It took me about 30% of the way in to really get rolling. I enjoyed the twists and turns throughout the book. I thought I had it figured out and then another one would come. I finished the book in a day and a half because once it started going, I couldn’t put it down.

The Night of the Storm by N. Parekh, published by Penguin Group Dutton, the the debut of the author.
The mystery/thriller managed to keep me entertained. There are a few twists and turns, the writing is quite good and all in all I enjoyed reading this book.

I thought this was a pretty good, twisty mystery. I thought the ending was quite good and pretty unexpected -- it did not go where I thought it was and I appreciate that in a mystery novel. I liked the usage of the storm to up the tension in the room and many of the characters were both unlikeable AND relatable.

Thank you to Penguin House Dutton for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 ⭐️

Based on the blurb, I had pretty high expectations for this book. The premise of the isolated environment with no trustworthy characters held promise, but fell flat in execution. There was some confusion with vague references to things that happened in the past without any context. Honestly, there was too much to try to keep track of and none of the characters were likable. I was sucked in initially but then after the first few chapters, it seemed to crawl glacially slow and never picked up. Overall, not my fave and one I won’t be reading again.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Night of the Storm.

The Night of the Storm is another locked room mystery (one of so many I've read recently) that sucked me in with it's premise but failed to meet my expectations.

This was due to a number of reasons:

1. Many, many unlikable characters. So many of them. Now, not all novels need to have likable characters but some unlikable characters have a sliver of a redeeming or interesting quality. You won't find any of those here.

2. The writing is good but bogged down with SO much exposition. The author bombards the readers with the patriarchal and social mores Middle Eastern women must grow up with, survive, and further endure when they marry (not unlike Asian women, I might add).

This adds richness and complexity to the narrative and characters but began to read as filler.

A hard edit of the novel would have sped up the pacing and urgency.

3. Lack of suspense and urgency, mostly because the narrative is bogged down with exposition.

All is revealed at the end but there are no twists and revelations, at least not ridiculous ones, which is good, but the story is predictable.

I did like the final revelation but the lack of suspense, tedious exposition, and unlikable characters made this just an okay read for me.

The Night of the Storm was just ok for me. Set up as a locked room mystery it should have been a slam dunk read as I typically love these kinds of books. But it didn’t work well for me. A family is all staying together during a major hurricane and there is no escape from the house. As the night goes on, a murder occurs, leaving everyone wondering who did it ….. and who is next.

I think the author has a promising future in writing. I hope to see more from them in other genres as well! While I can’t say this book was anything short of decent, I’d say it didn’t exactly deliver on the spine tingling thriller it labeled itself. The anticipation for what was to come slowly fizzled out with predictability and too many layers. I’m sure this is someone’s cup of tea but for what I was prepared for, not necessarily mine. I do hope to see more!

I received a free Advanced Reading Copy via NetGalley in exchange for a complete and honest review.

One of the best books I've read in a long while!

Jia Shah is a single mother fighting for custody over her, thought to be troubled son. She is in a custody battle with her ex-husband when the threat of Hurricane Harvey starts. Her sister, Seema, invites her over to stay at her house during it, but wanting to avoid her husband, Vipul, Jia declines. After thinking about what is best for her son, Ishaan, however, she agrees.

Jia and Ishaan stay at her sister's house while Hurricane Harvey is at its worst with a total of seven other people. Suddenly a murder occurs and no one is fully believable as innocent. Jia is of course, seen as the most guilty of all. Can she solve the case and save her custody over Ishaan?

I loved this book! It had me sucked in from the start. The first twenty chapter I read in about one evening. Learning about an affair, natural disaster, and an intruder would keep anyone sucked in! I also loved how the book was based around something that happened during my life. This hurricane took place while I was 17 years old and I remember hearing about the tragedies of it! I always wanted a better account of what happened and although fictional, this I believe is a pretty good account of what people went through.

I thought that the last chapters were slightly rushed, as it seemed like Jia figured out who the killer was and it turned into a Scooby Doo portrayal of "I would've gotten away with it!" Other than that, I loved the book! I would definitely recommend it to friends and look forward to reading more by this author!

Night of the Storm
By Nishita Parekh

Big thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for allowing me early access to this book in exchange for a review.

“From debut author Nishita Parekh, a fresh take on the classic locked-room thriller, about a multigenerational Indian American family marooned in a house with a murderer during Hurricane Harvey”

I enjoyed this read! I enjoyed the characters, the setting, the culture, and the ending. At times I felt the writing/dialog between the characters was a bit too dramatic for something that was quite mundane but that is a minor thing that didn’t affect my overall enjoyment of the read.
I would def read more from this author in the future, this was a very strong debut.

family-drama, family-dynamics, family-history, divorced, diverse-cultures, cultural-differences, cultural-assimilation, cultural-exploration, cultural-heritage, teenager, bullying, emotional-abuse, locked-room-mystery, secrets, lies, infidelities, Y/A only-means-no-gratuitous-erotica, custody-issues, thriller, threats, suspense, new-author, multiple-murder, murder-investigation****

It began as an exploration of hurricane mentality in Texas mixed with learning about second generation Indian Americans including a bullying divorced husband of the same ethnicity. Then it started to escalate once the first death occurred. The characters are so engaging! The plot twists are muted and sneaky but nudge the reader in the right direction. I think that the writing needs a little work, but will certainly be fantastic with the next book. The recipe hints were wonderful!
I requested and received an EARC from PENGUIN GROUP Dutton/Dutton via NetGalley. Thank you!

Thank you to Penguin Group Dutton for the advanced copy of this book.

I have to be honest and say that the story wasn’t my cup of tea. The cover and plot reeled me in, and the beginning was promising… but, this fell flat and the shock factor wasn’t there. I kind of just wanted it to be over because of how predictable it was.

It is a locked room mystery with multiple people dead and everyone in the luxurious house is a suspect and everyone has some motive to get rid of others. During a hurricane, a family is stuck at a house where there is some major familial tension and we find a lot of secrets coming out in the open in the same night. Being an Indian origin family, there was quite too much focus on that aspect and personally it felt a bit too much. The first half was unnecessarily dragged out and I felt I would have stopped reading this one at that point but thankfully the last 40% had all the twists and entertaining stuff. So coming to the thriller part, it was fairly easy to guess one killer and another killer was a bit of a surprise. It would have been more interesting if the writing style was different as that's what brought down the first half. I understood the author was trying to set up the circumstances of each character but it could have been better if trimmed.

This book follows Jia, recently divorced mother who moved from Chicago to Houston where her sister Seema lives with her husband. There is a hurricane and Jia’s sister convinces Jia to come stay with her. Seema’s husband, brother-in-law and wife, and mother-in-law are also there. They should have evacuated but are trapped instead, when a creepy neighbor shows up. He ends up dead - and they are in the presence of a killer. Who did it?

This book had a LOT going on. It was a page turner. I didn’t love how quickly Jia suspected her son of the worst. Seema and Lisa were almost like caricatures rather than fully fleshed out characters. I definitely had an idea of who the killer was - but the epilogue threw me! Definitely a quick read, and it kept me interested the whole time.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and share my comments on this book.

For a YA book this book was packed with close proximity and some cultural elements that made it a good story. The 3 POV was done well and nothing seem to be lacking.

Jia Shah is having a tough time, compounded by the fact that her twelve year old son, Ishaan, has recently been suspended from school and Hurricane Harvey is about to hit Houston. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily) for Jia, her sister and brother in law have offered their home to wait out the storm in. As soon as Jia and Ishaan arrive, things start to go awry and someone winds up dead. Is Jia really safe with her family? Or is someone harboring a deep, dark secret?

The summary of this book initially drew my interest to it. I enjoyed reading about Jia and her Indian heritage. I found it every interesting to see the different norms culturally, and how that impacted Jia's life. The fact that she is divorced was a major issue for her in her culture.

The pacing was a bit off for me. Parts of it were very fast paced and I couldn't put it down, while other parts were slow and I struggled to maintain focus.

I appreciate being able to read an advanced copy and give my honest feedback!

I enjoyed this for what is was. Can I say it was my favorite, no, but I enjoyed what it tried to do. The pacing was off just a little, and I felt like I could predict what was happening, but it the end I feel like it was tied up okay. I would recommend this to a person just getting into thrillers, as somewhere to start.

Book : The Night Of The Storm
Author : Nishita Parekh
Pub Date : 16 Jan 2024

Thank you NetGalley, Penguin Group Dutton & the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Do you enjoy:
- Murder Mystery
- Locked Room Concept
- 3rd Person POV

This was a great summer thriller. I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy the murder mystery locked room aspect of this book. It gave some heart pumping page turning excitement! A great debut 🤌🏻

The characters were well developed and praise to the dialogue as well. I love how the author added curl fire to the storyline and characters.

It took me a few days to get through this book but it was a great fun read. I didn’t end up figuring out who the murderer was until the end which was great—I had some ideas and was wrong.

First off, thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for granting me early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.
The Night of the Storm feels like a discounted version of a locked room, whodunit mystery with familial tension. While the bones are good (ideal atmosphere, several characters with motives), the execution fell short. You never connect to the characters and the overall flow is bad changing between timelines to fill in the blanks of the characters' histories.
My biggest pet peeve was how the author ended the chapters. Each chapter she tried to end using suspense, acting like something big was going to happen so you would start the next chapter and turn the page....but nothing ever happened.
All in all, the last 40 pages helped redeem the book to 2 stars, but I would not recommend this book sadly.

I was given this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is this authors debut novel and I do see future successes for this author. However, this book missed the mark. It started off promising and I truly loved that the characters were Indian and that parts of the novel shared their culture. About a 1/4 of the way in I guessed what was going to happen at the end and I was right. There were aspects that I enjoyed but overall this book fell flat. It was predictable and similar to many others I’ve read through the years.

With all of that said, I do think this author has incredible potential. Despite those things, I did partially enjoy the book. I think if they author took all the feedback provided from all reviewers, their next book is going to knock it out of the park. I truly believe the foundation is there but this book missed. This is my own opinion, others may love this story and I hope they do!