The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
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4.0 • 483 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
"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." —Harper's Bazaar
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem.
Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he 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 at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked-room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense.
International bestselling author Stuart Turton delivers inventive twists in a thriller of such unexpected creativity it will leave readers guessing until the very last page.
The Sunday Times Bestseller!
Costa First Novel Award Winner
Harper's Bazaar's 10 Must-Read Books of 2018
The Guardian's Best Books of 2018
Buzzfeed's 17 Mystery Books You Won't Be Able to Put Down
Country Living's 27 Murder Mystery Books You Won't Be Able To Put Down
Town & Country's 35 Best Books About Time Travel
Distractify's Best Books Like Knives Out
Tor.com's 7 Thrilling Murder Mysteries With SFF Flair
BookRiot's 10 Mystery and Thriller Authors like Agatha Christie
BookRiot's 10 Best Time Loop Books
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Strap in for a brain-bending thriller where even the twists have twists. Stuart Turton’s debut is part locked-room murder mystery, part lush Roaring Twenties period drama, and part science-fiction adventure. When Aiden Bishop wakes up in the forest outside a sprawling country estate called Blackheath House, he discovers he’s trapped inside a bizarre time loop. Every time he fails to catch the person who murdered heiress Evelyn Hardcastle at that night’s masquerade ball, he wakes up in the same spot in the same forest—and each time, he’s in the body of a different guest. Believe it or not, things only get weirder from there! Aiden’s unusual predicament fills Turton’s story with strange surprises and suspense. This unique mystery is so much fun to get lost in, you may never want to find your way out.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Turton's complex debut blends mystery with Groundhog Day and Quantum Leap. Guests have been invited to the Hardcastle family manse, the dilapidated Blackheath House in the English countryside, for a masquerade ball that the Hardcastles are holding for the return of their daughter, Evelyn, from Paris. At the novel's start, several days before the ball, an unnamed protagonist comes upon Blackheath and enlists those inside to find the body of a woman he thinks has just been murdered. He's forgotten his identity, but people at the house think he's Dr. Sebastian Bell, an invitee to the ball. It turns out Bell is the first of eight people invited guests of the Hardcastles, their associates, staff, and a police officer whom the main character will inhabit over eight days in a repeating loop. This loop revolves around two mysteries: who killed young Thomas Hardcastle 19 years ago, and who murders Evelyn, his older sister, the night of the ball? As the hero amasses clues about the past and present, a mysterious costumed "Plague Doctor" chimes in to direct the action, explaining the only escape from this loop is to expose the identity of Evelyn's murderer. This is a complicated, twisting plot that may delight some looking for a puzzle but may leave others exasperated at the overly abstruse rules and kitchen-sink concept.
Customer Reviews
Good
I throughly enjoyed it, although the plot was a bit hard to follow, at least for me. Very suspenseful and lots of twists but I didn’t really like the ending. Solid 8/10.
I stopped caring
A hot mess of a book. It strives to be clever like an Agatha Christie novel, but there are too many characters, too many twists, and I had to force myself to read through the end.
Worst read I’ve ever read
Oh how many times I wanted to quit reading this but I just had to finish to see if it redeemed itself. Did it? Meh. It could have but it just kept going and going and going, ugh!
It started great but went downhill fast. Like by Chapter 2, fast. Too many characters introduced all at once. Then the story jumps around without anything to hold on to.
I’m quite annoyed. I need a drink.