Sarah’s Reading Reviews: The Seven Deaths of Evenlyn Hardcastle

So considering we are in May now and this will be my second review the concept of a MONTHLY review isn’t working out quite so well yet! However, I have an absolutely amazing book to recommend to you now, if you are looking for your next book this is it! It was recommended to me shortly after the launch of my website and I was not disappointed. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton is a winner of the Costa First Novel Award and The Books Are My Bag Reader’s Award for Best Novel and it is truly deserving of such accolades.

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. The only way to break this cycle is to identify Evelyn’s killer. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is desperate to stop him ever escaping Blackheath…

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle follows the main character, Aiden Bishop, through the same day eight different times in eight different bodies to solve a murder. If not solved by the end of the eighth day the cycle will begin again, and this will happen forever. This novel is in effect a murder mystery Groundhog Day.

On page one the main character awakes to a potential murder and seemingly has complete memory loss, although we know from the blurb that this is not the case. I will admit, while excellently written, you only have small pieces of the puzzle at the start and so it was not immediately a book that I couldn’t put down; you aren’t as invested yet because you don’t understand what is going on. I can only assume that this is intentional though, as throughout the novel the reader has the exact same amount of information as the main character himself, so you feel like you are one and the same. It also really doesn’t take long at all for you to become captivated.

When first presented with the premise you ask yourself, who, why, how, when, and all of those other questions that you need to have a complete understanding of the situation. Turton answers the who, the how and sort of the when fairly early in the novel. For the who, there is Aiden and then each of the guests that be becomes. Despite the initial amnesia, we learn about each of his hosts in great detail; their thoughts, their appearances, their physical limitations, and we learn defining facts about our main character as the novel progresses. We know his name from the start if we have read the blurb, but we also see the moment that the character learns it himself. There are also glimmers of his personality throughout as he responds to the thoughts and behaviours of each of his hosts and responds to moments of choice and action.  Who Aiden Bishop is outside of Blackheath remains a mystery but his core being and who he is as a person shines through very early on. This is a necessity though, as the reader witnesses the events through his eyes and his mind. This might be why, during the character’s initial amnesia, it took me slightly longer to become as obsessed as I am now, because I knew little about who I would be investing myself into.

The reader also learns the how fairly on too, or at least the basic how. We learn how the eight-day loop works by the third body who, in the grand scheme of things, the novel gets to pretty quickly. We learn how the murder happens by the fourth body and we learn how the eight guests interact pretty quickly as well. Turton has produced a good balance between keeping the reader in suspense for a while before giving them the how it works so they can have a chance of solving the mystery themselves (you won’t) and understanding what is actually going on. The why, however, remains hidden until the end of the novel and so there is still substantial mystery, besides solving the murder, to keep readers on their toes.

For the when we can guess from the setting and the ‘props’ for want of a better word roughly what era the murder is set in and I will say no more on this front at risk of spoilers, but this question is both a mystery and not a mystery… that is all that I will say.

Turton has clearly planned the plot of this novel with serious thought and detail before pen even touched the paper (or fingers touched a keyboard). There are questions and interactions set up on day one that linger right through to day eight; there are questions that you don’t even know are questions and events that you don’t even realise are relevant that only show their significance when Aiden solves or draws attention to them. If you want a real chance of solving this murder mystery yourself, I recommend a notebook while you read but I still do not believe that I would have seen the ending coming.

The ending is one of the biggest reasons why I loved this novel though. A murder mystery Groundhog Day could lend itself to a very generic, very unexciting ending and in my opinion this novel certainly does not fall into that trap. Without giving anything away, the why is such a clever idea that I personally believe lends itself to at least one sequel, if not multiple, and I would love to explore the concept further. Even if you think you’ve solved the murder, there are so many other twists that you just will not see coming, and if you can honestly say that you did, contact me and let me know how you figured it out!

Overall this book is a must read for literally everyone. It is so interesting and keeps you on your toes, but it does not rely on violence and sex and mainstream popular topics to reel in its readers, it is just simply a very clever storyline. I heard a rumour that this has been picked up by Netflix and I really hope that it is true because it will be top of my watch list.

If you have any thoughts on the novel or have more recommendations for me (the bar has been set high) then send me a message or comment online about with your thoughts!

Until next month (hopefully…. I will try and be better) happy reading everyone.