7 woman who's lives are changed by one man.

⚠️TW⚠️
Gaslighting
Rape

This was somewhat similar to The Guest List by Lucy Foley, only fewer POV's. It was a slower read. It goes back and forth from the 1980s and the 2000s to tell everyone's POV to the current time. It was confusing as the narrator changed between the women because there weren't any signs of connection. It just felt like random characters until around half the novel.

Got the audio version from netgally

I absolutely devour revenge stories! This one had so many characters which definitely kept up the suspense all the way through. It was interesting finding out about each character and their motive IF they were to be revealed as the murderer.

Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding is an intense and captivating psychological thriller, and the audiobook format really brings the tension to life. Set in a gritty, atmospheric world, the story revolves around seven women connected by a brutal murder, with each chapter revealing new layers of dark secrets, revenge, and betrayal.

The multiple narrators in the audiobook give distinct voices to the characters, adding depth and immersing you in their emotional journeys. Wilding’s writing is sharp and gripping, and the audiobook format enhances the suspense, making it hard to pause. If you’re into dark, character-driven mysteries, Speak of the Devil is a thrilling listen!

I will be withholding my review of this book in solidarity with the St. Martin's Press boycott.

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books

🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio

I really enjoyed this one. Thank you, NetGalley for sharing this with me. I'll definitely be looking forward to reading more.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher/author for providing me with an ALC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was exactly what I wanted it to be! I loved it. I will make sure to check out other books by this author. When I requested this I was just intrigued by the concept of it and I loved how it turned out. This story had a great plot and if you have read this and enjoyed it, This was so much. It was such a great story. I would say give this one a try. I will continue to follow this author. Way to go to this author for not letting me down.

I highly enjoyed the narrator of the audiobook. Kept me listening.

This was a fun premise and a book I ended up enjoying more than I anticipated. I loved the idea of trying to figure out who murdered Jamie and finding out all the ways he wronged the suspects. You definitely won't finish the book feeling bad for what happened to Jamie. The only criticism is that the book has a lot of perspectives and I struggled with keeping the large cast of characters straight. The ending was solid with a compelling buildup to the climax.

This was okay. The plot was a little predictable, but I read a lot of thrillers. I think the writing style was good, just too many narrators.

3.5/5 Stars

When seven women gather in a hotel room, they find the severed head of a man they all knew. They all have reasons for wanting him dead, but who actually did it?

I think this started off really well, but I got a bit bored as it continued, but it did eventually pick up again by the end. I was interested how each of the women were related to Jamie, and all the nasty things he did to them. We get the POV of all the women, but I think there were a bit too many characters to try and keep up with, which made it a bit difficult to get fully immersed in the story. It was an extremely fast read though, and I read it in one day. I did think the ending was rather abrupt, which was a bit jarring, but overall an enjoyable read.

Lots of characters, at times difficult to keep track of all of them. By the end I was only mildly interested in the resolution

This turned out to be a dark book, a little darker than I expected. The characters were very unlikable, to the point that I did not care about the Who-Dun-It part. There were too many POVs to keep track of. The ending was rushed, and I found that even as the book ended it made no impact on me. I alternated between reading and listening to the audio book, both did not work for me.

I want to thank Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and Macmillan Audio for an ARC, and advanced listening copy of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ALC of "Speak of the Devil" by Rose Wilding. I really found myself intrigued by the description and appreciate a book with multiple points of view-including that of law enforcement when it involves a mystery.

It went a lot darker than I was expecting and at times I had to turn off the narration just to process what I was hearing, but kept coming back, hungry for resolution. The narration was spot on and i found it added a level to the story that i don't think I would have had if I were reading the story.

Trigger warnings abound so readers need to be cautious.

I had a hard time getting into this one the first time I tried but I decided to try again and am so glad I did because the second time I couldn't put it down! Just be prepared to take notes as there are 7 main characters and putting together how they all fit into the story takes a little bit.

This was such an interesting story and I love that it starts right away with a bang and really doesn't let up. 7 women a dead man and all had a reason but who actually killed him?

Narrated by Colleen Prendergast who does a great job at navigating all the accents and voices of all the women in this story. She also brought the emotion! Well done!

I don't want to give any spoilers I will say if you like a good thriller give this one a try!

4 stars

I received this audiobook from the publisher Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a fair and honest review.

I love a good whodunnit story, and SPEAK OF THE DEVIL was a fun read, that begins with seven suspects.

I paired the book with the audio format and loved the narration!

*many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

While listening to this, my phone stopped working. Once I received my new phone and downloaded the Netgalley app I lost all my downloaded audiobooks. I was unable to finish.

I was just a few chapters in but was hooked... I loved the suspense and how the author was drawing us in with little guesses on who the murder could be. Very sad I won't be able to finish the audio for now.

Dnf at 29% I couldn't relate to any of the characters, there was so much in this story, and it just fell flat for me. The characters were not relatable.

Ohh this book is dark. There is a warning in the beginning and I think that was a wise move because if you're sensitive to trigger warnings, this one may not be for you.

Admittedly, it took me a while to get invested in this novel and figure out who everyone was. There are a lot of characters and seemingly a lot of plots. Once we learn the core story and realize the novel centers around our bodiless head, the pieces of the plot really come together.

At its core, this book is about a group of women who were all wronged by the same man. We learn of each woman and her story and history, her relationship with the man, and how she was wronged. There are some parts that are very hard to read but this just made me more emotionally invested in the story.

Intertwined with the deep character studies is a plot surrounding magic, murder, and mystery. I loved the police procedural aspect and just how intertwined all the different elements of the story and characters were.

I listened to this book on audio which also took a bit of getting used to. The accents were fairly thick but I enjoyed the narrators and loved the theatrical element the audio gave to the novel.

This was a dark and thrilling read and one I definitely recommend if you can handle some not so nice imagery!

Thank you to Minotaur Books, MacMillan Audio, and NetGalley for the copy.

Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding is a tale of revenge, of evil and of the secrets we keep.

Summary -

"...Eight faces are illuminated , ghastly and sunken-eyed in the flickering light. Seven women sit in a semicircle, their bodies pointing toward a kind of altar in the middle of the room. They all look at him, some of them just glancing now and then, some of them staring, unable to avert their gaze. Only one of them knew he would be here; the others are in varying states of horror at the sight of him. Even the one who brought him is horrified, maybe more so than the rest..."

The seven women stand around the severed head of a man they all know. The wife, the teenager, the ex, the journalist, the colleague, the friend and the woman who raised him. They all had reason to kill Jamie, yet each one denies having done it. But now they must look out for one another as they try to unravel just what happened. Before the Police do.

"...Olive, look, we don't know who it was. But it's done now, and all we can do is look out for each other. He harmed us all, and I'm not condoning what happened...but...it's done.'
'And what if this murderer, whoever she is, but let's call her Sarah,' Olive says. 'What if she does it again? What if she decides to behead the next man who looks at her the wrong way?'
'Jamie isn't dead because he looked at someone the wrong way,' Kaysha spits. 'He's dead because he was an evil prick and it caught up with him.'
'He was good.'
'He was a fucking murderer, Olive,' Kaysha says, taking Olive's wrist.
Olive's eyes widen. "Get out.'
'He took everything from you. Why are you still protecting him?'
'Just get out of my house,' Olive says, her face flushed with rage..."

Jamie wove in and out of each of the women's lives, often with devastating results. But now, one of them has fought back and the consequences of her act threaten them all. But the bigger question remains. Not who killed Jamie. But what do they do when they find out. If they reveal the killer, do they reveal all the secrets and lies they've kept hidden as well? Even murdered, Jamie is still terrorizing the seven women.

Review -

Speak of the Devil is horrifying as it is tragic, with a well structured murder mystery at the center of it. It begins full throttle and the first page reels the reader in but alas, from there it slows down and never truly captures the intensity and angst of the beginning of the novel. But as each story within the story unravels we begin to understand the impact Jamie has had on all of these women. Wilding does an incredibly intricate job of developing the female characters in this tale. Each of them. Unfortunately she does not do that with the male characters and what are left with there is what there is far too much of in modern novels. If you have a female lead then all the male characters are evil, callous or remarkably stupid.

That's too bad because this is really a good start to what could have been a murder mystery that would remind us all of an Agatha Christie tale. It really did start off that good.

Are there bad men in this world. Of course. There are some pretty bad women too.

A good book that will find its audience I am sure.

There are a lot of things I loved about this book - the narration changes perspectives among several women whose lives were all impacted by one man. The book starts off with this man's murder, and each woman is a suspect, for there are several reasons why someone might have wanted him dead. I loved the slow reveal of each woman's backstory. There are several heavy triggering topics in this book, but the author writes them with care. While it is a slow-build story, it is a very fast read. The characters are very well-developed and I was very invested in the story. I would recommend this book.

Thank you to @netgalley for the audiobook version of Speak of the Devil.
Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding
Published: June 13, 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️
>>Seven women, one dead man. Who killed him to save the others? They all had a reason to want Jamie Spellman dead. When his head turns up separated from his body at their meeting, they must figure out the murderer before the cops do and implicate them all for murder.
Ok so, I really wanted to love this book. Really, really. I love a good thriller/murder mystery. The narrator was great and the premise was great too. I, however, found it to be too many characters to keep up with. Seven perspectives is too many to keep up with, especially with an audiobook. I would have preferred maybe 2 or 3 personally. The mystery itself was good. A lot of twists I didn't see coming, particularly the ending.