Reviews

After losing her son under tragic circumstances, Eve has struggled to come to terms with his loss. Her marriage to Richard is on very rocky ground and her relationship with their daughter Abbey is very strained. Secrets from Eve’s past threaten to be revealed five years after her son’s death. How far will Eve go to protect her daughter? There’s always a price for dark magic… and the Ragman wants his due..

Told from the perspective of Eve, Richard and Abbey, this story initially is quite slow-moving, emphasising and echoing the extremely tense atmosphere in the household. I’ve never met three more unreliable protagonists and I found it really hard to like any of them. You question everything that comes out of their mouths and as the story develops, you won’t know who to believe. The author excelled at throwing in plenty of red herrings to keep you constantly doubting the characters’ motives and actions.

I enjoyed the supernatural/occult elements but would have loved to seen more of this within the story as I think it would have given the extra “umph” needed to make the book even more exciting and tense.

My favourite character (even though I thoroughly despised her) is young Abbey. Her diary entries are truly disturbing and I would be terrified of her in real life! She’s a selfish, self-centred egotistical little madam but I will still shocked at some revelations about her!

With the biblical symbolism in the title, the emphasis on Eve and Abbey’s tumultuous mother/daughter relationship was definitely delivered in this book. This is a book about the consequences of dark magic, grief and the loss of not only a family member, but also the fracturing of the family unit when all communication breaks down.

3 stars ( I would have loved a bit more magic… the ending was pretty epic 🫣)

Thanks to NetGalley & Dundurn Press for the arc. Eve’s Rib is out 18th October

Content Warnings

weytani's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.25

Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for providing an ARC of Eve's Rib in exchange for an honest review.

Going into this book, based on the (very cool) cover and the biblical symbolism of the title, what I expected was a dark exploration of a mother and daughter at odds, a legacy of magic, a dark twist. And I guess it delivered – sort of. The magic element took a pretty hefty back seat for the majority of the story, and I do think it could have been built into the narrative a little better. At times it felt like an easy stepping stone for characters to learn things quickly, and at other times it didn’t feel relevant at all. This could probably have worked just as well as a regular domestic thriller.

The book is told from three points of view – mother, father, daughter – with all three coming off as unreliable in their own ways. I think Eve’s chapters had some great one-liners, and Abbey’s left me wondering how much of the truth I was getting at the best of times. Richard, however, remained unpalatable from start to finish, which may have been intentional. If I’m honest, I was mentally begging to see divorce papers by the halfway point.

I did enjoy the slow build, these three people moving around each other and struggling to communicate the grief they all felt was theirs to nurse privately. The twist I was anticipating did come, but fell a bit short with the reveal of a fairly two-dimensional villain. From there, things wound up fast and I was left with more questions than answers. That said, I’d probably take a keen interest in more material on Abbey in particular, as well as Janet, who was far too entertaining for such a small role in the story.

Not a bad read overall, and I’d probably have a look at O'Cinneide’s other works in future.

As a last note, Richard’s mother is said to be watching Coronation Street at one point, with reference to East End Londoners. But this soap is actually set in the Northern city of Manchester.

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