Wonderful, rapturous storytelling by a master writer. I found this book impossible to put down. The main protagonist is complex and yet endearing, the ensemble cast make for an amazing diverse and colour story.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton is AMAZING!!! Talk about a total adrenaline-filled, high stakes rush! The book starts out extremely intense with a man running away from who knows what after just witnessing a murder. He holds clues to who the killer is but is unsure what they all mean. What then happens is a escape-room like challenge in order to find the killer, and the victim dies over and over- you guessed it, 7 1/2 times....

This is a MUST READ and definitely not to be missed if you enjoy brilliant writing, intense scenes, and total calamity!

Thank you for my review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It took me a while to get into the book. Like the main character , Aiden, himself, I found myself completely disorientated in the first chapter.

Then I realised that he was waking up each day in a new host body. Each "host" offered new opportunities to gather information and clues on how to solve the murder of the eponymous Evelyn Hardcastle.

This was a clever concept yet I found I lacked the concentration to gather all the clues / new information without plotting them on an enormous chart ( as the author did) . Towards the end I skipped the last 2 or so chapters and went straight to the end. I didn't feel motivated enough to go back to find the clues etc I had missed. I was left with more questions than answers like who was the Plague Doctor and who were his "Superiors"? I

I found the concept intriguing but I do wonder how many readers sustained the concentration needed for this ambitious book.

This is not your typical period piece, your typical 'who-dunnit'.
Perfect for fans of Downtown Abby and Sherlock Holmes, this amazing tale combines the best of both worlds.
Turton takes you deep into a scene and masterfully adds layer upon layer until you can step back and see the masterpiece in front of you.
Brilliantly written, a book to binge on.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS BOOK.

Thank you to Sourcebooks for giving chances to me to review this book.

For the first time, an e-book got me hooked up. Crime and Mystery put me on curiousity. I mean what's all with the loops and who is exactly MC ? what is all about? this book is such a page-turner. Believe me. Even the author got the inspiration from one of Agatha Christie's book !

When finished with this one I found it was one that while I didn’t necessarily dislike it I also didn’t fall in love. There were several characters that really stood out for me. It was a bit slow for me. It was compelling, really well-written at times,

Thanks go to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this title.
Unfortunately, I was not a huge fan of this book, for reasons I can't really put my finger on.
May try and read it again at a later date when published.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
What an interesting idea. That we can live each day again until we get it right. But will we get it right and prevent something terrible from happening.

This book had me anxiously turning pages to see what happened next. I highly suggest it.

3.5
This was a very interesting book, but I think it might have found me at the wrong time. This is not a light read at all. This is a murder mystery with a body switching, Groundhog's Day twist to it. My issue was that I had a very difficult time trying to figure out whose body Aidan was in. The chapter titles didn't really help me. I'm wondering if I should've made some kind of chart because I spent a big chunk of my time re-reading and trying to figure out where we were. So, if you're going to pick this up you might make a key of your own. The idea was very original, however, and loved how twisty and turny the book got in the latter half!

Seven deaths... seven and a half deaths... either way, it was a complex and engaging story about a dinner party gone wrong. Aiden is stuck in a loop- every night, Evelyn gets murdered at a party and the only way out is for him to figure out whodunit. He inhabits the bodies of the different guests, giving us a mystery with a side of science fiction. There were a lot of moving parts and I enjoyed getting to see the night from the different characters' POVs. I have no idea how the author managed to keep the narrative straight- but he does. Once I got used to the rhythm of the writing- I had to get to the end to see who manages to get out of the time loop. The book was atmospheric and I could feel the desperation and the tension- you're rooting for the main guy. I had to work to keep up with this book, but I didn't mind . If you like to solve the puzzle of a story and are able to suspend your disbelief, you'll get a kick out of this unique story.

Often books that I am really looking forward to read disappoint so much and some chance encounters are simply memorable 😍. This book is about the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle and the journey of Aiden Bishop to solve it. Sounds like a regular mystery? Maybe. But what if this murder has been happening every day for many many years and Aiden hasn't been able to solve it?
The book is a complex and an intricately woven debut that has some really intriguing characters, time travel and is a breath of fresh air due to it's sheer brilliance!❤️
Initially I was lost and couldn't really process what was happening, and once I did get attuned to it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Every single day the scenes play out much the same way and yet every single time it's different. The book is more than just one death. The book is a complex maze of characters, secrets and lies. Let alone finding the culprit- you would be groping in darkness as you would be completely clueless as to whom to trust and whom not to.
The lines between reality and Illusion are blur and I think that is another element that makes the book such a stunner!! It was a book that irked me first, had me hooked to the extent that I was constantly thinking about it! Even if I wasn't reading it- I kept wondering how it's all going to work out.
Overall, this was a brilliant read for me! A thriller that was more than that and yet did not lose it's basic essence. It maintained the central theme and yet the premise was simply brilliant!! You wouldn't regret reading this one at all.

A murder mystery with a twist. If you enjoyed 'Life After Life' by Kate Atkinson you might enjoy the concept of this as well. Although initially gripping, it became slightly convoluted for me personally and ultimately suffered from having too many characters to keep track of. Which is a shame as I really enjoy genre fiction that approaches the story from a unique angle such as this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this title.

This book was a delight! The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton is a clever and twisty murder mystery that was such a fun read.

Evelyn Hardcastle is going to be murdered and Aiden Bishop has to figure out who is the murderer. Aiden has been given the opportunity to re-live the day of the murder 8 times. (It's a bit like Groundhog Day or Life after Life, but with Aiden using different host bodies.) Aiden has friends that sometimes help him in this task, but he also has unidentified rivals who he needs to avoid. At best, they want to prevent him from learning the identity of the murderer. At worst, they want him dead.

There is a lot to hold onto as you move through the story, as you encounter many characters and there is a bit of time-flipping between host bodies, but it was just such an inventive approach to a murder mystery. A very impressive debut from Turton; I am looking forward to reading whatever he comes up with next!

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Quickly I realized this book was not for me. I had a really tough time connecting to the story and was getting confused with all of the characters in the book. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with this book for my honest review.

Evelyn Hardcastle will die tonight. And if Aiden Bishop doesn't solve her murder by 11 p.m., he will not be allowed to leave Blackheath, the place where all is happening. Everyday Aiden wakes up in a new body, making use of that person's traits and abilities to gather clues and try to figure out this thing. But he's not only one inside the house desperate to get out.

This was a weird book.

The premise is really cool. It reminded me a lot of Clue, which was like my favorite board game growing up, plus the setting and the writing have a similar tone to Agatha Christie's books. They are not the kind of mysteries I usually read - I'm more of a contemporary thriller fan - but I read a few of her books when I was younger and I definitely understand the appeal they have. They really push the reader to think and figure things out on their own, and in this one, I kinda did and also didn't nail it.

I had a bit of a hard time getting into this one because the concept of Aiden switching bodies, at first, was a little difficult for me to fully grasp. However, after like 15% or 20% of the book I was fully hooked. I kept pushing myself to read more and more everyday because I just needed to know what the eff was actually! going! on! And I was very excited over this, especially as the story went on, Aiden was getting closer to the answer and the stakes kept getting higher.

Then the final 50 pages happened. Wow.

While I understand that the concept of changing bodies and reliving a day over and over again isn't very historically faithful, the explanation we get for it is... not much of an explanation at all? It's all really convoluted and terribly explained, and I honestly wish there had been no attempt at explaining it at all. There's a sort of twist tying Aiden and another character together that I also didn't understand the need because it was only presented to us at a surface-level, and it didn't make me care more or less about the characters themselves.

(Here's another thing I'm not sure about either - the characters. I just didn't connect with them at all? I feel like we got to know Aiden's hosts more than Aiden himself, which yeah, ties along with the concept of the story, but I still needed to care a bit more about him to really immerse myself into his quest, because if I don't care about him then why should I care about him getting out or not?)

So, yeah. I really don't know if I would actually recommend this. The mystery part of it is really cool, and you do get answers that are satisfactory and make the journey worthwhile. But then that's not the end, and what comes after the answers are just... a big no from me. Take a chance if you enjoy Agatha Christie and slightly sci-fi twists to your stories!

Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this arc.

This is a great book. It is original, engrossing, and fun to read. The author does an awesome job of creating suspense, tension, uncertainty, and mystery all while immersing the reader in the world of Blackheath. I think any lover of mystery should read this book!
The biggest problem that I had with the book was the first several chapters, or the first two "days" for our hero. You see, as the book opens, we are introduced to an apparent amnesia victim, who wakes up in a forest and believes a woman named Anna has been murdered nearby. As this man begins to learn of his identity and make connections with the other inhabitants of the old English manor house where he finds himself, he is nonetheless overwhelmed with sadness at the person he believes himself to have been. The desolateness of the location and the shabby yet foreboding manor house make for an oppressive atmosphere. When, at the end of the day, Evelyn Hardcastle, the new friend our hero has made, dies in front of all the guests gathered for the house party, the real mystery begins. And when our hero wakes up the next morning, in a different room, in a different body, yet on the same day, the mystery is compounded. Our hero, and the reader, is completely confused, uncomprehending, and frightened. This was the point where I almost stopped reading the book. It was very bleak, depressing, and dreary, not to mention with a feeing of dread.
I kept pressing on however, and was very glad I did. Eventually our hero discovers his true name is Aiden Bishop and as he wakes up each morning he finds himself in the body of a different inhabitant of the house. He's racing agains time to find the killer of Evelyn Hardcastle, as well as find the reason he's stuck at Blackheath living the same day over and over. He only has a few "days" and "hosts" left before he will lose his chance to bring the killer to justice and escape the strange time loop he is in.
I really enjoyed this book. It has definite Agatha Christie influences while being completely original. The "world-building" was great, as well as the characterization of Aiden Bishop. The author is able to weave together incredibly complicated strands of create a complex and fascinating story. The mystery is well-thought out and very suspenseful. I felt on-edge the whole time I was reading it, but I had a very hard time putting it down. Although it is a long book, it felt as thought it was just the perfect length. The ambiguous time period of the book, as well as the slight touch of sci-fi towards the end was just the right touch.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mysteries, suspense, and Agatha Christie. I think it demands a second reading.

5★
“The hunt begins in half an hour and I can’t miss it. I have too many questions and most of the answers will be carrying shotguns.”

Who is this “I” with the questions? My dad told me he’d read about a man whose dementia got so bad that he got up one morning, looked in the bathroom mirror, and said “Who the hell are YOU?” The reason he told me was that he had dementia, but he was a long way from that point.

Our narrator is having trouble recognising himself. At one point he thinks:

“. . . this bland figure in the glass. Brown hair, brown eyes and no chin to speak of, I’m any face in a crowd; just the Lord’s way of filling in the gaps.”

Without giving the plot away, I’m going to attempt the impossible – talking about something similar, using animals. But, I will add some quotations from the real story to give you an idea of the writing.

Let’s say you are a farm animal, a chicken perhaps, and you wake one morning to discover you are a mouse. You are horrified, so you hide under the straw and you overhear a conversation between two men. (Ok, I’m getting a bit “Charlotte’s Web” here.)

A man is lamenting that he’s going to have to take desperate measures to win over someone’s wife, and shortly after, you hear a gunshot

The cat races past you, tearing out of the barn for the house. You’re too frightened to investigate, so you curl up under the straw and fall asleep.

You wake to the smell of scraps of bacon by your nose which the cook has dropped, saying “Here you go, Rover. A little something to warm you up before the hunt.”

Rover? A dog? You’re a dog. What’s this about a hunt? But you wag your tail at the cook, Mrs. Drudge.

“A wide-hipped, ruddy-faced elderly woman is standing by the oven bellowing instructions, her pinafore covered in flour. No general ever wore a chestful of medals with such conviction.”

The cat wanders by, and your earlier mouse heart leaps to your throat before you growl and scare it off.

The cook leaves the kitchen, and you listen to two young fellows muttering about a stranger they saw in the stables. Why is he invited to this exclusive house party? One thinks he is rich and knows their host is in money trouble because he heard him talking with his wife.

“‘. . . we’ll end up poor and I’m fairly certain we’ll be dreadful at it.’
‘Most people are,’ . . .
‘Well, at least they’ve had practice,’ he says.”

The second fellow saw the stranger talking to the wife in the garden. (Aha, the plot thickens. But what about that gunshot?)

What about it? You’re a dog, lying by a fire, so you do what dogs do and doze off.

You wake with a woman tickling your ears, saying “Good morning, Mittens!” She’s asking the maid to draw her a bath and get out her most flattering outfit, because she needs to impress a new guest if they are to save the estate from ruin. You think:

“I suddenly have the sense of taking part in a play in which everybody knows their lines but me.”

Then the maid shrieks. “There’s a mouse in the corner! Mittens!!!”

You (Mittens) recognise your former self, miss your pounce, and let the surprised mouse escape. Remember, the mouse and the dog don’t know they will become Mittens. In each body (host), you know your past, but not your future. You wander off, but

“. . . rooms I pass through are musty, thick with mildew and decay. Pellets of rat poison have been piled up in the corners, dust covering any surface too high for a maid’s short arm to reach.”

Might as well curl up in a sunny spot and doze off. (This is becoming a habit. )

“The hunt!” Get up, Rover! We’re off.” People shout, clattering shotguns and rattling boxes of ammunition.

Rover? What? Again? And guns? You join the hunt, get shot and killed (by mistake, of course) and wake up in the barn again as the mouse. Now you're curious about the conversations and follow a trail of blood from the tack room into the woods.

Enough already. I’m getting ridiculous. And this book is about people, not animals – an Agatha Christie-like, closed-loop house party in a big old, crumbling manor house with an odd assortment of characters.

It’s something like Kate Atkinson's memorable Life After Life– but this is not variations on one life (like the movie based on the book Sliding Doors). This is one story from different points of view, although those points are all shared by one entity – the protagonist - battling poison, knives, guns and . . . oh, yes, there's both an unsolved murder and a foreshadowed one (Evelyn’s).

It’s terrific, and I apologise for my convoluted animal comparison. Just know that our narrator starts off not knowing his own name, where he is or why.

Here I would like to add my thanks to the author’s:

“Special mention must go to my early readers David Bayon, Tim Danton and Nicole Kobie who read this story in its ‘David Lynch’ phase, and very kindly pointed out that clues, grammar and reminders of plot points aren’t a sign of weakness.”

You mean this began with fewer clues and plot points? Gasp!

There are some distinctive characters, which makes it easier to follow the story.

“He’s a smear of a man with oiled hair and a pale, pinched face, his manner that of somebody who finds everything in the room beneath him.”

This fellow is a bit more appealing.

“Freckles are splashed across his nose, honey-coloured eyes and short blond hair suggesting a face spun out of sunlight.”

No vampires or werewolves, but they wouldn’t be out of place in this scary, dismal setting. Where to go?

“I suggest you use this time to hide yourself somewhere he won’t find you. Argentina, perhaps. Good luck to you.”

There were a few names similar enough to make me check the very handy cast of characters in the front. One thing I did wish the author had included was the charcoal tree drawing referred to near the end of the book to help us as well as the character.

I’d love to think it’s in the final printed version, or that some enterprising fan will create one.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted. Thanks also to SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for the preview of The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle to be published in September 2018. Whatever the number of deaths, it is a unique mystery!

Should have liked this a lot more than I did. Its a great original concept mashing up an Agatha Christie country house mystery and quantum leap. But I just couldn't get into to it. As they say "its not you, its me"

A unique take on a classic murder mystery, but word to the reader: PAY ATTENTION. I got lost with all character twists, which was the fault of my attention and not a slight on the suberb story telling.

So I loved this book and the description is spot-on when it says it is reminiscent of Agatha Christie. It was a whodunit murder-mystery and I was hanging on the edge of my seat. I’m not always a fan of sci-fi or paranormal or whatever the element was that made Aiden Bishop be able to relive the same day over and over, but I liked it here! It kind of reminded me of the movie Groundhog Day. But then the explanation toward the end threw me. Either there didn’t need to be an explanation – kind of like Groundhog Day, he just relives it until he gets it right basically – or the explanation needed its own storyline. Because it just left me a little confused.

That was the only bad part about the book though and I would totally recommend it anyways because honestly it was such a small part. I loved the mystery - it kept me guessing! And the family drama and the fun jazzy kind of setting. I was anxiously running around all those twists and turns desperate to get there in time to see whodunit! Really fun mystery!

You need this book if you like Agatha Christie style mysteries and don’t mind a bit of sci-fi kind of flair! It was like playing the game of Clue by yourself – if you had multiple personalities!

Entertainment Value: 5
Characters: 4
Voice: 4
Plot: 4
Overall: 4.25 stars

<i>Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!</i>