary - how to host a murder party.

Aiden Bishop wakes up in the middle of a dark forest and hears the sounds of a murder close by. Escaping the apparent murderer, he makes his way back to Blackheath - a grand, crumbling mansion.

A party has been gathered by Evelyn Hardcastle’s family to commemorate the murder of her brother 19 years ago. Aiden quickly discovers that he’s not one of the party, but he IS inhabiting the mind of one of the party.

Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered tonight and he will wake up in a different guest’s mind every day for 8 days. Aiden must solve the murder and bring the evidence to the Plague Doctor by the deadline or he will be trapped in Blackheath forever.

As he muses at one point: “If this isn’t hell, the devil is surely taking notes.”

It sounds confusing but the mysteries get neatly summarised for you from time to time, sort of like checking your pieces in a game of Cluedo:

“I’m walking back to the house, scouring the trees for any sign of danger, my mind running back and forth across the morning’s events. Over and over again, I wonder about the slashes on my arm and the man in the plague doctor costume, the footman and this mysterious Anna, who now appears to be alive and well, and leaving enigmatic notes for me to find.”

I thought an early reference to Alice in Wonderland - ‘Shaking my head, I take a step away from that particular rabbit hole.’ - was a perfect analogy. It’s like Aiden has woken up in a totally mad world. The difference is, he can’t remember the bit where he fell asleep.

And then there’s this rather self-conscious titbit about a third of the way through. One of the characters says:

"In all honesty, this tale’s so peculiar I’m not sure I could walk away now, even if I wished to.”

I nearly said aloud, “Yes, me too! No walking away now! I HAVE TO KNOW.”

Fabulous philosophies; gothic setting

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is peppered throughout with some rather fascinating philosophies for you to muse on. Evelyn tells Aiden at one point:

"Wealth is poisonous to the soul and my parents have been wealthy a very long time - as have most of the guests who will be at this party. Their manners are a mask; you’d do well to remember that."

The setting itself is very gothic - old world grandeur that is literally crumbling. Around the back of the mansion an entire balcony has fallen off the facade and dived into the earth below. Nobody has had the means or motivation to cart it away or reattach it. It's clear that the mansion has been restored just enough to be able to host the party, but it’s all really just very heavy stage make-up.

The writing is fabulous. It’s a very easy to read book, but the descriptions are so very rich. Here’s a sample character sketch:

“Dance is in his late seventies, as withered and gray on the outside as the inside. Almost bald, his face is a river of wrinkles running off his skull, pinned in place only be a large roman nose. Either side of that are a small gray mustache and dark, lifeless eyes suggesting nothing of the man within, except, perhaps, that there may not be a man within. Anonymity seems to be a compulsion with Dance, whose clothes - though good quality - come in shades of gray, with only the handkerchiefs and bow ties offering anything in the way of colour.”

I’m going to leave you with perhaps my favourite quote of the whole book. He’s interrogating the personal servant of a massively overweight gentleman. The servant's role includes having to heft his employer's naked body in and out of the bath each day because he’s too large to do it himself.

“Tell me, Cunningham,” I say. “Why does a man like you settle for a job like this?”
That brings him up short, his normally implacable face darkening.
“Life doesn’t always leave you a choice in how to live it,” he says grimly. “Now, come on. We’ve a murder to attend.”

I love that: Life doesn’t always leave you a choice in how to live it. I plan to remember that when I want to respond to all those BE YOUR BEST SELF-type memes.

Set on an English country manor estate in the early 20th century, the wealthy Hardcastle family are throwing a party for their friends. Except tragedy is about to strike: their returning wayward daughter Evelyn will die at 11pm – whodunit? The murderous Footman stalking the grounds, the mysterious Plague Doctor haunting the shadows, or any number of suspicious guests with questionable motives? Aiden Bishop, a man without a past, sets out to solve the case. And then a strange thing happens after Evelyn dies: the day repeats itself. Evelyn dies again and again at the same time and Aiden wakes up each day in the body of a different host. As much whadafuq as whodunit, Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day meets Quantum Leap in Stuart Turton’s The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

It’s an intriguing premise and an original take on the well-defined country house murder mystery story but the book unfortunately got steadily worse after a fairly decent first third and never improved.

The setup is both the selling point of the book and also easily its weakest aspect because it’s so confusing. So Aiden will live the same day eight different times, each day in a different host. I took that to mean that if Aiden fails to identify the murderer then Evelyn dies and the day starts over with everything going back to their starting positions. Except it seems that previous actions Aiden took as previous hosts carry over into the next same day. But why would that be? It’s never explained.

How is Aiden able to occasionally, accidentally, jump from host to host during the day? And when he does, is he jumping back to the day when he was that host or is he the host on the same day as he is another host?

Aiden shares the same headspace as the host and his personality is slightly affected by whichever host he’s in. So they’re still in there and aware of not being totally in control of their bodies – kinda like in Being John Malkovich, I guess? – but they don’t seem freaked out by it…? And then towards the end Aiden talks about actually carrying all eight hosts with him into each host every time – whaaaat??

The rules are just so tricky, vague and overcomplicated, it felt frustratingly arbitrary as things just seemed to happen to suit the increasingly convoluted plot. And, good grief, is this story convoluted! Though Stuart Turton is able to stop the same day’s events becoming stale or repetitive to read thanks to switching perspectives, it does make for an overlong narrative, most of which wasn’t terribly gripping. Even if the rules were clear it still wouldn’t matter as the story got very tedious before the halfway mark.

There were far too many characters to keep track of. Some were quite memorable like the morbidly obese rich man Ravencourt, his shady valet Cunningham, the even shadier Stanwin, and Evelyn herself. The Footman however remained drearily one-dimensional throughout, hunting Aiden for no reason and leering like a pantomime villain, while the appearance of Helena Hardcastle, Evelyn’s mother, notable for her lengthy absence, was so anticlimactic when she did appear.

Everything about the ending was disappointing and unsatisfying. From what was really going on/why all of this was happening, to the motivations of the killer, Aiden’s own motivations, the reveal of the Plague Doctor’s identity, and the resolution of the story. Given that there are no real consequences to anything (it all resets if Aiden fails to solve the case in eight days and goes on indefinitely), there’s absolutely no tension to the narrative ever and, while it presents itself as different from other country house murder mysteries, it falls back on the same hackneyed tropes like the killer being all too eager to explain themselves at the end. And if you were curious as to what the “half” in the title might refer to, that too has a mundane explanation: it was added due to a clash with the similarly titled book, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

Turton keeps you guessing throughout, the premise is original, some of the characters’ stories are interesting and the novel is compelling nearly half the time, but the flaws were too overwhelming for me. Aiden’s jumping around was never fully understandable, the narrative sags too much with too many characters doing too many dull, pointless things, and the final act fails on all fronts leaving a corny aftertaste. I found The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle to be bloated, dull and gimmicky.

For a better book that pulls off the “multi-narrator story revolving around a deathly mystery” far more effectively and enjoyably, I recommend Iain Pears’ masterful novel An Instance of the Fingerpost, and anyone after the epitome of the country house murder mystery would do well to check out the excellent movie Gosford Park.

Great puzzle mystery. The characters were interesting and the creepy setting fit. The book does come with book club questions in the back. Still not sure how things were figured out, with a hard copy to refer to it might be easier. However, it was very interesting and would be interested in trying more of this author.

I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley for my honest review.

The blurb for this book intrigued me instantly, as did it’s description of being a bit Agatha Christie/Groundhog Day/Quantum Leap, however I have to admit that as I sat down to begin this story I was apprehensive given the length of the book! At a hefty 512 I was worried it would be overly wordy and lose the momentum that mystery books like this need to keep a reader invested in the plot.
I needn’t have worried. I have never been so impressed with a mystery/crime book in my life. I was hooked instantly even though I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I love that the reader is plonked into the same position as the lead character and drip fed clues and information and for the most part has no idea of the significance of an action until much later in the book. I usually love guessing the ending of mysteries, but find myself a little disappointed if I do manage to guess the ending or if the ending is so baffling it would never be able to be guessed by a sane person. Stuart Turton has achieved the impossible and created a mystery which ends so perfectly, which makes all the sense in the world but which very, very few people would be able to see coming.
I’m very cautious about reviewing this book in detail as I don’t want to give away a single plot point because it was such an incredible feeling to read this book knowing nothing about it. I was completely immersed and desperate to find out what would happen next.
I will say that I loved the sci-fi aspect of the plot, and I thought the repetition of the days was achieved masterfully. How on earth all the loose ends managed to get tied up at the end is completely astounding but very satisfying as a reader.
I cannot rave about this book enough and have already recommended it to several friends. I think this Christmas I may just bulk buy copies and hand them out to everyone I know.

This book had so many great twists and turns! This is a true page turner.
Make sure you read this book!

The murder that takes place, ( that is sometimes questionable, depending on the host) really is impossible to figure out until the end. Question everything and everyone. Keep your mind open. The author did a great job of sharing each "host" through the eyes of the main character. Minor characters in most books become interesting in their own right as we see the same situation unfold through different eyes. Thanks Netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Every once in a while, there comes a book that forces you to slow down your reading and really savor the story being told. This is that book. It’s Downton Abbey, as written by Agatha Christie, starring Sam Beckett (from Quantum Leap). And it all works. Ultimately a mystery, this book is also a stunning tapestry of the lives of the characters, both the rich and the servants. In that regard, I suppose it’s a little bit like Upstairs, Downstairs as well. Regardless, it is a highly atmospheric book with very vivid characters. The author does a fantastic job of creating a feeling of foreboding that the reader shares with the main character as the plot progresses. I really can’t go into the plot, because it is truly a book that needs to be discovered and unraveled slowly. Which brings me to another point: clear time to read this. It is not a fast read. You’ll need to take your time to really get all of the nuances (and to keep all of the characters straight). Highly innovative and intriguing, I hope this author writes more like it! Definite five stars. Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark, and the author for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a serious contender for my favorite mystery this year. I absolutely loved it. It's creepy, and different, with a bit of a sci-fi feel with a time loop and one character inhabiting multiple bodies.

This book is full of crazy characters you love to hate, many of which you get to know intimately as you body hop with Aiden Bishop. Until he solves Evelyn's murder, Aiden is stuck in a time loop, each day waking up in the body of yet another insufferable guest at Blackheath, the country estate of the Hardcastle family where Evelyn dies every night at 11pm. Using his wits and the talents of his "hosts" Aiden must solve the mystery within 8 days and 8 individuals, it's that or lose himself entirely to this place and these people.

This was not an easy read I admit, time hopping and body hopping and so many different characters...phew! It was a bit of work! The further along you get into the story, the more it flows though so I say stick it out if you have trouble at first. The fun for me wasn't trying to solve the murder and keep track of clues (seriously impossible I think). I just rather enjoyed the characters and just watching the story unfold. .