While the story isn't going to be super memorable for me, it was certainly unique and highly entertaining!

A kaleidoscopic wild ride through pastiches of memory, crime, and deceit, Rumors of Her Death finds the man at the center of it all striving for a seemingly unattainable atonement. It’s easy to append the phrase “unreliable narrator” to a story such as this. After all, our protag—Leachy, as he’s called by his criminal buddies—does don and doff a myriad of personalities, coupled with their own mannerisms and inflections, throughout this novel. And his mind is also afflicted by recurring nightmarish memories that interject into the prose. However, as we follow our hero (or antihero, as the case may be) through the streets of Sydney—a city whose literary representation has rarely looked more begrimed—I am inclined to say this isn’t a man whose narration reaches Usual Suspects levels of unreliability. More accurately, he is constantly struggling and wrestling with his own past, and his recollections of actions he has taken, choices he’s made. He’s unreliable to himself, not in his telling.

The book intelligently keeps us in the dark about Sophia (the mysterious “you”) for as long as possible. Although it is evident that whoever “you” were, things did not end well between her and our hero. This is part of the mystery that pulls us, the reader, more deeply into what seems at the onset to be a standard crime story. But the nature of the telling, and these lingering mysteries, inform us that little is as it seems. It’s not long before we meet the other characters who encompass our main cast—namely, Nisha. Also at the start, Nisha seems to symbolize an antithesis to our narrator’s life of crime. Where our hero’s crime boss Saklas and henchman Goldie are concerned with money owed, threatening deadlines, and ocular prostheses, our protag’s run-ins with Nisha mostly involve more humanly mundane tasks like dog-sitting.

As “Leachy’s” life entwines more and more irreversibly with Nisha’s, physical manifestations of his past via the ghost Sophia become more insistent. We traverse alongside them to vivid destinations, most notably the Orrery, which is a place you both long to visit, and are terrified of setting foot inside. Donellan’s prose and dialogue drip with both vibrant, breathing imagery as well as witty, clever humor, which only serves to keep you flying through the pages.

We ride the roller coaster through perilous terrain of unknown shadows, until every lie is finally banished, every untold truth is revealed. And once the 3000-piece jigsaw is finally assembled, like after a good magic trick, you are both startled and delighted by the experience.

In Rumors of Her Death, Donellan has crafted a story that is at once fiercely entertaining and philosophically and emotionally impactful. Its wit, setting, and characters help it to stand out among other thrillers of its type as memorable. I look forward to reading all that Donellan writes next.

This book was filled with suspense. The protagonist of the story is Archibald Leachy, who works for Saklas. His work involves illegal things and his life is filled with uncertainty. When his new neighbour Nisha, takes him to some place where people secretly meet, the past that he has been trying to forget comes back.

The story took on a different turn after the arrival of Nisha's character. It showed their beautiful friendship. Archie's character can be seen living in the memory of a woman from his past. That was a major suspense in the story.

The only trouble I faced was the descriptions of violence and murder. Other than that, this book is definitely a great choice.

Buckle up for a bumpy ride—and I mean that in the most positive way possible! Rumors of Her Death, by J.M. Donellan, is a fun read, filled with eccentric characters and unexpected plot twists that will leave you wondering who you can trust and what you can believe. Donellan writes with crisp prose, a dark wit, and a fast pace that keeps the pages turning. Woven with threads of psychology, philosophy, technology, and criminology, the book is as multifaceted as its troubled narrator. Rumors of Her Death is a triumph of a thriller!

Rumors of Her Death is a psychological thriller that will keep you in suspense from one heart-pounding moment to the next. Normally, I'm not a fan of dark humor, flashbacks, or adult fantasy. But author J.M. Donellan mixes all these elements into a story so compelling it's impossible to put down.

Main character Archie Leach is an unlikely hero. He's a man on the run from his own identity, a courier for an underworld boss, and a trained killer. On the bright side, he has compassion for those he believes to be innocent, and he likes dogs. Almost nothing is as it seems in this twisting tale -- from Archie’s true identity to his glimpses of his dead lover and his reluctant friendship with his new neighbor,

This story is a wild ride with plenty of dead bodies, unsavory characters, and experimental drugs. Yet somehow Archie follows his own moral code throughout, and it all comes together in the end. A good read for thrill-seekers.

Rumors of her death is a fast-paced thriller with an unreliable narrator. It started with thrills, but halfway through the book, I got confused, and the book strayed from the thriller category, in my opinion. The character also fell flat as their personalities could have been developed more. The book got a little too science-based for me, but some might enjoy that!


Thank you for this ARC and opportunity to read :)

I was hooked from the very first page. The writing is fast-paced, often humorous, and leaves the reader wondering what could possibly happen next. If you enjoy action-packed, suspenseful, twisty-turny thrillers, then this is the book for you. Buckle up, because from start to finish you will feel as though you are on a wild ride with a protagonist with so many different names and identities you will question if your reading eyes are deceiving you.

After literally coming back from death, Archie Leach loses a valuable package that he was supposed to deliver to a blind Australian crime lord. Now he owes an exorbitant amount as repayment and has to allow his dwelling to be used as a storage area for the gang. His past starts haunting him when his dead girlfriend mysteriously appears at random places. Someone is about to tear down his skillfully crafted facade of diverse identities. And he is forced to dog-sit his Indian neighbor's dog.

Rumors Of Her Death is an upcoming novel by J M Donellan that chronicles the plight of an antihero possessing a chameleon like skill of shifting through identities which he employs to escape from his past. His whole life used to be an escape attempt and now it is time for him to stop and face the tormenting demons- both inside and outside him. This is a fast paced psychological thriller with elements of black comedy which is set in Australia.

Novel uses first person narrative from the point of view of its protagonist, a man with different names and identities. It is written as he narrates the whole story to his dead (?) girlfriend addressing her as 'you'. This help reader to realise that, though there are several seemingly unconnected events happening around him, the protagonist is fixated on the guilt of her death and that remains his focal point. I was also impressed by certain portions where the narrator considers an identity that he assumes to be a different person while telling the story. All these really adds to his character arc.

The novels begins as a standard crime thriller and gradually shifts gears midway to explore the psychological aspects of its protagonist. To the credit of its author, it never loses focus by compromising on pacing and never fails to throw comic punches regularly at the reader. It is very difficult to effectively use humor in a thriller plot, especially when the redemptive arc of protagonist is the pivot of it. A few of the puns didn't land for me, but most of it complemented the reading experience.

I would recommend Rumors Of Her Death to readers who like to read an immensely readable thriller ride with elements of black humor thrown in and which features the psychological redemption of a flawed antihero protagonist.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for guys who have a snarky sense of humor and know how to get rid of a body, so Archie Leach is my man. Too bad for him he's in debt to a biker gang, recovering from a near-death experience, and seeing his dead ex-girlfriend everywhere...very much alive. You'll zip through this book and stay up late to find out what happens (and it's a shock, let me tell you). The pacing is killer, the cast of characters endearing, and the dialogue witty enough to make you laugh out loud in public.

Addicting doesn't begin to describe this book. From the very first page I was roped in, and everything just kept getting better and better. JM has the perfect mix of humor, action, suspense and intrigue in this book, and it should be a must read for anyone.
Archie's story starts off with a bang and goes from there. As he and Nisha fight their battles I found myself constantly on the edge of my seat, wondering what was going to happen next and how they were going to survive. Every character was fantastic (even the villains) and the story moved along at such a good clip that I was always excited to get to the next page and see what happened.

Donellan takes you on a wild journey in Rumors of Her Death. Archie Leach wakes up handcuffed by the police to a hospital bed, and his situation worsens. His past pummels him, as his present problems threaten to overwhelm him. His decade on the run appears to be ending, when he does the unthinkable and trusts someone else to help him.

Sarcastically witty humor offsets the grim circumstances. The plot never slows, and each chapter takes you to a new level of the story. Donellan introduces a bizarre world of crime and outrageous excesses filled with memorable characters, each hiding their own stories. The plot will leave you guessing until the final pages of this psychological thriller.

This book immediately captured my attention. A couple pages in, there were at least four questions that I was excited to find answers to. The author took special care to be beautifully, sometimes poetically, descriptive - "follicular forest on my face" - these clever descriptions give this book character. There were more than a couple surprises, which keeps the reader on edge. One of my favorite relationships is between the main character and Dante the dog, as they show an adorable affection toward each other. I was pleased to read in the acknowledgements that there will be a film script version and I look forward to see how well the film depicts Donellan's words

Oh this is such a clever novel.

Archie has cheated death, while living with grief.

Nothing you know is real in this book and I found myself falling into the philosophical while watching Archie and Nisha career about.

This book is was a massively wild ride, I had no idea where the plot was going next but it made it so interesting!
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book like this before it was so gripping. I had to re read a few paragraphs to make sure I actually understood what was going on but it definitely made me want to read more by this author

Fast-paced, full of action, suspense, and mystery. I love stories with unreliable narrators but this one really took the cake--so unexpected. Lots of twists and some misleading dead ends.

I feel terrible giving out such low ratings, but this book just didn't do if for me. Although I think many people may enjoy this sort of plot, I just couldn't get into it. I had to force myself to get through this one.

A roller coaster of a ride! Different from your average psychological thriller, Rumors of Her Death delves into the mind of a man haunted by grief and guilt he can’t escape. To make his existence more miserable are the bad guys who won’t allow him to break free from his criminal lifestyle.

I was hooked from the first page as Leach wakes in the hospital, having cheated death. From there, the book follows him as he tries to make restitution for failing to deliver a valuable package to the kingpin of a motorcycle gang. In his world, being clinically dead for a short time is no excuse for not getting the job done. What really drives Leach, though, is the need to punish himself for his culpability in the death of a woman he loved years ago.

The dark nature of the plot is tempered with wry humor as Donellan recounts Leach’s story through a first person point of view. As the reader gets into Leach’s head, it is revealed that he’s not who he claims to be. Nor is he any of the other personalities he has taken on. Although Leach doesn’t believe he’s a good person and his involvement with thugs, along with his reaction to dealing with dead bodies, would have one thinking he lacks human emotion and empathy, I found myself totally invested in this anti-hero, rooting for him to have a satisfying outcome.

As the plot progresses, it takes what I can only describe as a ‘weird’ turn of events with an element of fantasy in a strange new world. When Leach meets his new neighbor, Nisha, she takes him to an establishment called the Orrery, where each floor delivers a different type of sensory experience, and his current life and his past intertwine. The building’s levels act as a metaphor for the complex layers of Leach’s mind, and both are peeled back gradually to expose their true essence. In a journey of self-discovery, Leach’s subconscious grapples with who he truly is and the consequences of that.

The scenes of criminal activity, personal regret, his new friendship, and the ever-present past lead to a heart-pounding conclusion, linking to the beginning of the book, in which Leach (or some version of himself) finds atonement for his sins.

With constant twists in the plot and new revelations about Leach’s identity and his past life, the book will have you racing to discover what’s real and what Leach has fabricated. An unputdownable thriller full of sardonic wit, Rumors of Her Death will have you reading late into the night.

This wasn't a favorite, felt like it started off good but then got flat from there and I had a hard time with wanting to continuing to read it, just didn't grab my attention like most thrillers have. Seemed to be a lot going on and at times was confusing as to where it was going. The characters were okay didn't love them didn't hate them. In all just don't think this book was for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for allowing me to read an ARC of this book.

Fast paced read with good character development. Keeps you hooked from start to finish. Love the humor that was placed throughout the story. Will be recommending to anyone looking for a mystery/thriller!

Author does a fantastic job with writing the syntaxes of all the characters. I could hear the different voices distinctly in my head. I enjoyed the comedic aspects of the book.

There were a few times I wanted to quit reading, it got a little too sciencey for me (mainly when Nisha was talking). Then the author would bring in a new little twist that piqued my interest again.

Overall, it was an interesting story with plenty of twists to make it fun.

Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for this ARC!
Expected Release date: 9/13/2023