Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She’s seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous.
Miriam knows that just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood on her clothes, that doesn’t mean she’s a killer. Bitter experience has taught her how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carla is reeling from the brutal murder of her nephew. She trusts no one: good people are capable of terrible deeds. But how far will she go to find peace?
Innocent or guilty, everyone is damaged. Some are damaged enough to kill.
Reader, I really enjoyed this book.
A young woman is seen leaving the scene of a brutal murder on a canal boat. She’s got blood on her clothes. A man has been murdered. It can’t be that simple, can it?
Of course not! But what we have here is a deliciously twisty series of unreliable narrators, and who saw what and when (and why) unfurls over the course of this book, often leaving you guessing, and always leaving wanting just one more chapter.
The characters are fascinating, albeit not always immediately likeable. As the story develops we get to see their layers behind the surface, their complexities, what made them who they are. Not everyone is how they seem from the start, and it’s great fun trying to figure out where the story is going and who you dare to trust.
The way the story plays out is interesting – there’s a novellist character whose book is partly told within this story – a novel within a novel. It’s an interesting and unusual way of framing the story, and of course it shows yet another facet of the mystery at hand. It’s a neat plot device that I really liked.
This is the first of Paula Hawkins’ books that I’ve read – I’m not sure how I managed to miss reading The Girl On The Train given how huge it was, but on the strength of the writing here, I’m not surprised it was a hit. This is crying out for a TV adaptation, and I’d be first in line to watch it.
A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins is published by Doubleday and is out now. Many thanks to the publisher and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inving me to take part in the blog tour, and for the advance copy of the book to review.
espresso coco 
Huge thanks for the blog tour support x