This book was a slow-burn but towards the end the pace picked up and kept me intrigued until the end.

The characters were likeable which is something I hope for in the books I read.

Although, one thing I always look for in a book is a shock factor. This book had a twist at the end but it was predictable, in my opinion.

I definitely give this one 3.5 stars.

My thanks to Net Galley and Minotaur for allowing me this arc to review. Unfortunately this missed the mark for me.

The opening premise hooked me right away. 7 women find a severed head of a man each one had "relationships " with , who treated each one horribly, and who each had a reason to want him dead. All of this was great. Whodunit and where's the rest of the body? But then this is where it lost me. You got 7 back stories jumping back from different time lines explaining each relationship. It takes awhile to connect but went all over the place and hard to engage in.

This was a wild read and I loved it!! I loved the way the story unfolds explaining each character and why they were there in the motel. I found it a bit dark but in all the right ways!!

3.5 This story at first caught my attention, then I drifted a bit…too many characters, I at first thought. But as the backstories began coming together, I found myself invested…less concerned with whodunnit …simply being glad the “victim” was dead!

Seven women have been called to meet in a hotel room which is usually a storage closet. In the center of the room on a stack of bibles is the severed head of a man they all know.

When I first started this book, I was afraid that I would be overwhelmed by the number of characters to try and keep up with, but I was wrong. Wilding does a good job keeping her characters separate and interesting as the tale unfolds, one by one.
Interesting plot and the title is an apt one!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book.

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher, Minotaur Books, for my unbiased review. All opinions are my own.
How can you not love a book that starts out with such a shocking beginning?
It is New Year's Eve, 1999, and seven women enter a room to find a severed head on a Bible opened to the passage in Leviticus that says, "an eye for an eye."
All of these women have been wronged in one way or another by the owner of the severed head, Jaime.
One of these women killed him in a brutal way. All of them have motive.
To learn which one of them killed him and why, we begin unpacking the ways Jaime destroyed each and every one of these ladies and discovered their possible motive for killing him.
I will say no more about the motives as the unfolding makes the mystery such a great ride.
I will say the ending is a shocker!

This was a fun murder mystery. One unique feature about it is that the more you read, the less you feel bad for the actual murder victim. What a terrible person. As you see how many different ways he gave so many different people motives to kill him, you really wound up hoping that whoever ultimately did it in the end would get away with it. That's not to say that all the suspects were likable, though. There were a few that were extremely unlikable and unsympathetic as well. The ending was pretty good. I did not expect the case to unravel quite the way it did.

This book starts on new years eve with 7 women in a cheap motel room with the severed head of Jamie, a man who wronged each of them adn may others until one person decided his time was up. I enjoy alternating POVs and although it took a bit to get used to all the different ones here, i think that helped with the overall arc of the novel. There were twists and turns to keep you guessing which woman was the murderer.

I enjoyed this book but if you dont like alternating POVs (especially 7 of them) then this book may not be for you.

Eeeek! What a dark, crazy, wild ride this one is! Seven women from all different walks of life all have something in common with Jamie Jamie is a bad man and has gotten away with terrible things for too long. His head now sits in a hotel room while all seven women surround it and contemplate things.

This book has good character development and an engaging story. It is somewhat unpredictable. Here and there I knew what may be next but overall it was all a surprise. Each of these women have been a victim of Jamie’s. One woman takes matters into her own hands and decides his time is up. He can no longer continue his sinful behavior.

I liked this book because it was a little off the beaten path of other murder thrillers. I love to see new ideas emerge as new authors grace us with their creative minds. Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC of this book.

The premise of the book was interesting enough, but it fell flat on delivery. The pace was too slow for the genre. It picked up a bit in the second half, but it was too little, too late. There are numerous characters, and that made it challenging to connect with them and not be confused. The mystery was okay, but it was just a struggle to stay engaged.

Thank you to #StMartinsPress #Minotaur and #NetGalley for providing this Advance Reading Copy. Expected publication date is June 23, 2023.

Seven women stand in a cheap hotel room gazing at a severed head — no body, just a head. A head that belongs to the recently departed, Jamie Spellman. All of these women have been horribly mistreated by Jamie in the past. All have reasons for wanting him dead. As their stories unfold their intertwined connections become clear. Now their only mission is to protect one another and try to find out who killed him. Fantastic debut novel!

A suspenseful novel of revenge and unlikely sisterhood. It kept twisting and turning but always kept my interest.

On NYE, seven women end up in a dreary hotel room with the decimated head of a man they all knew. Told in alternating POVs we learn about the man and his relationships with all the women. It took me a very longtime to finish this book and I was close to not finishing it. I found the 7+ POVs difficult to keep track of and felt the pace of this book was very slow. It also has a lot of British slang in it which is hard to understand at times- I say this as someone who has lived in the UK for over 3 years.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book before publishing. I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed in this book. In the beginning, with the finding of the severed head, I thought, great, this will be a page turner. After reading about Jamie, I felt like he got what he deserved. I did not feel sorry for him at all. He was manipulative and a downright awful person. The women he hurt and took advantage of, those women I felt sorry for. I also felt that the story was predictable and I figured out who killed him about half way through. So 3 out of 5 is what I am giving this book. I feel that is being generous as I did like some parts of it, but not others.

Speak of the Devil begins with a grisly scenario - seven women are meeting in a top floor suite of a cheap hotel in northeast England. In the center of the room is a makeshift altar with just the head of man they all knew resting on a bible opened to a passage in Leviticus - 2:19 - the "eye for an eye" passage. All seven women have ample reason to have killed Jamie Spellman. Which one did it?

In alternating chapters we learn the back story of the seven women:

Kayesha - a journalist who knew Jamie in college and has been keeping tabs on his misdeeds over the years.

Sarah - the current girlfriend of Kayesha who had a previous romantic relationship with the married Jamie.

Ana - Jamie's fellow lab scientist.

Josie - a young teenager who was smitten by Jamie and is now pregnant with his child.

Maureen - Jamie's aunt who reluctantly and resentfully raised him when her sister died in in childbirth.

Sadia - Jamie's wife.

Olive - a middle aged woman with a teenage daughter who befriended Jamie in church and embarked on a relationship with him, complicated by his interest in her daughter, of which she is in denial.

And we also have Detective Inspector Nova, formerly in a relationship with Kayesha, who is investigating the case. She is ambivalent about her job in general and as she learns more about the women she is sympathetic to every one of their potential motivations to have killed him.

In addition to the "who-done-it aspect" of the book there are themes of manipulation and a "nature vs nurture" debate, Jamie clearly manipulated all of these women, at times gaslighting them so that they would think they were imagining things that happened and things he said. Kayesha manipulates Nova into taking the case and rekindles their relationship so that she can keep tabs on what is happening in the investigation. We don't know who Jamie's father was so we don't know if his evil ways had a genetic component, but we do know that he was raised by Maureen in a distant and unloving way until he left home at the age of 16.

There are certainly a lot of characters to keep track of, but for the most part they are well drawn. In the end we learn who killed him, not a total surprise as there are ample clues revealed.

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the advanced copy of this dark and suspenseful thriller.

thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for a review!

i was intrigued by the concept of this book, and i was interested going in. the first chapter was so engaging, i genuinely thought this was going to be a 5 star. i thought it was going to be like a popcorn thriller, something i could fly through at the very least. i’m sad to say that i was a bit disappointed with this book for a few reasons.

firstly, the way the characters interacted with each other was kind of corny and i felt like it was very inauthentic. it felt like a whodunit episode of a disney channel show, but darker. the dialogue was just cringe-worthy, and none of the characters had their own unique voices.

on the topic of the characters, this book multi-POV but it’s honestly hard to tell because none of the characters, again, have their own voice. they all blended together and it was so hard to tell whose POV i was reading from. granted, this is told in third person so that does take away from character voice, however i think there are ways to allow characters to have their own voice within their POV even if it’s not in first person.

this book had so much potential because based off the description, it sounds so interesting. the set-up was amazing, if only what had followed had been just as engaging. i almost DNFed to be honest. the only reason this has 2 stars is because i still found the plot interesting to follow, but there was almost no payoff because the ending was abrupt and it didn’t make much sense to me.

overall, this was not for me and i think there is much room for improvement.

thanks again Netgalley for providing me an ARC of this book!

PUBLICATION DAY: June 13, 2023

A decapitated head, a diverse group of women, an odious man - it’s a mystery who killed him, but there’s no doubt that someone did. But who? Seven women had more than enough reason to commit murder, but who finally caved? And who brought them all together? Nova is a detective who, despite knowing more than a couple of the suspects, is determined to put past failures behind her and solve this murder - but is she willing to do it at any cost?

PROS and CONS:
Very localized writing - as a Canadian I was a bit confused with some of the lingo, but I enjoyed trying to figure it out! Lots of characters to keep you interested and I was determined to figure out who the killer was - but nope! I always have time for a whodunit, and I also love the cover so much - the gorgeous blue with the seven birds - love it. This is Wilding’s debut novel, and I’ll be watching for her in the future!

READ IT?
If you’re looking for…a satisfying whodunit with lots of back story and great character building - then this one’s for you!

4.5 Stars

I had a hard time rating this one. It was a quick read and held my attention but I had a hard time connecting to the characters, as there were a lot of them. I think it handled the switching between them well enough, you got some sort of a feel for them and the horrible things that have happened. But it’s just a personal preference where I prefer fewer narrators.

Even though it’s a whodunit, sort of, it’s not super heavy on that. But reader be warned, there’s lots of gruesome and uncomfortable things.

Speak of the Devil opens with a group of 7 women surrounding the decapitated head of a man; a man who has wronged each of them in some way. As the story unfolds, the reader learns just how evil this man was. The reader is taken on a journey through each woman’s lives to determine who took this man’s fate into their own hands. Was it one of them? Or did they all play a part?

This story caught my attention from the very beginning, but I had trouble keeping my focus. A list of characters and a small note of how they are tied together would be helpful at the beginning of each chapter. The list could build upon itself to avoid spoilers. I built the list myself as I was reading, but a list is most definitely needed in some way.

I was surprised to learn who was responsible for the man’s death and why, but the reader does not feel the slightest bit bad for him. Karma gave him exactly what he deserved.

This book started out with a bang, with 7 women gathering around the severed head of a man they all knew. After that, though, I felt there were too many characters and too little detail to get to really get to know them. The rest of the store gives you glimpses into each of the women and their reasons for hating Jamie while the reader, along with the detective, tries to figure out what happened.

The mystery was sound and everyone had a valid motive. The thing I struggled with the most was that, while we saw all the awful things Jamie did, I didn’t think the author gave us enough of a glimpse into what actually made these ladies LIKE him so much. Obviously there were some reason everyone fell in love with him but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Overall, I wish I could’ve gotten to know all the characters better, but the sheer number of them and the constant jumps between timeframes made it somewhat hard for me to fully engage. That being said, the 2nd half of the book gelled for me better than the first half. I liked the ending- it was abrupt but it worked.

Overall, pretty good book but missing some character development in my opinion. I’d give it 3.5 stars. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.