The concept of this book held great promise, offering an intriguing premise that piqued my curiosity from the start. The author skillfully wove a narrative that kept me engaged, and the unexpected twist in the plot was a testament to their storytelling prowess.

However, as I delved deeper into the story, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. While I appreciated the element of surprise, it left me wondering about the purpose or message the author intended to convey. It's as if I was searching for a deeper meaning or a resolution that never quite materialized.

The characters were well-developed, and I could empathize with their struggles and dilemmas. Yet, despite the emotional investment I had in their journeys, I found myself grappling with a sense of dissatisfaction by the end. It's not that I needed a neatly tied-up conclusion, but rather, I yearned for a more profound takeaway or insight.

In retrospect, I realize that my ambivalence towards the book stems from my own expectations and desires as a reader. Perhaps I was seeking a clearer direction or a more defined purpose in the narrative.

Overall, this book is a testament to the author's creativity and ability to craft an engaging story. It may resonate deeply with some readers who appreciate open-ended narratives and unexpected twists. However, for me, it left me questioning what I truly wanted from a reading experience. It's a thought-provoking work that will linger in my mind, even if I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.

I'm always looking for a smart thriller that will fill the Tana French-sized hole in my heart, and this one has the benefit of being both full of twists and set in Ireland, mostly in the Dublin suburbs and exurbs. Lucy's sister Nicki is missing, and she's determined to find her by whatever means necessary, including using herself as bait for a serial abductor. The novel is undercut with the perspective of a man who has been taking women from the side of the road, as well as a woman in mysterious, cooped-up circumstances. It's a lot to unravel, and the ending felt just short of satisfying, but I'm definitely about to line up a bunch of Catherine Ryan. Howard books to read next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the Arc! I am a huge Catherine Ryan Howard fan, and was dying for a chance to read this early!

While many of Ms. Howard's books are more brutal than others in this genre, none are as detailed and disturbing as this one. I understand she was writing on a subject matter that traumatized her as a youth in Ireland, but I don't think I can handle any more of these books. She's such a great writer, but I just can't handle how gruesome they've become.

Thank you to the publishers for this copy of The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard. She’s one of my favorites and she continues to be so with this book!
Catherine is an expert at setting the scene and The Trap was no different. It was a spooky read, perfect for an addition to my Halloween tbr collection.

Well, I guess I can unclench all my body parts now lol
This story focuses on Lucy, a woman desperate to find her missing sister Nicki. Nicki was out drinking with some friends and wandered away, disappearing off the face of the earth. It has been 440 days and Lucy is convinced that Nicki is the victim of a serial killer. In an effort to find the truth, Lucy wanders the streets at night, purposefully putting herself in vulnerable situations in an attempt to lure the killer. A second perspective is from the serial killer, an icky guy who portrays himself as a happily married man and a third perspective comes from Detective Denise and aspiring guard Angela who are trying their best to solve the mystery of 3 missing women.
If the author decides to write another book about Denise and Ashley, I'll definitely read it as I enjoyed reading about these characters and am interested in seeing them solve other crimes.
Overall, this was an intense thriller with some clever twists.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 rounded up for it being based on actual disappearances.

After her sister Nicki goes missing from a bar near their town, Lucy tirelessly searches for her.
When two more women are taken, a task force is finally formed to investigate.

Lucy's life has been on hold, with her spending her evenings walking the streets at night in the hopes of being taken by her sister's kidnapper.

The chapters are told from multiple viewpoints, with unclear narrators at times, but the conclusion is an absolute gut punch that'll stick with me for awhile.

Many thanks to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest feedback.

Well I do love that cover… Here’s the thing- this book started off very strong for me. Then it was just okay throughout the middle, and then the ending made me angry (or perhaps even baffled)! Although, I will say that the ending did have quite the clever twist.

We have several different viewpoints throughout this story. One viewpoint is that of Lucy, who is searching for her sister Nicki who disappeared over 440 days ago. We get to follow Lucy on her frantic search for Nicki, and in doing so find out that there are other missing women involved. After 17 year old Jennifer Gold turns up missing, Operation Tide is formed to help locate these missing women who are all believed to be abducted.

Throughout this story we also hear the viewpoint from the abductor/murderer. That was rather interesting, because going into the mind of a murderer is never dull.

The ending of this story made me very angry due to one of our characters lack of communication and sense of entitlement (cannot say who or what it was because that would be a major spoiler). It also makes you think of how horrible and tragic a situation may be, and that it can end up very differently for some people. Not all is what it appears to be.

As I mentioned above, this story started off strong for me but fizzled somewhere along the way. I did resonate with Lucy early on and even felt as she did- “The world, she’d discovered, just wasn’t designed for people with open wounds. Instead, it seemed packed with the privileged and their petty problems, their shitty attitudes, their blatant ungratefulness.” Yes, even with all I felt for Lucy, she still couldn’t save this book for me unfortunately…

Now I did like this book, I just didn’t love it like I thought I would. I’m seeing some high reviews for this book, so I do recommend reading this as it has something for everyone.

This is another fantastic, chilling, thrilling, pulse-racing race by Catherine Ryan Howard and just as good as 56 Days. I read this in a couple days.

Highly recommended. I cannot wait for her next book.

Thanks to NetGalley, Catherine Ryan Howard and Blackstone Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Already available

I finished this book yesterday and WOW. I've currently chatted with 3 friends who have also finished and NONE OF US agree on what happened with the ending lmao. It's one of those books where you just finish it and stare off into space for 10 minutes trying to figure out wtf you just read. I am happy I read this simply for the fact that now I get to have so much fun chatting about all of our interpretations of the ending! I would recommend!

I am a huge fan of CRH- I’ll read anything she writes! So of course, I was super excited for THE TRAP.

THE TRAP follows Lucy who is trying everything to find her sister, Nikki’s, abductor- even pretending to be stranded to be picked up by this abductor. Nikki is the third woman to vanish, leading the Garda and public to believe they are connected.

Thoughts: I love CRH’s writing style. Although a little confused at first, the story completely pulled me in. I had to know if these cases were all related and what happened to these women! We even get the killer’ POV early on which I love! I really enjoyed the story and the twists involved. However, since CRH is one of my favorite authors, I was expecting a little more. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you @netgalley @blackstonepublishing for my eARC!

This book was a wild ride! It was very twisty and not at all predictable. I wish we would have learned a little more about the “bad guy” and that is the only reason it didn’t get 4 stars from me. Overall, this was a very solid and enjoyable read!

I absolutely love Catherine Ryan Howard and the twisty ways her mind works. This novel focuses on three main characters: Lucy, whose sister Nicki has been missing for a year; Angela, who is a civilian in the Missing Persons Unit of An Garda Síochána; and a nameless man who drives through the night. There have been a string of missing women in Ireland – but are they related? Lucy goes out at night to try and find her sister’s killer, hoping he will find her on the side of the road.

I loved the three different points of view, particularly from the nameless man who is explaining his life story to someone in the backseat. Howard does an excellent job of getting into the head of her different characters. In every interview with her I have seen, she makes the point that there is normally nothing special about serial killers, they just fascinate us for some reason. That point is driven home in this book, where Howard also examines what is a “perfect” victim, which victims capture the media’s attention and which are not deemed worthy of that attention.

This is a murder mystery with the depth and twists that I have come to expect from Catherine Ryan Howard and it is excellent. There is a reason she is an auto-buy author for me.

Love the cover. I had heard so many good things about this author. So I went in with high expectations. I adored 56 days and was a bit disappointed . I liked it but I couldnt say I loved it.

I did not finish this one. I had a hard time following it, and with what I was grasping of the plot it just couldn’t hold my interest. I may decide to pick it back up in the future because I’ve heard such good things about it, but for now it stays as a DNF. I don’t typically star rate books I did not finish because I do not find it to be fair to the author or other readers, so I’m going to rate it 3 stars as a “middle of the road” rating.

CRH is a hit or miss for me and this was a miss I am sad to say. I loved 56 Days but this one was just not it for me. I will still recommend to my customers because I still think she is a fabulous author but this book was just not it for me.

The Trap is just that. It’s a story that sucks you in with multiple storylines of three individuals and what they are going through. One is the sister of a missing girl just looking for answers. One is a civilian working for the Gardia who finds a key piece of the missing puzzle piece. The other is the individual they are searching for, the one who has caused all the problems.

Each storyline gives a different perspective and it helped keep the reader on edge and actively engaged in the story wondering how each of the storylines tie together. This is my second Catherine Ryan Howard book and while it’s not my new favorite (The Nothing Man has the top spot and I highly doubt that will change it’s an excellent book) I do think this atmospheric read is definitely a good read for anything looking for a thriller that isn’t a gritty one


Thank you @blackstonepublishing and @netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

3 stars...

I wanted to love this one, however, I felt like for being a short(er) book, it was very drawn out.

I found it confusing how it was written; different POV and different timelines, and because it wasn't clear who's POV you were reading from, I felt it hard to keep jumping in. It was convoluted and didn't flow as well as I would've liked. I was confused and in the dark a times, and just read this a lot slower than usual.

Thank you to @netgalley & the publisher for my early e-arc~ out now!

This book started off strong and had such a good opening that had me hooked from the beginning.
However, as the book started to go on I found myself losing interest because it wasn't as a appealing as the opening chapter was. I also found the chapters and view points to be confusing and often couldn't differentiate on who I was reading about in each chapter. I felt as if there were more views from the police perspective and I honestly would have loved to see more from the killer than we got out of him. The ending did pick back up though and there was a really good twist, but as a whole, I didn't think this book quite hit the mark.

actual rating: 2/5 stars

catherine ryan howard's "the trap" starts off with an intriguing idea—a mystery inspired by real disappearances that had me hooked from the beginning. i was hoping for a real page-turner, but things didn't quite pan out that way by the end.

the story takes us through different viewpoints, which i thought would be exciting, but honestly, it didn't really grab me. i was often confused on who's perspective i was reading from especially in the beginning of the story. i think if you read synopsis more in-depth before you start a book, you'd be fine but i like to go in only knowing a view buzzwords specificlaly for thrillers.

lucy and nicki, the main characters, didn't come across as real as i hoped they would. lucy's hunt for her missing sister felt kinda weak, and nicki's character just left me puzzled.

at first, i was curious to see where everything was headed, but the excitement sort of fell off during the first half. the writing was nice and all, but the story just didn't come to life. the potential i saw at the start seemed just fizzled out. just when things seemed like they were picking up, it was too late to reignite my interest in the story.

i'm still kinda stuck on the big twist at the end, i could see it being a good ending but i think just with the rest of the story being so slow and boring, the ending didn't really impact me. the journey to get there was a bit of a letdown. it felt like the twist was tossed in without much connection to the slow build-up. there were parts of the story that seemed important but ended up not really mattering at all. it overall just left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

looking back, "the trap" had potential but sadly it stumbled when it came to putting it all together in a way that worked. while i give props to the author for trying something ambitious, i was really hoping for a more exciting and well-crafted story. this one could've been a real rollercoaster, but instead, it left me wanting more.

This was too dull for me. I appreciate the author bringing attention and awareness to the many missing women, however. I DNF but read spoilers about the twist and unresolved ending which would have made me like this even less if I had continued. Sorry!