Wow wow wow. This is why I always tend to give authors three chances to wow me. 56 Days and The Nothing Man were lackluster at best for me. This one right here, seems tailor made for me. I love anything set in the film industry. I will say that I wish this once went deeper into horror, and tends to feel more mysterious than anything else. However this did not stop me from devouring this one like a buttery bowl of popcorn.

This book in 3 words: Perplexing. Meta. Wild. 

Adele, a once up-and-coming actress, is struggling to keep her acting career alive. An opportunity falls into her lap, which checks all of her boxes, and takes her from LA back to her home in Ireland. For Adele, this could be her big break or it could break her. 

As an avid reader, I'm a sucker for a story within a story, in any capacity. Run Time also features excerpts from scripts and books - I love a mixed medium delivery. I thought the plot/characters were easy to keep straight and the execution was well done. 

Run Time feels like an elaborate puzzle, carefully constructed and finished by Catherine Ryan Howard. Mostly plot-driven, but paired with incredibly strong moments of doubt and confusion, the reader is grasping at straws and theories from start to end. 

The story grabs hold of you. There were times where I was feeling a bit panicked and out of sorts, mimicking some of the characters. It's also like you hit a point of the story where it's impossible to put it down - like you're stuck in this hole wondering what's going to come next. I love any type of thriller which DEMANDS to be finished. 

I received an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this atmospheric thriller. I am a sucker for anything horror movie related. This one is a book within a book within a movie. Super meta. There were several points throughout the story that I was worried for Adele and felt myself holding my breath, waiting for what would happen next. The writing is fantastic and very descriptive. My only gripe is that it went on for bit too long. I really enjoyed the ending and how it was wrapped up. The narration was fantastic and conveyed the emotion and terror of the characters. I would highly recommend this engaging and suspenseful book!

This was kind of a bizarre thriller that was great at times and then ended up far too convoluted. Everything felt a little too ridiculous by the end, which was a shame as the first half of the book was really good. Adele's story, the isolated woods setting, and the premise of a low-budget horror movie was good, but then it got lost in too many things at once which brought the book down in my opinion.

AAAAHH😱!! This book had me so freaked out y’all, I was a nervous wreck 😆. *DO NOT* read this one alone late at night. (Or I guess *DO* if you enjoy the heart palpitations 🙃.) This thriller got under my skin in the best kind of way. I could not read it fast enough🖤.

Adele Rafferty fled her life as a movie star in Ireland after a disastrous incident on a film set. Now, she’s working as a motel receptionist in Hollywood while chasing her acting dreams. Adele’s ready to give up on those dreams when she’s given the lead role in an Irish horror film. The movie is set in the isolated woods of West Cork, where cell service is scant and there’s no civilization for miles. When bone-chilling events start to mirror the script, Adele doesn’t know who to trust or where to turn.

There is an undercurrent of panic and danger that runs throughout this book. It’s a tense, nail-biting, breath caught in your throat, on the edge of your seat type of book.

I read and listened to this book. Thank you to @blackstonepublishing and Blackstone Audio for the digital ARCs in exchange for an honest review.

Run Time - Catherine Ryan Howard
4.75/5⭐️

Adele Rafferty was once a successful child actor in Ireland, where she performed for years on a popular soap opera. Adele actually got into acting by chance, when she was selected from the crowd by a casting agent at an audition she simply attended with her best friend, Julia.

Julia was actually the actor, but Adele got real lucky that day. The role was on <i>These Are the Days</i>, the soap that she remained on for years. Branching out later on, Adele took a role on a movie and it was a wild success. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, that success went to her head a wee bit.

She began to resent the soap from holding her back from doing other projects. Feeling constrained she abruptly left. Her next project did not end well. Embarrassed beyond belief and consequentially, partially blacklisted from the industry in Ireland, Adele packed her bags and moved to the United States to try her luck there.

As the hits keep on coming though, that's not a successful venture either. Where once Adele was a big fish in a tiny pond, in L.A. she's more like an amoeba in the ocean. Just when she's about to call it quits on acting for good, Adele receives a call that could change everything and the opportunity is back home.

She's offered the chance to be the lead in a very secretive project. A Horror movie called Final Draft filming in a remote region of West Cork. This could be exactly what Adele needs to revitalize her career. With some minor trepidation, she hops a plane and heads home. Once on location, Adele is surprised by the skeleton crew and lack of bells and whistles. This is quite a small production indeed.

As she tries to settle in, Adele is unnerved. When the screenplay she reads begins to come to life, she's properly freaked out. Seemingly abandoned on set and in a desperate search for answers, Adele fears for her life. Will this be her final cut!?

I had a lot of fun with Run Time. This was my first novel by Catherine Ryan Howard, but I absolutely plan to pick up more from her soon. I was intrigued with this from the very start. First, I need to point out that I did listen to the audio for this and I absolutely would recommend that format.

This novel has an interesting format. You follow Adele in her present perspective and through her reflections on her career leading her up to this point. You also get the screenplay from the movie, Final Draft, the one Adele is returning to Ireland to act in.

In Final Draft, one of the main characters, Kate, is reading a book whilst at a remote cottage on a weekend getaway. You also get the portions of that book that Kate is reading. So essentially, you're reading a book within a screenplay within a book. That's a lot of layers.

Due to the fabulous narration, I found it very easy to keep all of this straight. The multiple narrators kept these sections distinct and easy to follow. Additionally, I love a screenplay included within a book. I know this is hit or miss for people, but for me it is almost always a hit.

I found some scenes in here genuinely creepy. Putting myself in Adele's shoes, I was proper freaked out. It was claustrophobic and disturbing. I had no idea what was happening. I liked how the truth behind the movie was revealed. It was surprising, but also sort of not at the same time. Like once it was revealed, it did make a lot of sense, but I didn't see it coming at all.

Since this has a bit of a nontraditional format, I know it won't be for everyone. Luckily, I found it quite enjoyable. I think if you enjoy Horror in general, gritty-feeling found-footage movies, or just stories that go against the grain, you should absolutely give this one a shot.

For Audiobook Readers, I can't stress enough how fun this was in that format. I'm not sure if I would have felt the same about it had I picked up a hard copy.

Thank you to the publisher, Blackstone Publishing and Blackstone Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. This was a real treat for me. The exact type of content I can always get into!

✨BOOK REVIEW✨

Adele is an actress who is struggling to find work out in L.A. When she gets a random call to star in a movie being produced out in Ireland, she jumps at the chance. Unfortunately, the movie isn't quite what she had in mind. When things start to go horribly wrong on set, Adele wonders if she made the right decision. What will become of the movie? And what will become of Adele?

✨My Thoughts✨

I really loved how there were scenes from a movie interspersed in the novel. It really helped break up the chapters and kept things from getting stale.

It was quite an interesting storyline. A book about a girl acting in a movie based on a book that is based on another book. 🤯

I think I would have liked Run Time better if I was into the whole acting thing. I have no familiarity with scripts or producers or call times.

Overall, I'm still glad I read it! It was a wild ride that proved to be worth the read.

❓Have you read any books by @cathryanhoward ?

Once again Catherine Ryan Howard is killing the game! If you’re looking for a creepy, atmospheric book perfect for spooky season, here it is!

I absolutely loved this book from start to finish. I enjoyed reading the excepts from the screen play intermixed with the storyline. I think it really added to the suspense.

This is, I think, the longest book Howard has written, but don’t let it scare you… it’s completely worth it!

Thank you so much to Blackstone Publishing and Netgalley for the advanced arc in return for my honest opinion.

Lots of creepy feels with this intense and fast-paced thriller! Adele is an actress who finds herself without work and looking for her next gig. Having had a breakdown on the set of her last show, she feels she will unlikely be cast in anything anytime soon, until she receives a phone call and a contract to star in a top-secret production in her home country. Once she arrives to the movie set and signs a non-disclosure agreement as to the location and making of the horror movie, filming abruptly begins. She finds she is the only female cast in a production crew of 8 in a very rural, isolated and down-right creepy location. Weird things start to happen in a similar fashion to the script and all the creepy feels and twists start from there. This one sucked me in quickly and kept me entertained all the way through. 4-stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC version of this book in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

Adele Rafferty became an actress by accident -- a chance meeting at a casting call when she was just a child led to her budding stardom on a successful TV show in Ireland. But after fleeing to L.A. for a clean slate and bigger dreams, Adele struggles to find acting gigs in a big town with countless other actresses vying for the same "big break". So when she gets an out-of-the-blue call about a super-secret, NDA-requiring lead role in an upcoming suspense movie being filmed in her home country, she skeptically yet gratefully boards the first flight back to Ireland. Adele becomes increasingly uncomfortable when she gets to the secluded cottage in the Irish countryside, especially with a skeleton crew of all men, a rude director, and no cell service. When weird things start happening, she realizes she was right to be skeptical about the role but isn't sure who -- or what -- she can trust around her. What began as Adele's revival role becomes a fight for her survival.

Thoughts: Premise = interesting, which is why I requested this NetGalley DRC. I'm a horror/thriller movie fan, so this sounded like my kind of book. And it started off strong as an intriguing meta-plot -- a young woman at a secluded Irish cottage where scary things start happening playing the part of a young woman at a secluded Irish cottage where scary things start happening who is reading a book about a young woman at the same secluded cottage where scary things start happening. I was ready for a mind-twisting story. What I got instead was some gaslighting, repetitive scenes, a mystery I solved halfway through, and a concluding explanation that was very anticlimactic. This is the second Catherine Ryan Howard book I've read and I wasn't terribly impressed with the first one, either. I will say, though, that the suspense scenes are well-written and definitely gave the plot the cat-and-mouse, who-can-she-trust vibes the story synopsis promised. I just wish there was a bigger twist to make the plot less predictable and the ending more impactful.

**Thank you, Netgalley and publishers, for a DRC in exchange for a honest review.

I read The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard last year and absolutely loved it, so I was super excited to get approved for her newest book! One of my favorite parts about The Nothing Man was the book within a book element. I thought Ryan Howard did it so well, and I think she did it just as well in Run Time. I loved the layers of this story, I thought it added so much to the creepy element, and didn't feel super confused even though it was a book within a book within a movie. For most of the book, I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen, and loved the way the story unfolded. By the end, I did kind of easily figure out the ending, but it didn't bother me that much. This was a super fun, easy read for people who love slasher type movies with a solid mystery and some creepy elements throughout!

3.75, rounded up to 4.

Run Time was a fun read and true popcorn thriller: equal parts bingeable and suspenseful, with nothing particularly scary or violent. Re: its bingeablity, I didn’t even realize how long it was (clocking in at over 500 pages) until after I’d finished it; I was just along for and enjoying the ride I guess!

This is definitely for fans of “story within a story” plots; frankly, if that’s not your cup of tea, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. Word to the wise! For me, I typically like those, and I think CRH did a great job of using the movie script to add to the creepiness for both Adele, our MC, and for the reader.

Full disclosure: I kind of struggled with 56 Days, I think because I wasn’t at all ready to read a book about quarantine right when we were starting to return to our lives. But I was intrigued by Run Time’s synopsis and am ultimately glad I gave it a shot.

Many thanks to Blackstone Publishing and Netgalley for the chance to read and review this ARC. Run Time is out today, 8/16 - enjoy!

“Based on a terrifying true story, that hasn’t happened - yet.”
Struggling former actress Adele can’t resist when she is offered the lead role in the upcoming thriller Final Draft. However, when she arrives on set, deep in the forest with no cell service and only a skeleton crew, she wonders if she made a horrible mistake. Soon Adele’s real life starts mimicking the mysterious events from the script, a story about a woman who spends the weekend in a cabin in the woods, while reading a book about a woman who was spending a weekend in the woods. As more and more terrifying events occur, Adele starts questioning her own sanity, and if she still has time to run...

A story within a story within a story, yikes! This story had so many twists and turns, I couldn’t put it down! Very creative and brilliantly written, this definitely will not be my last book by Catherine Ryan Howard. Run Time releases today, so make sure to run out and grab your copy now!

Special thanks to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for sharing an ARC with me in exchanged for my honest review.

Rating - 4.5 stars rounded off to 5
     
What a fun thriller packed with adrenaline and ultimate entertainment!   
  
🍿Grab a bowl of popcorn and dive right in into this book, curled up on your couch and you won’t regret it!   
  
Synopsis -

Adele Rafferty is badly in need of a big break. So, she blindly accepts the offer to replace the original actress in the project of “Final Draft”, a horror movie that is to be directed by the promising Director Steve Dade. But when she arrives on set in West Cork, Ireland, she senses that something isn’t right. When the horror side of the movie starts becoming real, Adele can’t help but to “run” for life.   
  
Review -
Driven mainly by the plot, this thriller manages to keep us at the edge of the seat right from the beginning. The Irish setting, isolation, the surrounding dense forest and bad weather conditions provided the perfect backdrop for this movie shoot gone wrong plot.   
  
Where Howard excels is her plot construction. I really loved the “nested” concept she employs so smartly – Adele’s real life that weirdly mirrors the storyline/screen play of the movie, that is in turn moving in sync with the events of the book it features.   
  
There was simply no way to figure out what was going throughout most of the book. CRH does a great job of creating confusion, planting seeds of doubt in our minds, unable to trust anything that’s happening on the set, including Adele’s narrative. We are just left grappling for answers until the very end where the twists come banging.  
  
Once Adele realizes the sheer depth of wrongness with the shoot and starts running, the book simply takes off and it is impossible to stop reading until the mystery completely unravels.   
  
Though the first half is slow burn, the tension builds and builds to a crescendo towards the end, pumping in all the thrills, excitement and adventure that delivers full throttle entertainment! This masked some of the tiny unrealistic vibes I felt 🙈.       
  
Thanks NetGalley and BlackStone Publishing for the ARC in exchange of an honest review!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for gifting me a digital ARC of the new thriller by Catherine Ryan Howard - 4 stars!

Adele Rafferty is down on her luck, working as a waitress in LA, after having a breakdown on her last acting job. When she is contacted about a last-minute acting job in West Cork, she jumps at the chance to hopefully resume her acting career and her life. The setting is very remote, in the middle of the woods, with a sparse crew. Things just don't seem right from the beginning. And they are only going to get worse.

This was a bit confusing - it's about a book within another book in a movie. All with different but similar character names. It was a bit long too which seemed to add to the confusion. But it was a solid creepy thriller - nothing like filming a horror movie in the midst of the dark woods when everything seems to be going wrong. This author's last book, 56 Days, was one of my favorites from last year so I went into this one with super high expectations. I'm already anxious awaiting her next!

This was my second book by Catherine Ryan Howard and I think it was just so-so for me. This is advertised more as a thriller but to me it felt more like a horror book that will be perfect for the upcoming spooky season. I enjoyed the premise of the story taking place on a film set, but sometimes it felt like the plot was dragging and I would lose momentum to actually want to read it. The plot within a plot within a plot made me wonder if I was reading a new version of Inception the whole time. It would get so repetitive that got to be too much. I always looked forward to the script text because I would fly through those section but then become a slug during the main story. It wasn't until the final 100 pages that I felt glued to my seat needing to know how the ending would come to fruition. But with it being over 400 pages long, it felt like it took too long to get to the meat and potatoes of it all. Many people loved this one, but like I said it was just average for me. The author's other book, 56 Days, also was just average for me, so I'm still holding out for a 4+ star book by Catherine.

📚 Book Review: Run Time 🎬
This was such a GREAT BOOK!! I loved it. It was so fun and really creepy. 🫣 I was getting so scared at different parts. The tension was real. I definitely could not listen late at night before going to bed.
So for those that don’t know much about this book I can tell you some things without giving too much away. It’s about an out of work actress Adele, who after looking for work for a year. Then, she was finally offered the lead role in a low budget horror film, called Final Draft. Of course she’s excited and accepts the offer right away. So Adele flies to this remote location, a cabin in the woods, (where else of course, it’s a horror movie 🤣) to begin filming. How cliche right?! But after they begin filming, strange things start to happen. It seems like what was happening to the MC in the movie, was also starting to happen to Adele in real life. Who was behind it though? Or was Adele just imagining it?
You’ll have to read it to find out. But it’s crazy and creepy and wonderful. I really enjoyed this one, as usual. Catherine Ryan Howard knows how to write a thriller. 👏🏻 And I love her books so much. It’s ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5 stars for me!

A special thank you to @netgalley and @blackstonepublishing for this early audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
Run Time Pub Day: TODAY 8/16/22!

Have you read or listened to any books by Catherine Ryan Howard? Which one is your favorite? My favorite is still The Nothing Man.

Welcome to Run Time. This book made me think I was on a horror movie set for real.

Former soap-star Adele Rafferty who is now living in LA, a long way away from her home gets a phone call that changes everything. She gets an opportunity to travel back home and be the star of a horror movie called Final Draft. Adele fly's out straight away and arrives on set, a spooky house in the middle of nowhere – No mobile phone service and working weird hours. She wakes up and notices the whole crew has just up and left on day two. This is when things start getting very interesting. Things from the movie script start happening to Adele and she is 100% spooked especially when the power goes out.

Okay! That ending 🤯. That is not what I expected. This book is a chunky one, coming in at a whopping 520 pages but I absolutely enjoyed every moment. I enjoyed the snippets of the movie script.

Thank you Blackstone Publishing and Netgalley for the advanced copy for an honest review.

This is chilling, engrossing, psychological horror/thriller that will have you questioning everything before it's secrets are revealed.

Our protagonist, Adelle, is an almost washed up actor who had a mental breakdown on her last movie set. She's now struggling with life in LA where she works at the front desk of a hotel.

When she receives a call to star in a low budget horror film back in her native Ireland, she jumps at the chance.

However, things are not what they seem and people might not be who they appear to be. Almost immediately there's a sense of wrongness about the set and the crew. And things start to get rather creepy fast.

The movie is about a book that mirrors what happens to the couple in the film. But these things start happening to Adelle on set. So it's kind of a meta world we're engaging in and that makes the mind boggling events even more ominous.

The twists and turns are plentiful and, by the end, you won't know who to trust until the last secret is revealed.

This was an excellent thrill and I enjoyed reading it. Highly recommend.

Blair Witch vibes all around!

A lot of intertwined styles and stories mixed together. At times it does get a little jarring and in need of a refresh, but a thriller with a fascinating edge.