Publication: 22nd August 2019 – Corvus
PLAY
Andrew, the manager of Shanamore Holiday Cottages, watches his only guest via a hidden camera in her room. One night the unthinkable happens: a shadowy figure emerges onscreen, kills her and destroys the camera. But who is the murderer? How did they know about the camera? And how will Andrew live with himself?
PAUSE
Natalie wishes she’d stayed at home as soon as she arrives in the wintry isolation of Shanamore. There’s something creepy about the manager. She wants to leave, but she can’t – not until she’s found what she’s looking for…
REWIND
This is an explosive story about a murder caught on camera. You’ve already missed the start. To get the full picture you must rewind the tape and play it through to the end, no matter how shocking…
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I hate to admit it, but this is my first novel by Catherine Ryan Howard. How could I have missed her novels? I found REWIND engrossing, addictive, and twisty and I am already choosing her next novel to read.
A young rising instagrammer who is missing; a journalist looking for the truth; a creepy cottages manager hiding his dark secrets; a woman obsessively in love. Those are the protagonists of the thrilling new novel by Catherine Ryan Howard. They are intriguing and very different: I couldn’t give you a description of Natalie and Audrey, because there is not much to say about them apart that they are both looking for the truth. Andrew and Ickie Dick (or Richard) are creepy and I would never want to be alone with one of them, not during the day and certainly not at night, for example, in a deserted car park. And then there is Jennifer. She is a complex character and I didn’t like her or trust her from the beginning.
Now the setting. You know when you are watching a thriller or horror movie and the protagonists stop for a night in a isolated motel where there is a creepy owner and they are the only guests and you thing “that’s such a bad idea”? That’s what I though while I was reading about Shanamore Holiday Cottages. Isolated? Check. Eerie atmosphere? Check. Sinister and scary manager? Oh yes. Strange noises inside the cottage? Of course.
REWIND is fast-paced and highly suspenseful and, even though I kind of figure out what it was going on while I was reading and the different timelines left me confused at times – it was hard to figure out where I was in the story -, this is a rollercoaster of a reading and I was so addicted that I didn’t stop until I got to the end.
Book After Book 