The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle *
Stuart Turton, 2018
Sourcebooks (US); Bloomsbury (UK)
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781492657965
Summary
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…
The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave readers guessing until the very last page. (From the publisher.)
A television adaptation of the novel is in the works.
* The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, was published in 2018 by Bloomsbury in the UK. The book has been retitled in the US as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and published by Sourcebooks.
Author Bio
Stuart is the author of a high-concept crime novel and lives in London with his amazing wife, and drinks lots of tea.
What else?
When he left university he went travelling for three months and stayed away for five years. Every time his parents asked when he’d be back he told them next week, and meant it.
Stuart is not to be trusted. In the nicest possible way.
He’s got a degree in English and Philosophy, which makes him excellent at arguing and terrible at choosing degrees. Having trained for no particular career, he has dabbled in most of them. He stocked shelves in a Darwin bookshop, taught English in Shanghai, worked for a technology magazine in London, wrote travel articles in Dubai, and now he’s a freelance journalist. None of this was planned, he just kept getting lost on his way to other places.
He likes a chat. He likes books. He likes people who write books and people who read books. He doesn’t know how to write a biography, so should probably stop before we start talking about his dreams or something. It was lovely to meet you, though. (From DHH Literary Agency .)
Book Reviews
With time loops, body swaps and a psychopathic footman, this is a dazzling take on the murder mystery. Stuart Turton, a debut novelist, has drawn on half a dozen familiar tropes from popular culture and reworked them into something altogether fresh and memorable.… And what a pleasure it is to give oneself up to the book, to be met with discoveries and thrilling upsets at every turn in the labyrinth. Not only is nothing what it seems, it’s not even what it seems after it’s been revealed to be not what it seems.
Carrie O'Grady - Guardian (UK)
Turton’s complex debut blends mystery with Groundhog Day and Quantum Leap.… 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.
Publishers Weekly
[I]ngenious and original …[and] completely immersive…. Readers may be scratching their heads in delicious befuddlement as they work their way through this novel, but one thing will be absolutely clear: Stuart Turton is an author to remember.
Booklist
[D]izzying literary puzzle…. [A] fiendishly clever and amusing novel with explosive surprises, though in the absence of genuine feeling, it tends to keep its audience at arm's length.… [R]eaders may be hard-pressed to keep up with all its keenly calibrated twists and turns.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
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