"Night by Night" is Jack Jordan's latest standalone novel, following on from his success with "Behind Her Eyes".
Sadly I didn't connect with this book as much as his previous one (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and found it altogether tedious and slow going.
I personally couldn't relate to Rose at all or the whole set up either before or after the accident. I found her traumatic grief and lack of sleep and the resulting loss of energy realistic but then the sudden determination and new found energy to solve a possible murder from a randomly discovered journal rather baffling. I wasn't too impressed either when the killer was revealed, an extremely over the top twist and I have to admit to skim reading some of the chapters towards the end. All the characters seemed false and I couldn't find one that I could fully engage with.
Jack has a huge social media following so I imagine this book will nevertheless do well. It is still a very well written story - its obvious Jack is passionate about his writing - and the premise is very clever, I was just a bit disappointed overall.
I expect crime fiction novels to be distressing but from the very first page, I felt overwhelmingly sorrowful and bar the epilogue, felt truly weighted down. The grief and exhaustion was depressingly palpable but presumably this only goes to show the sign of a good writer, to be able to convey those emotions to a reader, even if a little too expressive.
These are only my personal feelings and opinions and by no means what other readers may find or experience.
3 stars from me but I would continue to read more by this author again.
Sadly I didn't connect with this book as much as his previous one (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and found it altogether tedious and slow going.
I personally couldn't relate to Rose at all or the whole set up either before or after the accident. I found her traumatic grief and lack of sleep and the resulting loss of energy realistic but then the sudden determination and new found energy to solve a possible murder from a randomly discovered journal rather baffling. I wasn't too impressed either when the killer was revealed, an extremely over the top twist and I have to admit to skim reading some of the chapters towards the end. All the characters seemed false and I couldn't find one that I could fully engage with.
Jack has a huge social media following so I imagine this book will nevertheless do well. It is still a very well written story - its obvious Jack is passionate about his writing - and the premise is very clever, I was just a bit disappointed overall.
I expect crime fiction novels to be distressing but from the very first page, I felt overwhelmingly sorrowful and bar the epilogue, felt truly weighted down. The grief and exhaustion was depressingly palpable but presumably this only goes to show the sign of a good writer, to be able to convey those emotions to a reader, even if a little too expressive.
These are only my personal feelings and opinions and by no means what other readers may find or experience.
3 stars from me but I would continue to read more by this author again.