Just finished Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
Overall, it was an enjoyable book. The plot and ideas behind it are pretty original, and they drive the book forward. The characters are interesting enough to keep me going and to feel familiarity with them. However, I had some issues with the pacing of the book. The first half takes a bit to get going, and instead of information being drip-fed to you, there will be nothing, and then all of a sudden, a character will tell you a lot of things. This happens a few times in the book, and especially at the end, where a lot of plot details are put upon you all at once. In a way, a lot of plot nuggets are laid out, but not in any way that the reader can piece it together the way the character does in any fashion. Perhaps this would be good for some people, but I would have liked to have less info dump at the end and more details snuck in throughout the story.
Ultimately this dragged down the experience. But that's just me.
In the end, there are some cool concepts, like of Blackheath itself and the way it operates, and the idea of redemption. I wouldn't have minded to see what happens after the end, but it's also nice to theorize about it. It's really an interesting concept, and I'm intrigued to read more from Turton, as this is his debut book, and I think his craft will improve with time as well.
One thing, someone mentioned something of an epilogue at the end, but there was no such epilogue in my copy. I'm not sure what that's about, as it feels like this is what was intended. Anyway, the book gives a good enough conclusion despite me wanting to know more.
Overall it's a good book. I gave it 3 stars on goodreads (possibly a 3.5 star, to be more precise).
