Years ago, Olivia was in a horrific car accident that killed her best friend and severely injured her. She soon left Kansas and hasn’t returned since. However, when her best friend’s sister calls for help, she decides to go back. Bonnie (the best friend’s sister) has been accused of killing her children and she wants Olivia’s private investigator expertise to help prove her innocence.

I really enjoyed this one! It was engaging and full of lots of good twists. I didn’t give it five stars because I felt like I was given an incomplete backstory on Olivia. Like it’s referenced that she used to be a detective, but we’re not given much on that. It didn’t overall detract too much from my enjoyment of the book, but it was just things like that that made this feel almost like a sequel. However, if you’re looking for a good twisty thriller, this one is good to pick up!

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book has an intriguing premise. Olivia is a detective who survived, but has no memory of a car crash she was in as a child. The car crash ended up with two fatalities, Olivia’s mother and her best friend. She ends up going back to her childhood town, when she is enlisted to help Bonnie Ray, another survivor of the crash who is charged with killing three of her children.

What I didn’t really care for, was the character Will. He is a journalist with delusions of grandeur, who seems to be using Olivia to get insider information. However, for some reason, against her instincts she teams up with him even though he is very little help, and a liability. Honestly,this lack of good judgement decreased my respect for her character.

Overall, this book was well written and interesting, with many twists and turns. However, I would have rather seen Olivia go it alone than team up with Will.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book to read and review.

** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley

~

The Night I Died, by Anne Frasier
★★★☆☆
283 Pages
3rd person, multi-character POV
Content Warning: mentions of: PTSD, child death, child abuse, postpartum depression, drug use/addiction, death of a parent, death of a pet, Munchausen syndrome, overdose, car-train collision, corrupt police, grooming of minors, sexual assault of minors



After reading Anne Frasier's Jude Fontaine series, I was stoked to try another of her books. The Night I Died has an incredible premise, and one of the best opening lines of a book I've seen in years:
“Private investigator Olivia Welles had died five times so far in her life.”

Sadly, all of that couldn't save this review. It all kind of went downhill from there, actually.

~

Let's start with the positives, and what made me give this a 3* review rather than anything lower. First off, Olivia was an interesting main character, quite complex and with the same stubborn grit as Jude Fontaine, and I loved that. She had a great journey throughout the novel and didn't pretend to be something she wasn't. Whenever she stepped in to take over or overstepped her boundaries it was with genuine concern for justice and because she was suspicious of everyone in this tiny little Kansas town. And she had a right to be.

I also really liked Will. He wasn't one of your perfect, well rounded characters, but his relationship with Olivia reminded me of Uriah from Jude's series, in that they had a great partnership but it never felt forced or pushed into becoming romantic just because. If there was a hint of romance or an emotional connection it was because it worked in that moment and felt natural to the progression of their relationship.

And yes, I liked the plot concept. While it had faults, it was an interesting case and I did finish the book. I'm a picky reader, so if I'm really not enjoying it or I feel it's all too contrived, I'll stop reading. The fact that I found problems with the story but finished is a credit to Frasier's writing ability.

~

Onto the negatives...
First off, I'll admit that it didn't live up to the quality I had expected, after reading the Jude Fontaine series. If this book had come first, I actually would have understood that better, as for a long time it didn't even read like it was written by the same author.

Unfortunately, The Night I Died has the hallmark of bad choices for a mystery – it's predictable, cheesy and not well paced. While being all over the place for about 50% of the book, it also suffers multiple pages of unnecessary info-dumps, repeats itself endlessly and relies on stereotypes that just felt uncomfortable and cheesy.

Overall, the whole thing feels disjointed and unbalanced.

When it comes to the multi-character POV's, I could have easily cut out about 3 of them without it affecting the story. We get Olivia's POV which is the main one. Then we get Will, which eventually proves to be important though I'd say the first 2 are unnecessary and probably only added for balance. Then we get the suspect Bonnie; her mother Ava; a single POV for Bonnie's husband Conrad Murphy, the sheriff.

Mostly, the story relies on the strength of having unreliable narrators and I quite honestly would have deleted Conrad, the first of Will, the first of Ava, and probably all of Bonnie's except the first. None of them added enough to the story that wasn't told in other ways later on, to have the kind of strength that made them important. I actually think it would have added a whole lot more intrigue to the story to have them deleted and leave things open to speculation.

The story-telling also relies heavily on the time jumps, in particular showing events and then jumping back to show what led to them. Half the time that second re-telling wasn't important, but sometimes it did clarify a few things, especially at the end. But, it did get a little confusing and annoying to constantly jump around. Overall, I marked five big time jumps in the novel.

I wasn't a fan of some of the decisions made, such as the endless repetition of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I was quite honestly sick of it, after about the third time it was mentioned. It's also a bit frustration that when someone didn't know who Truman Capote was that the book was the first answer because he's more than the sum of one novel, but also when speaking to someone young enough not to know him, a more obvious answer would probably have been that he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's. Surely that would be a cultural reference more likely to resonate with the younger character?

The utterly endless repetition about Kansas' landscape got to the point that I skimmed multiple pages throughout the novel, because I got the point really early on that it was just a flat expanse for miles, that there were people-tall corn fields (which kind of negates the first statement anyway) and that the place was awash with The Wizard of Oz references. I got all of that within the first chapter of Olivia arriving in Kansas, it DID NOT need to be repeated to me at least once in every chapter – although it was. Often multiple times in a chapter and by various characters.

I found some of Olivia and Will's conversations to be quite odd and entirely irrelevant, such as the talk about water towers that took about an entire page, and the comparison between movies, the long travel pages of nothing of interest, and the odd bathroom break scene.

I also really didn't like the stereotypical aspect of the small town. The fact that a funeral descended into violence – fine, I could understand the character motivations. But for the entire town to become mob-like, cultish and goad someone into violence, even offering to falsify witness statements to somehow 'justify' murder was too much. It felt far too cartoonish and stereotypical, like a hick town where everyone was prepared to commit murder at the first provocation, no one could be trusted and 'we take the law into our own hands here' kind. The fact no one could then accept that their sweet, cherished members would dare commit a crime was no surprise, if they were quite willing to be accomplices, but it also made the entire town seem like dumb idiots with no moral compass.

~

Overall, while the story had a strong female lead, a great buddy-cop dynamic between the two main characters, and an intriguing story concept, there were certain editing and plot choices that really put me off. If the story hadn't been so strong, I would definitely not have finished reading.

In the end, it was quite cliché, predictable and full of stereotypes. I had to really push past those problems to let my enjoyment of the mystery/police element shine through. I'm sorry to say that I feel like it just tried too hard to make the entire town seem crazy and like viable suspects or accomplices, willing to cover up any and every crime, so that Olivia and Will truly were all alone, in this together against the world.

While it was, at times, engaging and intriguing, I'm sad to say that I guessed the killer/s very early on, that I guess the huge Olivia secret almost from the very beginning and none of the big revelations of the story took me by surprise. I'm rounding this off at a 2.5, but bumping it up to 3* for the rating system simply for the fact that it was a strong concept and parts of it were really well done. It was just badly let down by the other choices that were made throughout.

Olivia feels compelled to help Bonnie, who also survived the car crash that killed her mother and sister, when Bonnie is arrest for killing her children, This is a story of past secrets and lies. Olivia has repressed her memories but there's something really wrong in Finney, Kansas. Luckily, she meets Will, a journalist who helps with the confusion and challenges, There's a big twist- no spoilers. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC, A good read,

Thank you to Anne Frasier, Thomas & Mercer, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Okay, so, I requested this book after reading the book and it sounded so good. But by 25% I was done, I could not read it anymore. Olivia had zero personality. She was boring, she was almost robotic. She was not a good PI at all.

The story just did not hold my attention.

Private investigator Olivia survived a train wreck as a child but a phone call from someone else involved in the accident has her travelling back to her childhood home in Kansas to try to solve a murder.

The author has created an interesting story with plenty of twists and turns. The plot moves at a good pace which kept my interest. I felt that some of the characters lacked depth and there were times when the author shifted to a different narrator or threw in a flashback to give a different perspective on the story.

The subject matter could have become quite heavy but the approach of the two main characters gave it a more lighthearted feel, and I still can’t decide whether that was appropriate or not. Having said that, I enjoyed the story.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

4-4.25⭐️

Having heard rave reviews for other books by this author I leapt at the chance to read this one.

What I found very irritating was having to scroll past page after page of praise for other books before I could get to the. Start of the book.

Private investigator Olivia Wells is drawn back to Kansas by Bonnie who she has known since a child she is accused of killing her children. Olivia is pulled into the case as the two women share a history. En route she meets up with reporter Will LaFever who is after a Pulitzer prize winning story. He thinks these children’s deaths could be the story that makes him.

Here we have our two protagonists, very different to each other, and both with their oddities. I must say I immediately liked both of them, although Will’s motives weren’t immediately obvious, just making him appear even stranger. They are both outsiders in a very clicky small rural town, and needed to stick together.
I enjoyed their relationship as it developed, as well as her assistant Ezra back at the office, needless to say he has his own ongoing issues.

As this is the first in what I believe is a series a fair bit of time is spent developing each of their histories and back stories, giving the characters good depth but initially slowing the pace.
The relationship between the three was my favourite part of the story.

I loved most of the book, wasn’t so sure about the ending for me. Although it’s fast paced once it gets going and kept my interest well. It’s well worth a read. I’ll be checking out others by this author for sure, and look forward to the next one in this series as I like the protagonists.

This is a first time read by this author and I was impressed. Not only did it keep this reader guessing but I appreciated the twist and turns with no romantic involvement between characters.My suggestion to others would be to give this story a try, you will not be disappointed.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of The Night I Died by Anne Frazier that I read and reviewed.
I figured out one of the twist in this book pretty quickly and as for the rest most of the characters in the book were a bit crazy and I really didn’t know what to think about any of them.
I am not a huge fan of books told from so many different perspectives because there is just so much going on you get lost in what everyone is thinking you don’t know what what.
Overall, this book was pretty good. I enjoyed it. But like I said everyone was a bit nuts.
I am giving The Night I Died four out of five stars.

Wow! Complex and gripping, with intriguing characters. This one kept me guessing. I was completely invested in Olivia. The mystery is full of twists. I was glued to this one and didn't want it to end.

Olivia Welles has not been back to her home town in Finney County, Kansas since the night she first died. Involved in an accident when she was young, she was pronounced dead at the scene but later started to wake up in the morgue and was rushed to hospital. During the reconstructive surgery needed to put her back together she died several more times but was resuscitated and eventually grew up to become a homicide detective in the LAPD and now works as a private detective in LA.

Olivia’s mother and her best friend Mazie died in the accident while Mazie’s little sister Bonnie and her mother managed to walk away from the wreck. When Olivia receives a call from Bonnie saying she needs help because she’s been accused of the murder of her young son, she decides to return to her home town for her first time since the accident. Two of Bonnie’s children have previously died in what were ruled as accidents by the coroner, but for a third child to die is definitely suspicious.

This is a very entertaining tale of murder and madness. Journalist Will LaFever is a quirky character, a Truman Capote wannabe writing about true crime. He travels to Finney County on the same flight as Olivia and recognising her, uses an unconventional ruse to get Olivia to get her to notice him. Although she is initially set against aiding him in any way, the two will eventually help each other and become good friends. Olivia will also solve the mystery of the dead children and find answers to her own questions about her past and her relationship with her father. Not hugely suspenseful, but the plot is fun and engaging, building gradually to a crazy climax with some unexpected twists.

Anne Frasier has become one of comfort authors despite the almost macabre storyline her books have. The Night I Died is her latest still with her hallmark macabre past for her heroine. This time though her main female lead seems to have a lighter aura than her past books. The writing is still on point, sharp, with a plot whose twist you might guess but won’t be really sure if you got right. This is more a psychological thriller/mystery you won’t be able to put down.

This book is a fast paced quick little mystery that was full of drama and will keep you guessing. I enjoyed the author’s writing, it made this book an easy read. The ending was super drawn out and took away from the overall fast pacing of the book, but overall I enjoyed it.

I did not finish this one, it was not for me, I couldn't relate to the characters, and just did not care for the story.

5/5 stars: Frasier has been a favorite author for years and this newest stand-alone novel doesn't disappoint. With plenty of twists and turns, Frasier writes a gripping tale about a private detective returns home to help a woman, who's been accused of killing her children, allies with a journalist who unearths secrets from the past. I really love how Frasier deftly wove together Olivia's past and the current case. I've never been to Kansas but Frasier's descriptions of the landscape and small town life drew me in and painted an evocative setting for Olivia's return home. Additionally, I love Frasier's ability to create such incredibly complex characters who may be damaged but are strong and relatable. This book touches on some very sensitive topics; take care, check the CWs.

I received this eARC thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review. Publishing dates are subject to change.

Thank you Netgalley, publisher and the author for the advanced reader's copy of this publication.

Loved it! Its one of my favorites this year so far. Exciting storyline, characters and writing. I love when a book can make you feel like you are in the story. No mistaking the feeling. The author did an excellent job keeping the storyline moving and involved.

Wonderful! Easy read.

Filled with twists I didn't see coming! I could not put this one down. The Night I Died follows the main character Olivia, a former detective turned private investigator, as she travels back to her hometown in Kansas at the request of someone she used to know. Olivia is troubled mentally and physically from a traumatic incident in her past, and doesn't expect to stay long. She ends up getting much more than she bargained for, learning some interesting things about herself and her past. I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this novel for review.

When Olivia travels to a small town to get information about multiple children dying in one family, she has a lot of apprehension. Traveling to this town might just stir some childhood memories. Teaming up with a strange, new character in her life, she is determined to find answers to this ever-changing mystery! This was a good, twisty mystery!

Former homicide detective Olivia Welles grew up in Kansas and as a young girl was involved in an accident with a train. This is the first time she died. It was discovered at the morgue that she was alive.

Now working as a private private investigator, she is asked to come back to her home town by a fellow survivor, Bonnie Ray, who has been accused of killing several of her children in different circumstances.

“Do you ever think you’re a ghost?” she asked. “Ghost?”
“Yeah. Like we both should’ve died that day. There’s no reason we survived. And you did die.”

She teams up with Will LaFever
a reporter who is covering the story for his own reasons. He is an odd character. What a crazy pair they make! Yet they come to each others aid a number of times. At times cheesy, yet also bizarre and disjointed.

The townspeople had a mob mentality and it was so strange.
At first I was drawn into the story, but the farther in I went, I just kept shaking my head. There is a big twist near the end. All in all, it was an okay read for me.

I picked this up as a ‘read now’ book on Netgalley. I thought it would be a good fall, spooky season book. I found I had to suspend belief a little too much for my liking. It’s listed as a thriller but I wouldn’t necessarily classify it as such.

3/5 stars

CW: Death of a child (not descriptive)

*Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for an advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

You think you have it figured out, but you don’t. Suspense, twists and turns keep you engaged as you move through the story. You may figure out one twist, but the rest will keep you guessing. I also like that you weren’t quite sure who the “bad” people are or who has a hidden agenda. Enjoyable, thrilling read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, and Anne Frasier for the eARC.