The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in the UK and The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in the US (apparently they didn’t want to get it confused with the Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hugo)

The author, Stuart Turton, was in Australia earlier this year and that’s when I first saw it. It’s touted as a story about a character coming back seven times, into the bodies of other guests to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle.

The way I got it, it sounded like Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day.

It was anything but.

It was long, drawn out, thick with descriptive paragraph after paragraph and suffocated me with details that weren’t always necessary.

It jumped between characters and days, and became somewhat confusing trying to keep up. The main character of Aiden didn’t know who he was, who he could trust, and how this was all happening.

As he jumped into each character, how he knew and spoke of things that he had previously not come across, thought of, or mentioned was not explained, and you had to struggle to keep up with how could he possibly be figuring these things out without having come across them before.

I read until the end, expecting this to be a murder mystery in the guise of a Miss Marple or Poirot. Sadly, it was not, and left me so stumped at the end I felt bitterly disappointed in the resolution, and like my time had been wasted on what could have been a good simple murder mystery.

The reason why it was happening was not fully explained, nor was why they were at Blackheath in the first place, except that it was because of the family. They were all criminals stuck in a loop until they could figure it out and get out. Get out of what? Jail? Purgatory? Who the hell knows? Towards the end I expected aliens to pop up and claim responsibility for the stupid game like in Under The Dome. The ending was so utterly ridiculous.

Was the murder solved? Sure. Did Aiden and Anna get out? I actually don’t know. I cannot stand endings that are not fully explained. It’s the same as when a TV show is cancelled and you never get your resolution ending.

Maybe I need to google this book to see what it’s actually all about.

I give it a 5/10.

Three Little Lies by Laura Marshall is the follow up to her first book, Friend Request.

Overall the story was better than Friend Request, but the layout was annoying, jumping decades and telling the story from different characters point of view. It was hard to keep up with who was telling the story.

There were some things left unfinished, maybe that’s the way they were planned. What Tony was dying of, probably alcoholism, what secret Sasha was really hiding, why Leo kept lying to Ellen, why Ellen was so blind and stupid, why Karina was still so scared ten years later.

I figured about halfway through the book that the person Karina was talking about could be pinpointed down to two. Tony or Nick. I was veering toward Tony, but nope, it turned out to be Nick.

Funny how it was Karina who finally decided to get strong in the end, but only after Ellen forced her into going with her to Olivia and Tony’s house, and Daniel came to the rescue.

I’m over psychological thrillers, I have to say. They are all the same; an insecure woman finding out her life is a lie. All the same concept, different names, different locations, different lie.

They’re boring, but clearly not going away.

It’s time authors stepped away from each book and wrote something new to show us they can write in different genres other than the one they just released in, instead of continually writing the same book over and over.

And I’m wondering if the title was taken from someone else’s book. Trad pub houses come up with great titles for books, but they don’t always align to the actual story, and giving a book a similar title to others is annoying as it gets confusing. Pretty Little Liars, Big Little Lies, Three Little Lies etc…

“Two best friends, one fateful night”. Well, weren’t they three best friends? Is it referring to Ellen and Karina? Or Ellen and Sasha? And Ellen never actually lied; she just made the assumption and believed it, so then was it Nick’s lie as well? Sasha’s, Karina’s and Nick’s lies? Or Sasha’s, Karina’s and Ellen’s lies?

I give this book a generous 7/10

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

I don’t cry during many books, but this one hit a nerve on all fronts.

I LOVED IT.

It kept me reading, wanting to learn the secret that Evelyn had to tell, the tall tales of her seven husbands, the fame and fortune she amassed along the way, and why she wanted Monique to write it. There was a twist I did not see coming, although my brain was working overtime to guess what the twist was, I certainly didn’t expect it to be what it was.

This story was like a fictional retelling of an old Hollywood version of Elizabeth Taylor’s life. The men, the money, the fashion and jewels.

Evelyn was no different to any other star back in the day, always striving to be the best, get the best roles, marry the hottest hunk of the time, most of them did back then. And yes, many turned out to be gay.

Poor Harry, he and Evelyn loved each other dearly and his death killed me.

I’m surprised it wasn’t explained more clearly. He and Evelyn were flying home that night to their daughter, but for some reason he went to see his lover, got drunk and crashed his car, killing his lover and putting himself within hours of death.

It made no sense that he would do that. Not after talking to his daughter on the phone that morning, telling her they’d go to Wiffles the next morning. The only reason I can formulate, after finishing the book, was that he’d been speaking to his lover, his lover had given him the letter/he’d received the letter, and they’d gotten drunk and maybe argued on the way home and crashed.

Why no one else found them, or called an ambulance beats me, but then it was the set up for the story.

Evelyn sobbing by his grave killed me even more. So did Connor’s death.

It’s not hard to go through husbands or wives these days. These days are no different to those of Hollywood past. Men beat their wives, you grow apart, you cheat. It’s all the same, no matter what era, no matter what country. Marriage, followed by a divorce, was the norm, all for covering up the fact many stars were gay, and the studios dictated their lives.

I loved it (despite what I thought were its minor issues), probably because I love stories of old Hollywood, and the hardcover is awesomely green.

But damn you, Taylor Jenkins Reid for making me sob my eyes out and needing to take antihistamines and anti-inflammatories to calm the swelling down after reading it. And crying again after re-reading parts to write this review.

I’m giving this book a 100/10. And yes, I know it’s two years old, but seriously, I just never find these books until years have gone by.