I will admit I was skeptical of Catherine Ryan Howard’s work after “56 Days” fell flat for me, but “Run Time” is the tense and suspenseful novel I was hoping for!

“It’s dangerous to want something at the cost of everything else. So much so that you can’t imagine reaching the end of your life without it. “ “The not-having starts to corrode you, and the wanting starts to change you.” Run Time is a story about Adele, a struggling actress who is trying to build back up her career after some unfortunate events during her last film. When she is offered a role in a new film back home in Ireland, she jumps at the chance at a last effort to redeem herself as an actress. But all is not as it seems, and she soon finds herself in the middle of a crazy, confusing and downright frightening situation. A very fast paced and entertaining read.









https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4716764545

Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard delivers chills and pure dread when Adele, a down on her luck actor is cast in a role at the last minute after another cast member drops out, suddenly. Set deep in a remote wooded area with no cell phone signal, Adele soon realizes something about this film is off kilter, and as the only woman on set, is in a vulnerable position, with everything to lose.

This novel is sure to be a page turner for fans of horror and psychological thrillers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Run time was good. It was a movie about a book and the book was about what is happening in the movie. Like an inception.
I gave it 3 because it got a bit boring with her backstory that didn’t really go with the story

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

I had high hopes for this after LOVING Nothing Man. I definitely did not care for it as much as I liked Nothing Man. It was a book within a screenplay within a book, which got a tiny bit too convoluted for me. But still enjoyable and a super fast read. 3.5 stars.

On the set of a horror movie, the lead actress begins to experience the same spooky events from the movie's script...

I really enjoyed "56 Days" from this author, so was very excited to give "Run Time" a read. While I thought the idea for the plot and atmosphere for the novel were spot on, the pacing was a bit slow for me throughout. Just like in the horror movies this novel is based around, brace yourself for a lot of confusion and running through the rainy, cold woods!

And this is why Catherine Ryan Howard is an absolute beast!

This novel is clearly well-thought-out and delivered with Catherine’s simple yet, vivid and descriptive writing. 
The characterisation is superb throughout, and as I encountered each character they were so vivid and real in my mind, from both their physical descriptions.
Very well well-developed characters 
Run Time will engage, it will enthrall, and it will most definitely surprise. 
This was a tense, claustrophobic read for me and one I could not put down.
The story keeps twisting and turning until the very end. The tension and suspense are kept high all along.
Another brilliant mystery from an author who has quickly risen to my favourites list.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Blackstone Publishing,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to my platforms, blog, B&N and Waterstone closer to pub date.

Run Time Review!

Thank you Blackstone Publishing and Netgalley for this gifted copy of Run Time, in exchange for an honest review. Run Time is out August 16th!

This one wasn’t for me. I went into this one thinking that it was a horror. It was a mystery at best, a very confusing mystery. Run Time was a 2.25/5 ⭐️ for me! I really loved this creepy storm in the secluded woods setting. This had so much going for it I thought! It turned out to be very underwhelming and confusing and it felt like I was back in high school with the petty drama. There was a great build up to the mystery, but it fell flat for me. I haven’t read any other books by Howard, but I still want to read 56 Days. I do love the way she builds up the atmosphere in her books, this one just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Synopsis: Adele has been down on her luck. Being a child star for years and years in a soap opera she decided to call it quits and act for different movies. The thing is, no one will hire her. When she gets a random call to do a horror film in a secluded forest in Ireland, she thinks this might be her big break.

This may not have quite been the scary psychological horror I was expecting but, wow, it sure is fun and thoroughly entertaining!

The story is a wild ride that is a little outlandish but, somehow, it just works. The structure reminded me of CRH's previous book, ‘The Nothing Man,’ in a sense that this is a story within a story, with both plot lines impacting and intertwining with each other. It gives the reader such a meta feeling that, if pulled off well, can be a really trippy, which is what CRH does here. I loved seeing how a fictional book within a screenplay mirrors the events of this story - it felt like a game to see if I could spot all of the parallels and connections!

Overall, a very solid and decent addition to CRH's bibliography. I love how consistently her mystery/thrillers hit the mark every time!

A strange thriller film in a remote part of Ireland with little known about it and an actress who commits and doesn't tell anyone where she is?! Sign. Me. UP!

Run Time was a TON of fun. Adele, our lead, is struggling to find work in LA after some career hurdles in Ireland. But when she gets a call from a director to come back, that will pay enough to cover her rent and extra, she doesn't think twice. However, once she arrives, things are unusual- the location, the size of the crew, the NDA... and when weird things start to happen, they are starting to mimic the script for the movie. Is it a prank?

While the book starts off a bit slow, I thought the way it was told really worked for tension building and mystery elements. We read parts of the script throughout the story, which isn't always for everyone, but helped piece together the direction the story was going in for me. The plot is very fun, perhaps a bit ridiculous, but Howard made it an enjoyable ride right up until the end. I found the reveals quite smart and I didn't expect any of them. While I wasn't personally intrigued by Adele much, the plot and planning made up for it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ARC!

Catherine Ryan Howard is one of my all-time favorite authors and she is back with another slam dunk of a book with "Run Time." The story is like nothing else I've read before and told in a new inventive way as well. Movie lovers and book lovers will all enjoy this book with a nod to the love of films.

Read this if you like slasher films, a story within a story, filmmaking aesthetics, deep woods, and new age thrillers! I’m going to be honest, I was expecting a little more from this book but I’m still glad I read it. Did I get sucked in? Yes. Did I love it? Eh, not really. It definitely kept me turning the pages until the very end, but I could have used more thrill (and maybe some more murder thrown in there? 👀) I guess I was expecting more of a “bang” towards the end.

I love the way CRH’s mind works. Nothing is ever straightforward. I may trust that the characters are telling me the truth, but in the end they always manage to surprise me. In RUN TIME, CRH takes the theme of your typical horror movie and runs with it, drawing on her brother’s experiences with the world of film. I really enjoyed how the book managed to be both a “book within a book” as well as a movie within a book, with all three mediums intersecting to create a deliciously descriptive backdrop. The concept of life mirroring a horror movie script was an intriguing and refreshingly original concept. I also felt that the chapters of screenplay provided an interesting contrast from the main story and were very “visual” – it gave me the feeling of bingeing on a favourite Netflix series.

As with her previous book, 56 DAYS, RUN TIME relies heavily on an atmospheric, claustrophobic setting – in this case the film set of a horror novel deep in some dark Irish woods (at night time in the rain). As it plays out over a short period of time, the story is both character driven as well as paying attention to the little details that will ultimately give you the clues to what is really happening here. Our main character Adele’s fragile state of mind and overactive imagination adds another element to the unreliable narrator theme that worked well here. Some old worn horror movie tropes were skilfully woven into the story in a way that both played them down as movie props and simultaneously added tension to the story as things started to happen to Adele that she couldn't explain.

Perhaps my only quibble is that the story got bogged down a bit towards the middle just as things started to go bump in the night - I would have loved to see those scenes exploited a bit more to ratchet up tension. That said, the final reveal took me by surprise and showed me just how cleverly plotted CRH's latest book really was. Whilst RUN TIME wasn’t my all time favourite CRH book, it was an enjoyable and captivating novel I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I look forward to what the author will come up with next.

Having read all of Howard's books, this was not my favorite book, but that being said it was still a very good thriller. A little predictable, but like a horror movie, it is satisfying at the end to know that all the instincts were spot on.

This was a creepy, atmospheric, twisty thriller. I enjoyed it, but didn't love the fiction within a fiction aspect. The book is about an actress in a movie set in a remote cut-off Irish cabin who experiences what is happening to the movie character. The movie is about a couple in a remote Irish cabin who find a book that mirrors what they are experiencing. It's like one of those dreams you have about waking up from a dream, and then you realize that was a dream too, If that sounds confusing, that's kind of how the book was too.

I am a huge Catherine Ryan Howard fan and have devoured ALL of her books so I was thrilled to get an early copy of Run Time. Thanks to Blackstone, Net Galley and the author. I was born and raised in Ireland, so I love to support Irish authors and Ryan Howard is a very talented one. She is on my must-read list despite what’s written below!
That said, I hesitate to post this review as this is my least favorite of all of her books to date. Maybe it’s me, but this novel didn’t grab me like her others for several reasons. First, the repetitive nature of the story within a story within a script. The movie script itself was excruciatingly boring to read. Maybe that was on purpose? I cringed every time I saw another part of it appear on my screen and that was usually when I took a break from reading. I’ve compulsively read all previous novels by Ryan Howard but this one took a few days.
Second, I felt like this book was a lot longer and could have used a tighter edit. It is also slower in its pacing than the others. I got irritated reading the scene where the main character is outside alone in the dark. I just wanted it to end and was not invested in what was going to happen to her. There was no horror element here for me. I didn’t bond with Adele like I did with Alison or Adam from previous books. I felt like the other characters were not as well developed as they could have been. Julia seemed to come out of nowhere and was so implausible. Some were just barely mentioned like Martin and Steven and others, like Donal, seemed not quite real.
The scenery here was a bit of a duplicate of the Cork holiday cottages in an earlier novel, Rewind. As I was reading the descriptions in Run Time I kept thinking of Rewind. Was that intentional or a lack of imagination? There are so many other great locations in Ireland, and I hope we get to see the west coast in a future novel.
The ending was a major letdown. I don’t think the rest of the book supported it at all and I really didn’t get it. I mean I understand the factual basis, but I don’t think the groundwork was laid to make it believable. We didn’t get to know Julia at all and the idea that Adele would be totally clueless as to Martin’s interest in her seems implausible to me. Again, maybe the author is being meta and playing with our expectations? Not sure at all here and I look forward to listening to some interviews upon the book’s release.
If this is your first Ryan Howard book, please go read Distress Signals for a tighter more interesting plot, better pacing and a more satisfying read.
Overall, I give this a 3.5 as entertaining but I’ve had better from this author!

Catherine Ryan Howard has written some really clever books I’ve enjoyed lately, and this was no exception! Keeping a story within a story within a story straight is no easy feat, but she managed it really well.
Adele is an actor who has been struggling since leaving her childhood soap opera (and an episode on her last acting gig). When she gets a call out of the blue, offering her the lead part in an upcoming horror film, she jumps at the chance. The fact that it’s all very hush hush makes it even more attractive, there’s people in the industry she’d rather avoid. The movie, Final Draft, is based on a couple finding themselves experiencing parallel events to a horror novel, First Draft and now Adele is finding herself drawing a few parallels in her own situation.

The chapters of Run Time flick between Adele’s experience and the movie screenplay, which was sometimes a little confusing, but I got the hang of it after a while! The whole book gave me 90’s teen thriller vibes, akin to Scream, which was super fun! The story actually managed to freak me out in several places. It was extremely atmospheric and there were enough twists to keep the mystery of both storylines alive. This was a hard one to put down and I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a bit of a different take on the horror genre!

Mind Twisting Suspense…
A horror movie being filmed deep in the forest of West Cork. ‘Final Draft’ - a psychological work of great suspense. Adele Rafferty, normally a soap star, has stepped in to play the lead. Will it be her big break…Or will it break her? Certainly, something is not quite right and the real horror may lie off the pages A book within a book, or rather a script within a book - this is a high concept, mind twisting suspense. Hooking the reader from the off as it sets down a tumultuous, rocky and disturbing path. It’s a hefty read, but never feels that way. Characters are well drawn and the plot convoluted while tensions are high and the pages swiftly turn. A first class thrill ride.

Thank you to Netgalley, Blackstone Publishing, and the author for an ARC of this book.

4.5 stars.

This is my second Catherine Ryan Howard book; I read The Nothing Man last year and it blew me away. Therefore, I was so excited to receive an ARC of Howard's latest novel.

First things first: I couldn't put this down. I found myself trying to sneak a few pages in wherever I could throughout the day. Howard really knows how to hook her reader and keep her coming back for more.

About the story: too much of any synopsis here is going to sound utterly confusing, so I won't overdo it. This novel is very meta. But . . . don't let that turn you off if that's not your thing. It's easy to follow (and I'm saying that even though I read an ARC with minimal--and often poor--formatting. I'm sure the finished version, especially the print version, will be even easier to follow). It's about an actress who goes to shoot a film in a remote cabin in Ireland. The film is about a couple who . . . go to a remote cabin in Ireland and, once there, the fictional woman finds a book . . . that seems to reflect exactly what she's experiencing. It's totally creepy in places and anxiety-producing. The whole concept of a story within a story within a story is one I typically enjoy so I found this to be an interesting take on the genre.

It is true that you might see the major reveal coming (and I think, Ms Howard, you have provided us both twists and reveals here!) but that's okay. There are still lots of things to uncover and motivations to examine. Also, the end does seem to get away from the author a bit, but I think Howard is doing that intentionally. She's playing with our expectations and how we expect fictional narratives to be executed and resolved.

Overall, this is a clever book that takes the reader on a roller coaster of a ride. If you start it, be sure to have the time to finish it because Howard makes it impossible to put her books down. Have fun with this one!

AWESOME! Loved the plot and setting. The whole concept drew me in and I really enjoyed this book. Definitely recommend! Thank you NetGalley for this ARC