#the seven deaths of evelyn hardcastle

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

also: The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

[evelynhug0]

books i’ve read in 2024: the seven deaths of evelyn hardcastle by stuart turton

"Nothing like a mask to reveal somebody's true nature."

picture credits: x x x x x x x x

[thecozybimbo]

“Do not tell me I disappoint you?” he challenged.

“Oh, indeed you do,”I said evenly. “But probably not in the ways you expect.”

— a curious beginning by deanna raybourn

[bubbles-txt]

Reading The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle right now. I'm about 7 chapters in since I only started recently and I have quite a lot going on (projects, etc.) But it already seems interesting. Might make follow up posts with spoilers these next few days just to collect my thoughts and prevent myself from forgetting the storyline in a few months.

[pb-dot]

Reading a new Stuart Turton novel is so delightful. I'm like "Oh ho ho, exciting setup, Turton. In what fresh yet coherent way will you upend the apple cart this time?"

[storyswept]

Recently I read The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton which combines murder mystery and time loop. Was totally not trying to take my mind off The Running Grave's impending release >.> It's a bit confusing at first, since you know only as much as the main character does. It ended up being quite interesting, though some plot twists at the end felt a bit over the top.

One thing that stuck out to me was that, like in the Cormoran Strike series, there's a character named Madeline.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle came out in 2018, while The Ink Black Heart was released in 2022.

Since Galbraith/Rowling loves her literary allusions, I took another look at Chapter 3 (same chapter where she name-drops Tannhäuser) and noticed two things that seem to point at a deliberate reference on her part:

Strike and Madeline meet at a club called Annabel's

Madeline is part of a "party of eight"

(This probably won't make any sense if you haven't read The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, or The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle as it's called in the US).

On purpose or not, I find the reference somewhat fitting, considering what we later learn about Madeline. I'm not going to say more because I don't want to spoil anybody.

[allforthesong]

My three favourite reads in 2023

[eyebright-iris]

Review: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

What can I really say except Jesus Christ. Stuart Turton takes the beautifully preserved evening gowns and mansions and intrigue of the Golden Age of Mysteries, the era of Christie and her ilk, and picks them apart bead by bead, splinter by splinter, only to breathe new cigarette-and-perfumed life back into them.

This review will be short. This book should only be experienced, in my humble opinion, with as little knowledge as possible surrounding it. It is a masterpiece. It is spectacular, and subtle, and much like those it pays homage to, you can’t appreciate the complexity until you’ve raced through it, starting blind, slowly learning with our main character(...s?), until you’re left with a technicolour explosion of a tapestry that will make for the finest wall-decoration for the kinds of folks who like to figure these things out as they go.

(You will need post-its, pins, and red thread. No, more than that.)

Aiden Bishop awakens at Blackheath every day. He is a different person every day, his consciousness inhabiting a different guest of the Hardcastle family. He has a mission: solve the murder of the Hardcastle’s daughter, Evelyn, who will die tonight. She will die every night, unless Aiden can identify her killer. The phrase “all is not as it seems” is probably the understatement of the century here, but this book is layered perfectly, question over answer over more questions. A palimpsest, a word I’ve come to be extremely fond of after its use in another novel I loved and reviewed, The Wayward Girls.

Seven Deaths is hard to fully get your hands around to hold up to anyone else. You can’t tell them what it’s about, because if you tell anyone what a murder is really about then you’ve half-spoiled the thing. You can’t tell them anything that happens, because it only makes sense in context, and you can’t try giving any context, because, well…You see the problem. This is far from a criticism of the book - its ability to defy discussion, even recommendation, is integral to its mastery - but sometimes it’s hard to recommend a book to someone simply by waving it at them and making emphatic gestures, even if that waving and gesturing comes from someone firmly raised on Golden Age mysteries. Perhaps this review can suffice, trying to sum up everything while giving away nothing, ending up tangling in on itself while trying to follow the weft and weave of Turton’s genius.

Welcome to Blackheath, traveller. There is a question that needs answering.

[pocketwatchdog]

Has anyone here ever read this book?

I just finished it and it might be one of my favorite books I've ever read. I'm a bit disappointed that the Netflix show fell through.

[slightlybiasedbookreviews]

Books read in 2023

(*pictured are the ones I own)

*Horizon by Andrew Wildman (January)

Pyramids by Terry Pratchett (January)

*The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (March)

Iron Man (movie novelization) (March)

A Big Important Art Book by Danielle Krysa (March)

*The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed (April)

The Aquanaut by Dan Santat (May)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (May)

*Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds (May)

*Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (June)

*Tehanu by Ursula K le Guin (June)

I am Legend by Richard Matheson (July)

*Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K le Guin (July)

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan (September)

*Heart of the Sun Warrior by Sue Lynn Tan (October)

*The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (October)

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett (October)

Extra Bold: a feminist inclusive anti-racist non-binary field guide for graphic designers (October)

What We Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon (December)

Improv Quilting: Dancing with the Wall by Irene Roderick (December)

The Making of a Museum by Judith Nasby (December)

Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie (December)

[plantdad-dante]

Book #127 - The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

(first time read; full spoilers, but also, why would you waste your precious Earth time on this book)

On the one side... The body hopping time loop could have been really interesting. It really could. A nice, tight murder mystery (which, the murder was a bit convoluted and relied a little to much on "oh, this person is just evil, has always been evil, how did you not guess that this kid (that was murdered nineteen years ago) was killed by a ten-year old in a weirdly elaborate murder plan for a ten-year old to develop", but once it actually got going (which... two thirds of the way through is no time to kickstart your plot) it was fine? Even interesting at times? Shame I had to wait for Aiden to bodysnatch a cop for it, but at that point, I was willing to just take what I could get).

And on the other side of things... The mindwipe time loop murder solving prison thing could have been so cool, too? There is a cyberpunk takedown of the prison industrial complex waiting inside this book and I am so frustrated that it barely gets any attention at all??? Like. Either commit to this bonkers insane idea and fucking say someting with it, or do your Agatha Christie imitation and don't bother with world building. Why would you want to do both?

... And on the third side, this is literally all I can to say about this book without sounding off the walls insane. I tried. In conversations with friends, I really tried. But I couldn't do it.

What the fuck was going on with Anna? Was she a terrorist? A supervillain? What the fuck do you mean, she tortured the sister and made the world watch? Did she livestream it? How did no one manage to arrest her during that? What the fuck is going on?

Also, why would you completely kill your own point like this? Yes, Blackheath is horrible and bad and torture and cannot produce anything good. But also, Anna and Aiden are defenitely 100% better people now, and get a nice redemption sticker and a new life. Are you kidding me? Or are you mad? Why are they friends, how did any of this happen, why is she constantly kissing him, is this a joke?? Are you taking the piss? Or is this book just a stupid prank, like the literary equivalent of 52 pick-up? How can something so boring leave so many questions unanswered. I am very sure that Gold says "ah yes, I prepared this and this off-page" multiple times in the end and I just yelled "bitch, when" every time, because... ??????

Also, Aiden was one of the mosty hypocritical, holier-than-thou, self-absorbed assholes I ever had the displeasure of inhabiting the mind of (yes, I know, ironic given what I'm going to complain about but still). He could not stop nagging his hosts for completely human behaviour and feelings and bodies. To be honest, I had dnfed this book a few years back, because I had gotten to Day Four and Aiden was just relentless in fat-shaming Ravencourt, spending literal pages on how disgusted with him he was, and I just couldn't do it. I picked it up again now in the vain hope that maybe at least the murder was good, once the book would finally get to it, but by the time it did it the tension was so used to eating ground dirt that it just kinda stayed there - flat at zero for the rest of the book.

Also, any book where you learn the protagonist's name either 120 pages in, or from the blurb on the back, deserves to be thrown into a time machine to assemble back into a tiny tree and some printer toner, for the crime of annoying the shit out of me.

In summary: no tension, every plottwist until about pg 350 delivers itself as an anticlimax, the world building sucked, the characters sucked, Aiden especially I want to throw into a woodchipper, and The Plague Doctor may at some point have sounded like a good idea, but his anachronism (this book is set in... the 1920s?? maybe??) and his "cryptic overseer, but make him cringefail" vibe just killed the tone stone dead any time he appeared.

Just read Christie.

[fdlvh]

Really wanted to start something new on here so, since I read a lot and fast, like really fast I thought, why not make book reviews? And here we are.

No spoilers

Book review: 5/5

The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

I didn't know anything when I started reading this book, I hadn't read the description, I hadn't heard of it, and no one had invited me to read it. I had only noticed an interesting title among many others. Who could die seven times? Who is Evelyn? A question I would've surprisingly carried with me until the end.

At a party thrown by her parents, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed - again. She's been murdered hundreds of times, and each day, Aiden Bishop is too late to save her. 

Description:

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed. But Evelyn will not die just once. 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.

Actual thoughts:

Unexpected is the first word coming to mind when I think of this book. It's immersive, I could see scenes happening in front of my eyes, and I could feel the character's frustration, fear, the reasoning behind every little detail as nothing and I really mean nothing in the book is left unsolved or unclear or happens without motive. I loved each personality, and each character as the plot unveiled more and more information, more and more enigmas.

The book perfectly grasps what means to be human in all its shades, from the darkest to it's most compassionate. Truly a whirlwind of emotions, of different standpoints and opposite inferences on the same happenings of a same day and events.

The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle truly captured my attention to the point I couldn't put the book down, I had to know and when knowledge was given I found it in abundance, the same couldn't be said for the truth as it evades the reader skillfully leaving one wondering, questioning his own morals and putting themselves in the shoes of the main character. I often found myself thinking if violence wouldn't have been the answer myself, if there could've been a shortcut, a way to dodge the foretold which only raised additional surprises and actual reprimands from the main character himself who feels strongly on the subject.

I loved it, it was refreshing, brilliant.

I honestly cannot capacitate myself with how the hell someone could've come up with such a convoluted and emotional journey which only makes me strive to better myself and gifted me an unparalleled experience I couldn't experience twice only by chance.

[bludazey]

Her fingers are cold, her gaze warm. She has the brittle courage of a prisoner walking their final steps to the gallows.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle // Stuart Turton

[prettygreenpills]

I bought another book-

The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle-

I might have bought it only because the title gives The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo vibes-

[inlovewithquotes]

The future isn't the warning my friend, it's a promise, and it won't be broken by us. That's the nature of the trap we're caught in.

- The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle

[acerobianco1984]

Nell'immensa magione degli Hardcastle, qualcuno verrà ucciso. Dallo svelamento dell'identità dell'assassino dipendono le sorti del narratore dell'intera vicenda, incastrato in un loop dal quale sembra impossibile uscire. Egli è chiamato a rivivere la stessa giornata in corpi diversi dal proprio fino a che non sarà venuto a capo dei misteri custoditi dall'infernale Blackheath.

Dirvi di più vorrebbe dire rovinare un'esperienza di lettura ricca di prelibatezze e di piacere inatteso ed inaspettato.

Un prisma dalle molteplici facce. Un teatro della decadenza umana, scandagliata ed esposta fin nelle sue più profonde viscere e da più punti di vista diversi; un rompicapo a cui lettori e lettrici sono chiamati a partecipare, invogliati naturalmente dall'opera a prendere matita e blocco degli appunti per annotarsi personaggi, aneddoti e indizi; un'avventura capace di prendere spunti da una moltitudine di elementi diversi (l'ambientazione di un classico giallo; i loop temporali; la distopia) per rielaborarli in una maniera convincente in un intreccio funzionante.

Ogni domanda avrà una risposta soprattutto se il libro riuscirà a catturare la vostra attenzione. Verrebbe voglia di paragonarlo, da giocatrice, ad un escape room in grado di stimolare la memoria e lo spirito di osservazione di chi legge. Uno dei pregi più grandi del libro è la ricchezza ed eleganza della scrittura, essenziale per far superare a chi legge confusione e smarrimenti iniziali e in grado di donare personaggi e ambientazioni a tutto tondo.

😮 Sono fuggita da Blackheath e dalla sua marcia bellezza ieri sera e, tuttavia, non sento di essermi allontanata abbastanza da questa 'residenza del male' e dalla fitta foresta che la circonda. Avverto ancora il suo richiamo sinistro.