Reviews

The Night I Died by Anne Frasier

jaidedk1214's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

jkjoy_books's review against another edition

5.0

What a trip, wow! I love good twists in books, and this one did not disappoint. The end shocked me, which is excellent because it wasn't what I was expecting. This is a new to me author, first time reading any of her books, but not the last for sure. Her writing style and character development were fantastic.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

puck1008's review against another edition

3.0

An enjoyable read. Recommended for fans of Anne Frasier.

laurenkapustiak's review

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

jess_lovesbooksok's review

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

The Night I Died by Anne Frasier

This is my first approach to this author and I really struggled to finish this one.

Not my cup of tea but I’ll leave my impressions. I guess I’m used to fast paced, darker stories. Nothing to do with the quality of the author’s writing at all. That’s important for me to clarify.

It’s a small town story, slow paced, children murdered and a kind of memory loss or blackouts.

Mixed identities and a sense of urgency in the air that never really reaches the climax of the novel. 

I recommend this one to all readers who are into thrillers but they are just beginning exploring the genre.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

blueglassbottles's review

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.25

fearthetoaster's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This book followed Olivia Welles - who is a private investigator in Los Angeles, who happens to be part of the "dead clud" (people who have flatlined before, but were able to be resuscitated.) The first time she had died was when she was in a serious, and fatal car accident (only her and another person out of the 5 in the car survived) in Kansas. 

After that, the story fast forwards to when Olivia is older, and has her own PI business. One day, she received a call from a old childhood friend back in Kansas asking for her help. She had been arrested and was currently in jail for the deaths of her 3 children. The first two deaths had been ruled accidents, with SIDS, and drowning in a old well on the farm. After the 3rd child died in such a short amount of time, people became suspicious. Once Oliva got back to Kansas, she soon realized that there was more going on in her old small town than she realized, and it might change everything she knew about her life. 


This book had a good flow to it, and was able to help pull me out of my reading slump that I was in. From the very first page of the book, I was intrigued, especially about how Oliva had died 5 times before the story even started. The story flowed very well, and even had a twist ending that I didn't see coming -

Olivia had been switched at death after the train accident as a child, with the daughter of the mother, Ava, who was driving at the time of the accident. The plan only worked because Olivia's mother was dying of cancer at the time, and Oliva was so disfigured from the accident, that her mother didn't even know. Ava's husband had died prior to the accident, and her other children had been too young to remember their sister, so it worked. Oliva's father was able to convince Ava that it would be best for everyone since Olivia would need a lot of surgeries and therapy, an Ava and her family didn't have the money. Olivia's father never told her, and she only found out towards the end of the book when pieces started to line up with each other.

harles17's review

funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

a_lee_reads's review

2.0

I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t. First the positive, I really liked the idea of the story. A woman who was in a terrible car accident as a child and is now a private investigator returns to her home town in Kansas to help investigate the possible murder of a little boy and the son of her childhood friend who died in the same car accident.
Now the bad, way to many out of the blue references to the Wizard of Oz, the characters weren’t flushed out enough to connect to, and the story just became not believable.

zawicki's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0