While I wanted to love this, it fell short of the mark. The author just put too much content in the narrative, not affording the reader to connect with characters or even follow the storyline. It was a challenging read, definitely for those with better information management than me. Perhaps this is why the story felt chaotic and slow moving. Did not enjoy.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC which was read and reviewed voluntarily.

I love a solid thriller and had seen tons of rave reviews for North’s “The Whisper Man” so I jumped on this ARC from Netgalley. Unfortunately, this book was a slog for me. I DNFd it a little less than halfway.

Katie grew up with a happy, normal childhood until her younger brother Chris was brutally attacked by a stranger just before she graduated. Decades later, Katie is still haunted by the violent attack and her own guilt. Chris is now an adult but he is suddenly missing and Katie jumps at the chance to help her brother in ways she never could before.

I cared about Katie and Chris but they were such a small sliver of the first half of the book. There were way too many timelines and characters to care about anyone or anything going on. I felt so disconnected as the book jumped around. I feel like I read a lot of books with multiple POVs and timelines, yet I was lost here. Makes me not want to check out North’s other works…

✨Trigger Warnings: Murder, Child Abuse, Death, Violence (probably way more but this is what I got to)

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC of this book.

It is fast paced, and I finished it in a couple of days. I was initially drawn in because I had so many questions and no clue how anyone was related. The beginning felt like I was reading two (three?) separate stories.

Then slowly, inexorably, the pieces started to click together and the twists revealed themselves.

Endings are where I'm picky and I felt this one ended a touch abruptly. Not a lot of closure for me as the reader. Still, I enjoyed this book and do recommend it.

I recently finished this one and have been trying to collect my thoughts on it. Im still not sure if I understand everything that happened 😂. Even though I am confused I still enjoyed this one! I love Alex North’s writing style and how invested I get into the story and characters. I listened to this and also read it at the same time and the audio was great but I did get a little lost because of the time jumps as well as switching pov’s. This story follows Katie who was a part of a traumatic accident involving her brother. Years later he is missing and Katie is asked by her mother to look for him. At the same time we are also following a pair of detectives investigating a murder. I really enjoyed all the perspectives and was invested in all of them. Highly recommend this creepy thriller! Thank you @celadonbooks and @netgalley for my #gifted copies!

I have enjoyed North’s previous book so I was excited for The Angel Maker. I was super interested how this story was going to go from the very beginning, but the amount of characters was really overwhelming. Overall this was an read okay for me and I look forward to what Alex North comes up with next!

I haven’t read a thriller in a while and I’m glad Celadon sent me this.
There is various timelines and multiple characters it is hard at first to get into. It’s a little dark and a little creepy but I’m a good way. There’s a few twists and turns that surprised me ! Make sure you pay attention :) I loved it thank you for this arc

Best book by North yet imo. It was chilling and page turning, telling multiple stories as things began to slip into place. the philosophical aspect of determinism was quite interesting. I don’t believe in that but the aspect of time compressing (expanding?) and overlaying and existing all at once towards death was thought provoking. It could perhaps explain reported aspects of NDEs “life flashing before your eyes” and such.

There are quite a few characters, so it was a bit confusing at the beginning, as things were laid out. But once you understand who is who is fine.

Alex North's newest book, The Angel Maker kept me on the edge of my seat. As soon as i started reading it, it was hard to put down. As a fan of true crime and horror, this book had everything i could want.

The angel maker was a creepy thriller that is told from different point of view and different characters and goes back in forth time wise. I enjoyed the story and the creepy gotick vibes it’s gave me . A perfect rainy night scary you old school but new book

A dark, suspenseful new thriller about the mysteries of fate, the unbreakable bond of siblings, and a notorious serial killer who was said to know the future.

I just want to start off by saying that this is the first book by Alex North that I have read and I went in blind so I really didn't know what to expect.

This book has multiple time lines and POV's. At times I had a hard time keeping things straight in my head. At the beginning I felt completely lost as to what was going on but by the midway point I was able to grasp it.

I haven't listening to a lot of audiobooks that aren't nonfiction so I wasn't used to having to pay close attention to the story. My opinion is I probably would have enjoyed the physical copy better rather than the audio.

Thank you @celadonbooks and @netgalley for an ARC and ALC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a thriller book broken up into 4 parts. The first 2 parts are a bit slow and with many characters it is hard to follow at times. The 3rd part picks up a bit and the ending was ok. I'm not sure if this book wasn't for me because of the subject matter or I just didn't connect with any of the characters. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

Synopsis:
"Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever.
Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more.
Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page is facing a particularly gruesome crime. A distinguished professor of fate and free will has been brutally murdered just hours after firing his staff. All the leads point back to two old cases: the gruesome attack on teenager Christopher Shaw, and the despicable crimes of a notorious serial killer who, legend had it, could see the future."

My Thoughts:
This story is told in one of my favorite formats with multiple POV's and dual timelines. However, this one didn't quite work for me. With each chapter we would get a date to indicate the timeline, since I was listening to the audiobook I struggled to remember the dates from one chapter to the next. As a result I would rely on the chapters content to try to place it within the overall story. This, paired with characters that I just didn't really like pulled me out of the story at times.
With all of that said, I did really enjoy how the story came together in the end. I thought that the overall concept was fantastic, I just struggled with the format.

Easily my favourite Alex North novel, THE ANGEL MAKER is a great thriller full of twists and turns. It's not afraid to make you feel "the ick". I kept wanting more, despite the way it made me feel. If you like character-driven stories, this is one for you. At times I felt a bit confused, but the story itself sucks you right in that it doesn't take long to right yourself again. North has the ability to make a story play out like an edge-of-your-seat horror movie, and it's uniqueness will draw you back to his writing every time.

Thank you Celadon Books for inviting me to read THE ANGEL MAKER!

I don’t even quite know where to start on this review as I try to wrap my head around what I just read. While I normally give a synopsis with my reviews, this one is a bit more tricky. This book was very close to a DNF for me initially. There are several characters to follow and several different timelines. Sometimes 2 years ago, sometimes 15, 30 etc. the timelines jumped all over the place and it got really hard to follow along. I will say, once I hit about 55% the story picked up and I was completely intrigued at how it would all play out, and the suspense got intense with a few events. Overall the ending tied up some of the questions I had, but there were still a few unanswered for me and it fell a little flat without those answered for me.

Thank you NetGalley and celadon books for my ARC in exchange for my honest feedback!

Thank you to NetGalley, Alex North, and Celadon Books for an ARC of The Angel Maker. This was my first Alex North book, and I'll read more.

I had a hard time with this book, honestly. There were too many story-lines, too many timelines, and too many point of views. When they were younger, siblings Katie and Christopher had something terrible happen, and Katie feels it's all her fault. Christopher never really recovered and has led a rough life ever since then. Now, something else is happening to their family, and Katie is trying to save them...but from what exactly?

Detective Laurence Page was there the day Michael Hyde attacked Christopher, and now he's searching for him as a person of interest in a major crime. Alan Hobbes was found dead, in a dilapidated home where there is a collection of items used by The Angel Maker, a serial killer. Why is he buying all these items? What's his fascination with Jack Lock?

Edward Leland is trying to track down his father's journal, which is supposed to have a record of everything that will ever happen in the world. And somehow Christopher got his hands on it first. Does Chris know what he has, and can he keep it out of the wrong hands?

I spent most of the book confused on how all the different plots wove together and getting lost in stories and time-frames. There were very few mentions of The Angel Maker himself, and I would have rather this been a story about him instead of trying to find his journal. I was slightly disappointed with this novel, and wasn't really in suspense for it, I was more just reading to get to the next part.

All in all, a decent mystery read. If you enjoy multiple viewpoints, stories, and timelines, then you'll probably like this. If you have read other Alex North books and liked them, then you'll probably enjoy this one.

I enjoyed reading that but I was really confused on who was who and how they all fit together. I'm glad I read other reviews and found out it wasn't just me. Good, interesting story and I will definitely pick up the next Alex North book.

This story took a while for me to find the groove of but half way in the plot picks up and the pieces start coming together. A great thriller.

This one fell flat for me until around the 75% mark in the book. There was so many characters writing from their point of view that it was really hard to understand what had happened in the past and what Katie and Chris' stories were and how the other character fit into the puzzle. At the 75% mark, it seemed like the story really started to shake out of the disjointed mess and began to really get down to the story. This was disappointing and this book really could have benefited from some editing and less point of views throughout. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

First off let me say thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for an arc copy of this book! I have some mixed feelings about this one. Coming from The Whisper Man, I had high expectations. While the premise is very intriguing, the story didnt feel like anything new. I dont want to give spoilers in my reviews, and if this is your first Alex North book it will make you want to read his others, but if you have read Whisper Man, this one is not going to be on that same level. Its a good book, just not good enough to take down 5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and Celadon Books for this advanced digital copy of The Angel Maker by Alex North! What a come back! The Whisper Man was my very first review on my Instagram account and has stuck with me ever since. I will always recomment it, but Alex North's follow up book The Shadows did not fill its shoes. I felt there was a big disconnect in the writing style between the two which made me very sad. BUT I'm happy to report that The Angel Maker was a success. It was creepy, it was twisty, it was a head scratcher. It was an all around thinker, and I love that in a psychological thriller. There are a LOT of names to keep up with, so heads up on that. I feel that can either make or a break a book, but as long as you know going in to the book that it's meant to take up all of your attention, I think you'll love it like I did. I can't wait to see what else Alex North has up his sleeve!