I saw this beauty of a book in a couple of places and was really intrigued! The title, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, sounds pretty ominous and the synopsis is quite interesting. When I came across it on Netgalley I requested it but totally forgot about it after not being accepted for a while. I grabbed it at the bookstore a couple of times, put it in my online basket but never actually ended up buying it since it’s an adult thriller and those hardcovers are expensive! Imagine my surprise, and delight(!), when all of a sudden I did get approved for a copy on Netgalley. I started reading immediately and here’s my review for you all. Enjoy reading!

UK vs USA

Cover

I really like these covers! The title is slightly different for the USA compared to the UK, so I wanted to show both. Also, I think the USA one might not be out yet, but I may be wrong about that. The cover is pretty simple but I like the colors they used and after reading the book the details make a lot of sense!

“Somebody’s going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won’t appear to be a murder so the murderer won’t be caught. Rectify that injustice and I’ll show you the way out.”

Plot

Now this is where it get’s kinda tricky, I obviously want to tell you what the book is about but I don’t want to spoil anything. I will try my best, so lets talk about that plot! Our main character wakes up and doesn’t remember anything, during the day he’s told that there will be a murder and that he has to figure out who did it. The next day he wakes up in someone else’s body but on the same day. He get’s 8 different bodies to relive that same day and try to solve the murder. I think this is all you need to know about the plot!

I was quite confused when I started reading this book, I didn’t recognized the name of the main character and I couldn’t really get into it. After I kept on reading I realized our main character doesn’t know his own name, so while I get a name from the synopsis, our MC wasn’t there yet. I really like being surprised so I don’t think you need his name. You just have to go on that journey with him! What I really liked about this book is that every time the MC woke up in another body, he assumed part of their personality. And this got worse the more bodies he had inhabited. It was so interesting to read how he changed with that new body and how he had to ‘fight’ the actual inhabitant for complete control.

There are so many twists and turns in this book and while they flowed naturally I didn’t see any of it coming haha. I kept guessing who did the murdering but; NO CLUE! And that was pretty frustrating to be honest haha. I do usually have a pretty good guess, but not this time. Lets just say, this was an amazing murder mystery!

“How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home?”

Characters

Now, this is also pretty tricky haha! Our MC experiences this day 8 different times, through 8 different eyes. And every time he gets a new body, he also gets a bit of a different personality. I really loved how the original person showed himself through our MC. This was so, so well done. It did make it a bit harder to find out what his own personality was like. I would say he’s a stubborn person that just wants to do the right thing. Getting back to the different bodies, there was such a distinction between them! There were good characters, questionable characters, pretty bad characters, scared characters, smart characters, and so on. They all had their own impact on the story and it was so interesting seeing the same situation from different angles.

Apart from our MC we also have Anna, the Plague Doctor, the footman and Evelyn as our most important characters I would say. Other than them we have quite a lot of side characters as well and I think they’re all really important to the story. They all bring something new to the story. Anna and the Plague Doctor were hard to read! I didn’t know what to think of them and that was so enjoyable. The footman really scared me haha. And Evelyn was so interesting and mysterious. I really didn’t know how all the parts fit together until ‘the big finale’.

“If this isn’t hell, the devil is surely taking notes.”

Hopefully I told you all enough to want to pick up the book without spoiling anything! I was so engaged in this story and especially around the halfway mark I just couldn’t put it down. If you love murder mystery with a little twist this is the book for you. I really hope the author writes a book in similar fashion. And with that I don’t mean I want an actual sequel with the same characters, no I want another murder mystery exactly like this!

This book gets 4,5 stars from me! I might actually reread this one just so I can see the full story from all angles when I already know what’s going on. Highly recommend this book! Do you like murder mysteries? Let me know in the comments.