I almost passed on this book because apparently it’s the third in a series and I’m usually too type A to not read the other books first. However, the synopsis sounded so good that I thought I’d just jump in and I’m glad I did! This was a great thriller! I didn’t feel like I missed anything important by skipping the first two books. The suspects were crazy creepy (the taxidermy girl?!?) and I was hooked from the beginning. I wasn’t as big of a fan of all the focus on Rowan and her husband’s relationship, but that’s probably because I didn’t have their full backstory. Otherwise, this was a thrilling read that I’d highly recommend to my fellow thriller lovers!

4.5 stars

When I’m Dead is a dark and twisty mystery that will have you on the edge of your seat until the last page!
When Chloe’s best friend Madison is murdered and Chloe goes missing in the same night, it leaves her parents and small community wondering what happened.
This book dives into love, doubt, and how well you really know the people you love most.
Read this book in one sitting! Couldn’t put it down and it led to a late night.
Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review :)
Four stars

When I'm Dead is book 3 in the amazing Black Harbor series by Hannah Morrissey.
These books can be read as a stand-alone.
First, I have give a big thank you to the absolute best publisher for the opportunity to read and review this set from the very beginning.
Hannah Morrissey is a favorite of mine and one of my auto read authors.
And it’s been a pleasure reading this phenomenal series.

Hello, Transcriber and The Widowmaker were both excellent books and after devouring When I'm Dead I’m almost certain Morrissey’s writing is one of my favorites.
This story is so absorbing and immersive. Detective Axel Winthrop and his wife, Medical Examiner Rowan Winthrop are very interesting and intriguing characters.
And I enjoyed reading their story.
A utterly compelling mystery, atmospheric settings with vivid and emotional prose, this dark and intense story will have you up late flipping the pages furiously.
Hannah Morrissey has writing yet again another well crafted story.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read this ahead of its publication date in return for my honest review.

Read if you like:
#️⃣ Multiple PoV
📚 Stand-alone in a Series
🔎 Mysteries
🚨Police Investigations
🚬 Feeling of Guilt
🗣️ The ‘Bad Guy’s’ POV

This one sucked me in pretty quickly needing to know what the heck was going on where was Chloe and was she even alive?! Or was she behind the killing of her classmate?!

I have to admit, Rowan’s POV didn’t really add to the story, felt repetitive, and her guilt was truly so annoying in the context of the story with your daughter missing and instead of fully being focused on that, she was focused on something that happened 18 years ago that’s unrelated.

I did pretty much guess who the responsible party was for what was happening and felt pretty obvious but the twist of why I didn’t see coming.

I also didn’t like how with the reveal we got the explaination first before the scene unfolding where it made it anticlimactic for me personally.

All in all, I enjoyed the first part more than the second part of the book and wish I had enjoyed it more but it didn’t fully deliver on what I was hoping for.

Thanks so much to the publisher for my ARC of this one!

I actually didn’t realize this was part of a series, the Black Harbor Series. This book definitely isn’t for the squeamish, be warned that it’s fairly graphic and detailed.

Overall, I thought it was a good plot that had me guessing the entire story. Unfortunately I felt like the story played out in a way that felt rushed or maybe the culmination was underwhelming. There were a lot of details and tidbits that were never explored, maybe that was the point, to distract? I was also hoping for that last plot twist that all of us thriller lovers come to expect!

This was a domestic drama and murder mystery combination done well.

Husband and wife, Rowan and Axel are the local medical examiner and a detective in Black Harbor. Their town has been overrun with murders which keeps them busy non-stop. In the midst of this, their fifteen year old daughter is often falling through the cracks. Chloe seems to always lose out to a dead body and when she does, both parents have to go, not just one. So, when Chloe goes missing, Rowan and Axel's world is rocked and everything they thought they knew is thrown into chaos. Is their daughter even the girl they thought she was? Or a completely different person?

In trying to investigate the death of one of Chloe's friends while also trying to find Chloe, many things are uncovered about not just Chloe but also her so-called friends. Things definitely weren't what they appeared to be. Will Rowan and Axel pull together or will it rip them apart?

This was an intriguing read. The clues were thrown out at sporadic times and the narrators weren't always reliables so you truly didn't know who did what until the very end. It was cleverly written and I'll definitely look to read more by this author.

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: I really enjoyed the audiobook. The narrators were talented and fit the characters well. It all blended together well and enriched the storyline. 4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for early copies of both the ebook and audiobook. I chose to review both of them and the opinions contained within are my own.

This is the third book in the Black Harbor series, and it is another great one.

Rowen is the medical examiner, and she is called in to investigate the death of her daughter's friend. Her husband Axel, a police detective, starts work on the case too. When they are called away from watching daughter Chloe's school play, Chloe tells her mother " You will love me more when I'm dead." Within hours, Chloe is missing, and they are terrified that she is the next victim. Various clues all point to someone involved at the high school. When a second girl is found dead, the investigating team tries to unravel the relationships involved.

Girls that had been friends for years, are now not. Girls that never liked each other are now friends. How is the taxidermy teacher involved? And where is Chloe? As the evidence starts to point to Chloe as the killer, Rowan and Axel are in a desperate race against time to find Chloe and proves she is not the one responsible. Will their marriage survive?

Once again, the town of Black Harbor and its dark, depressing secrets, is a strong backdrop to the thriller. The characters are all well drawn, and I was sucked along by the plot. The complex clues and twists and turns keep you moving at a fast pace towards the climax of the story.

Thoroughly enjoyable!

First, thanks to NetGalley for the advance review copy. When I’m Dead opens with the death of Madison Caldwell. teenage classmate of Chloe, Sari, Libby, and Reeves. It is immediately followed by Chloe’s disappearance. Chloe’s parents are Alex, a Black Harbor detective, and Rowan, the Black Harbor Medical Examiner. Black Harbor is the kind of town that has seen better days and everyone is looking to escape. Its crime rate is climbing, keeping Alex and Rowan busy, maybe too busy to tend to their teenage daughter. When Chloe is cast in the main role of her school’s production of Beetlejuice, she takes on the role with vigor and chooses to immerse herself into character, much out of character to what her folks and teachers know. Each chapter is written from the viewpoint of one of the book’s characters which is successful in keeping you off balance. Each has his/her own theories as to what’s happened and who may be responsible. At one point, Alex and Rowan are at odds as to the possibility that their daughter, Chloe, could have committed the murder, “She’s on one precipice, and he’s on another, an ocean of “what ifs” roiling between them”. As the story progresses, there is no shortage of possible suspects. The book became more suspenseful toward the end. A good, short read with some twists that kept me guessing.

One October night, Rowan and Axel are pulled away from their daughter’s debut in her school’s production of Beetlejuice with a call that a dead body has been found. That dead body turns out to be their daughter’s best friend. While out investigating this call, they come home to discover their own daughter, Chloe, hasn’t returned home from school and is missing. They must dig deep, even if it means their own daughter is behind everything.

WHEN I’M DEAD by Hannah Morrissey is the third book in the BLACK HARBOR series and I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to read the others to have a full understanding of this one!


And I’m also here to tell you that this one was easily my favorite of the three! This book made my theater nerd heart happy and the mystery and alternating POVs had me flipping pages.

Despite my enjoyment for most of the characters, Rowan and Axel are awful parents and the fact that they didn’t really even notice that got on my nerves a lot - it also seemed like they didn’t care all that much that their teenage daughter was just gone??

Overall, a great book to read during spooky season if crime fiction is your jam!

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Minotaur Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Publication Date: October 31

One teenage girl is dead and another is missing in When I’m Dead, the 3rd book in the Black Harbor series. This aptly named town, which appears to be the murder capitol of the universe is the setting once again, and the missing girl is the daughter of the town’s medical examiner and her detective husband. This is a fairly standard police procedural, with the pressure intensified due to the missing girl’s parents, and there’s plenty of suspects to keep the reader guessing. I found it a little difficult to get behind any of the characters, as they all seem miserable in this gloomy town, and their actions strain credulity, and that added up to a ho-hum thriller for this reader. I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have been fortunate enough to receive ARCs of all three Dark Harbor books and Hannah Morrissey continues to impress me! In the eerie town of Black Harbor, Medical Examiner Rowan Winthorp arrives at a crime scene to realize the victim is her daughters best friend. Rowan's day gets worse when she returns home and realizes her own daughter is missing. Like her other books, I flew threw this. Hannah does an amazing job of describing the town of Black Harbor which creates a dark mood around the whole town. She manages to make it feel like Black Harbor is a town that no one wants to visit and everyone tries to escape. Truly enjoy these books and the twisted adventure she takes you on. Looking forward to the next one!

In complete honesty, I wasn't the biggest fan of Hello Transcriber. It didn't speak to me, and I wasn't able to connect with the characters, but I gave Hannah Morissey a second chance with The Widow Maker, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. With When I'm Dead, I'm a Hannah Morissey fan. This was by far the best in the series so far. Not only are we learning more about the cesspool of humanity that is Black Harbor, but we're getting to know more of the characters that we've only known on the periphery, and they're fascinating. I loved the interplay between Rowan and Axel and their search for their missing daughter. With the expertly placed red herrings, it's impossible to know who the true villain is, and I loved it.

I had such high hopes for this book, as I had greatly enjoyed Mottissey’s previous book The Widowmaker. This one just didn’t have the same…unf. Frankly, how the parents act is really off putting, and the fact that a detective is essentially allowed to work his own kid’s disappearance is just so unethical and unrealistic. Overall a two star from me.

“You’ll love me more when I’m dead!”

Their moody teenage daughter’s words now haunt her mother, Rowan, Black Harbor’s medical examiner, and her father, Axel, a Black Harbor homicide detective, as they investigate the brutal murder of one of their daughter's friends.

Not knowing what they would face when they were paged during a family outing, they arranged for Chloe to get a ride home from the theatre with a neighbour. Little did they know that while they were investigating Chloe’s murder, their daughter would assertively head home alone and end up a reported missing teenager.

A parent’s worst nightmare.

Even worse for parents in the know - someone is targeting Black Harbour teenagers. Who is it? Why target the vulnerable? Is there a pattern?

Morrissey seems to have upped her game with this one. The visceral read features a spooky October setting, complete with a haunted house, eerie fall evenings, a desperate town, a darker and grittier look at death and murder investigation, a tense look at characters' shady pasts, and multiple shocking twists. Several times I had to put the book aside and pick up something lighter. Morrissey is definitely the go-to author if you are looking for an atmospheric murder mystery and crime thriller. Her ability to craft twists that you won’t see coming is stellar and relying on her career to shape plot and characters offers authenticity, thereby increasing anxiety. It’s as if readers are standing alongside the characters and sensing their desperation and pain.

“Only in a place like Black Harbor is the line for the morgue longer than the queue for a Chick-fil-A drive-thru. Too many bodies, not enough of them warm.”

Congratulations on a fantastic cover!

I was gifted this copy by St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

“When I’m Dead” by Hannah Morrissey is the 3rd book in the Black Harbor mystery series. This is one of those books that makes you want to forget your responsibilities and just sit there and read.

I was engrossed in this book from the very first chapter and cannot wait for Morrissey to release another. I hope this series never ends.

Thank you NetGalley, Hannah Morrissey, and Minotaur Books for gifting me this ARC.

Meh. This has a strong premise but fails in the execution. I think it was the writing that sealed the deal for me…it feels very disjointed. I couldn’t’ really empathize with the main characters as a mom. Their responses and antics to me just didn’t ring true. Sadly, this didn’t work for me but it would make a great spooky season read.

The death phone...It requires YOU!
No matter when, no matter where; it beckons until you’re ripped from the presence of those who love you…to tend to someone who doesn’t even know you’re there.

“You’ll love me more when I’m dead.”

Hello again, Black Harbor…

”A sanctuary for some, and Hell for all, Black Harbor waits with open arms for souls looking for a place to hide.”

Axel and Rowan Winthorp, a homicide detective and medical examiner respectively, each have a death phone. So far, they’ve been lucky. They’ve constantly faced death but never someone close. But, this is Black Harbor…it was bound to happen eventually. Today, a girl was murdered. Not long after, their daughter, Chloe, went missing. The murdered girl happens to be her best friend. So begins the frantic and emotional search for clues, answers…and Chloe.

Chloe is a shy girl in school, closed off by parents who choose work over being at home or there when she needs them. Her dad, Axel, ,and, her mom, Rowan, get calls from the “death phone”, and they must both go. Unfortunately, for Chloe, this happens often in the town.

Chloe goes to a wealthy, private school. She’s an aspiring actress and with the help of her drama teacher, she might just get to Juilliard. Once again, unfortunately for her, others don’t take so kindly to her and under the veil of jealousy, spread a vicious rumor. The death phone rings again, this time during one of her performances. Did this rumor lead to her death? We don’t know as she goes missing and we journey along through two classmate’s murders… are they connected? Is it a part of this rumored plot?

Thoroughly researched, I wholeheartedly appreciated the details in this police procedural and teen drama. I loved that (as in her other two BH novels) the town is another character in and of itself. The descriptive colors, smells and sounds are what makes a spooky-season book!

When I’m Dead is everything I hoped it would be: dark, gritty, and twisted. You can read this as a standalone but I promise you will enjoy it more if you read Hello, Transcriber and The Widowmaker first. Hannah delicately incorporates characters and events from these previous works that, when found, feel like a warm hug from an old friend.

When I'm Dead is the 3rd book in the Black Harbor series but can be read as a standalone. I read When I'm Dead as a standalone. Not having known about or read the previous 2 novels didn't have an affect on my ability to relate to these characters or getting into the book.

I think When I'm Dead is very much a typical crime, thriller novel.

A local high school female is murdered. Two of the individuals investigating the case realize this girl is one of their daughters friends and soon find their daughter is missing.

Signs are starting to point to their daughter potentially being involved in the murder. Where is their daughter? And who is responsible for everything going on!?

Overall a great thriller! Perfect for a Halloween release! It took me longer to read than i thought it would. Some parts were fast paced while others seemed to drag.
But the twisted ending was great!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books for allowing me to read this book early in exchange for an honest review.

First of all, I didn't realize that When I'm Dead was the 3rd book in a series. I would have liked to have read the first two before reading this one, but it was written in a way that I didn't feel like I had missed anything that was important to the story. When I'm Dead started off very intense and I was hooked. I especially enjoyed Libby's character. She was weird and unreliable. Her pov was the best part of the book. About midway through the book, I lost some interest. I felt like Rowan and Axel just kept rehashing the same thoughts and I found myself no longer wanting to pick up the book. It took me a week to read because of this. At about the 80% mark is when the story picks back up and I didn't want to put it down. I will say that the whodunit wasn't who I expected. Actually, my suspicion was way out in left field but I do think it would have made for an interesting plot. After having read When I'm Dead, I doubt that I will go back and read the other two books because it didn't make me care about Black Harbor enough to want to.

I was a little warry when I realized this book was a part of an ongoing series, however the only common denominator is the location so picking up this book as a first read is fine!
I really enjoy this fast paced, page turner. I like when the author does a good job of laying the story out but not in a way where you felt misled. Great read, will likely go back and read Hannah Morrissey's previous works.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in advance of publication.