The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

(Format used for this read: Audiobook)

My last book review was loooong, emotionally deep, and kind of heavy.

So this one is going to be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, my friends.

Since I read a few books at the same time, I try to be sure to alternate the types so I don’t overwhelm one area of my emotions or my brain too much…I try to have one serious “growth” book while simultaneously reading another book (or two) just for “fun”.

This was my “fun” pick I had alongside my reading of my “growth” pick I reviewed last….

So no worries about getting all up in your feelings while reading this review my friends….this one is all about entertainment! 😊

Mystery and crime novels are not usually my cup of tea.

I’ll read them every now and then… but usually yall know if there is ANY TEENSY BIT of creepy scary vibes I prefer to find my entertainment elsewhere.

But THIS book had mystery AND crime….and it was SO FREAKING GOOD.

And while it did have some mysterious and eerie moments, I did not find it to be overwhelming with grotesque violence or scariness to the point of me having nightmares.

Again, this book was recommended to me by somebody or some place (I really have GOT to get better about remembering how a title gets on my always growing list so I can consider my source before diving in 😆) and when I first read the short summary of it….my interest was definitely peaked…even though this is not a “normal” kind of pick for me.

But hey….we are DEFINITELY not living in a time where anything even RESEMBLES our “normal” lives….not a thing makes any kind of sense these days…so I figured “What the hell….normalcy be damned….Let’s just check it out and see what’s going on in these pages.”

Here was the official summary I read:

“The Rules of Blackheath
Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m.
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.
We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.
Understood? Then let’s begin…

***
Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others.

For fans of Claire North and Kate Atkinson, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive novel that follows one man’s race against time to find a killer―but an astonishing time-turning twist means that nothing and no one are quite what they seem.”

This book was written by an English author and read by an English narrator…yall know that my heart was immediately drawn to BOTH of them… I just can NOT help but love and adore this English mystery READ IN AN ENGLISH ACCENT. ❤

All things English are a fascination of mine…the culture, the accents obviously, the BBC….they always have been in my adult life…and the only explanation I have of this is that my Ancestry DNA results show my ancestral heritage is 70% English/Welch…so English-ness really IS like EMBEDDED IN MY SOUL 🤣 (or I just have a strange obsession…but we will go with the scientific explanation, mmmmkay?)

I saw a review from Harper’s Bazaar that explained the book like this:

“Pop your favorite Agatha Christie whodunnit into a blender with a scoop of Downton Abbey, a dash of Quantum Leap, and a liberal sprinkling of Groundhog Day and you’ll get this unique murder mystery.”

YAAASSSSSSSSS to ALLL OF THAT!!!

I wish I had a more unique- to -me way to describe this book, but that sentence right there is just the most PERFECT way to say it….so I am just gonna say I cosign IT ALL!

There are so many twists and turns in this book that I got a little dizzy trying to keep up. All the character swapping and point of view switching had me hitting the rewind button a couple times…seriously, if you even so much as sneeze for five seconds you can miss a PIVOTAL piece of plot development.

But I was totally fascinated the ENTIRE time.

I would say I was on the edge of my seat, but seeing as I listen to audiobooks while I am up doing things I guess I should say I was on the tip of my toes 🤣

You never know what is going to happen next….even when you think you have some tidbit of the mystery figured out….two paragraphs later you are back to seeing every single character as a suspect yet again.

The murderer of Evelyn Hardcastle isn’t the only unknown in this story….nothing is as it seems and NOBODY is who they appear to be. There are LAYERS of interconnected webs of deceit and drama in every corner of every single room in that old English estate.

You get completely drawn into the messy fascination of it all.

And the ENDING, yall…..OMG the ENDING….completely and totally unexpected from ALL KINDS OF PLACES.

The way that all things are revealed and wrapped up in the last few chapters does NOT disappoint IN THE LEAST.

I could totally envision this as a BBC Masterpiece Theatre mini-series, yall. OOOOOOOO it would be SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOD and have a HUGE fan following!

If yall are part of the entertainment world at all and are reading this and know of a way to make that happen, DO IT. I will contribute to your Kickstarter campaign or send emails to production companies or whatever…you tell me, I’ll do it. 🤣

This book was such a remedy for the dry attention span that this quarantine reading rut has imposed upon me.

Even though this was not one of “my ” genres, I felt like I was back to my pre-pandemic reader self as I listened to this story unfold…and that was a tremendously great feeling to have.

I only listen to audiobooks while I am “doing” something (chores, exercise, errands, etc) so I would find myself taking a longer time preparing meals or putting laundry away just to get a few more chapters in 😬

Highly recommend this gripping entertaining read, yall.