Scan barcode
laramlz's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
jdew4516's review
dark
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
evierose05's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
bookish_withsky's review
3.0
3.5
This book has a lot to say. I saw some question why one (terrible) man would be so diverse in the women he tormented and it's a fair question, but I viewed it more as using one man to show 7 different scenarios that someone could put a woman through. It definitely has a lot to say and I enjoyed the conversations/commentary that was brought up. Mothers not believing their daughters, police not believing women, etc. It was interesting in that aspect and I enjoyed that aspect immensely. It could also get slow, though, and the audiobook likely wasn't the way to go for it. I think the reading experience could've been better if I had read it physically. It is a book a could see myself buying and annotating due to the conversations, but I didn't find myself caring for any characters. The stores they had were upsetting and sparked emotion, but the characters themselves (aside from two that I loathed) just didn't connect with me.
This book has a lot to say. I saw some question why one (terrible) man would be so diverse in the women he tormented and it's a fair question, but I viewed it more as using one man to show 7 different scenarios that someone could put a woman through. It definitely has a lot to say and I enjoyed the conversations/commentary that was brought up. Mothers not believing their daughters, police not believing women, etc. It was interesting in that aspect and I enjoyed that aspect immensely. It could also get slow, though, and the audiobook likely wasn't the way to go for it. I think the reading experience could've been better if I had read it physically. It is a book a could see myself buying and annotating due to the conversations, but I didn't find myself caring for any characters. The stores they had were upsetting and sparked emotion, but the characters themselves (aside from two that I loathed) just didn't connect with me.
emmdiggity's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
thephdivabooks's review
4.0
3.5 stars rounded up!
This book is dark... opening with a decapitated head and seven women standing around it. The man at the center of all of the women’s rage represents the patriarchy that governs our society and forces women to adopt beliefs about themselves and other women that are harmful and unhealthy.
It’s December 31, 1999—the eve of the new millennium. The book opens with a man’s head in a run-down hotel room and seven women surrounding it in a circle. This is the story of furious women. Of women who all have a motive to kill the man in the center of the room. The women are angry, but which one of them swung the axe that killed Jamie Spellman?
Earlier in the evening, the seven women received a text message from an anonymous number: Meet in the usual place, tonight, 7pm. Emergency.
No one knows who sent the message… was it one of them in the room? Or someone else? Each woman has a motive to kill Jamie Spellman. Jamie Spellman is a husband and father. He’s done despicable things. He has treated all of the women poorly. But did one of them take justice into their own hands?
Detective Inspector Nova Stoker is called to the shady hotel several hours later and discovers Jamie Spellman’s severed head. The body is missing. The head rests on a stack of bibles, one of which is open to Leviticus 2:16, highlighting the well-known verse speaking on an eye for an eye. Who wanted revenge on Jamie Spellman? The walls have a snake symbol and runes painted on. It could be occult symbols, or perhaps someone wants the police to chase down an empty lead.
The women themselves are diverse, both in race and sexual orientation, as well as lifestyle, work, and age. Ana is a colleague of Jamie’s and a trans woman whom he stabbed in the back. Maureen is the aunt who raised Jamie and saw the evil inside of him. Olive is a vulnerable widow whom Jamie took advantage of after her husband’s death. Sarah has turned to alcohol to numb the pain that radiates through her soul caused by Jamie. Sadia is Jamie’s wife, who was victimized by her own infertility. Josie is a child, merely 14 years old and infatuated by Jamie. Finally, Kaysha is a journalist who was sexually assaulted by Jamie fifteen years earlier, and has tracked down the other six women to form a group to share their stories.
These seven women were each taken advantage of cruelly by Jamie in different ways. They have bonded together through hatred, fury, and trauma.As the book goes on, the women become more complex. Kayshia is dating one of the other women, but she is also having an affair with Nova, the DI working the case. Nova is in a relationship with Ella, though she no longer feels in love with her. Ella has breast cancer.
The women are damaged, and their lives are complicated. The book explores each of their backstories, and often that took control of the narrative above and beyond the murder of Jamie and decapitation. The story uses multiple narrators effectively, though at times I struggled to keep straight who was who until I got into the back half of the book.
The reader will feel rage reading the book, because it highlights things that so many of us have experienced. This is not an easy book to read. The stories are messy and disorienting at times. The book is filled with rage and it’s hard not to take it on yourself. I connected very little with the characters, though it didn’t detract from how I felt reading their stories. None of the women are a perfect victim, but they highlight how our legal system requires women to be perfect if they want a hope at justice.
We all know men like Jamie. Most of us have been victimized by a man like him in one way or another (or in many ways). I can’t imagine any woman reading this and not feeling anger and deep sadness. This is a feminist thriller for all of the women out there who are tired of being silenced.
Thank you to Minotaur for my copy. Opinions are my own.
This book is dark... opening with a decapitated head and seven women standing around it. The man at the center of all of the women’s rage represents the patriarchy that governs our society and forces women to adopt beliefs about themselves and other women that are harmful and unhealthy.
It’s December 31, 1999—the eve of the new millennium. The book opens with a man’s head in a run-down hotel room and seven women surrounding it in a circle. This is the story of furious women. Of women who all have a motive to kill the man in the center of the room. The women are angry, but which one of them swung the axe that killed Jamie Spellman?
Earlier in the evening, the seven women received a text message from an anonymous number: Meet in the usual place, tonight, 7pm. Emergency.
No one knows who sent the message… was it one of them in the room? Or someone else? Each woman has a motive to kill Jamie Spellman. Jamie Spellman is a husband and father. He’s done despicable things. He has treated all of the women poorly. But did one of them take justice into their own hands?
Detective Inspector Nova Stoker is called to the shady hotel several hours later and discovers Jamie Spellman’s severed head. The body is missing. The head rests on a stack of bibles, one of which is open to Leviticus 2:16, highlighting the well-known verse speaking on an eye for an eye. Who wanted revenge on Jamie Spellman? The walls have a snake symbol and runes painted on. It could be occult symbols, or perhaps someone wants the police to chase down an empty lead.
The women themselves are diverse, both in race and sexual orientation, as well as lifestyle, work, and age. Ana is a colleague of Jamie’s and a trans woman whom he stabbed in the back. Maureen is the aunt who raised Jamie and saw the evil inside of him. Olive is a vulnerable widow whom Jamie took advantage of after her husband’s death. Sarah has turned to alcohol to numb the pain that radiates through her soul caused by Jamie. Sadia is Jamie’s wife, who was victimized by her own infertility. Josie is a child, merely 14 years old and infatuated by Jamie. Finally, Kaysha is a journalist who was sexually assaulted by Jamie fifteen years earlier, and has tracked down the other six women to form a group to share their stories.
These seven women were each taken advantage of cruelly by Jamie in different ways. They have bonded together through hatred, fury, and trauma.As the book goes on, the women become more complex. Kayshia is dating one of the other women, but she is also having an affair with Nova, the DI working the case. Nova is in a relationship with Ella, though she no longer feels in love with her. Ella has breast cancer.
The women are damaged, and their lives are complicated. The book explores each of their backstories, and often that took control of the narrative above and beyond the murder of Jamie and decapitation. The story uses multiple narrators effectively, though at times I struggled to keep straight who was who until I got into the back half of the book.
The reader will feel rage reading the book, because it highlights things that so many of us have experienced. This is not an easy book to read. The stories are messy and disorienting at times. The book is filled with rage and it’s hard not to take it on yourself. I connected very little with the characters, though it didn’t detract from how I felt reading their stories. None of the women are a perfect victim, but they highlight how our legal system requires women to be perfect if they want a hope at justice.
We all know men like Jamie. Most of us have been victimized by a man like him in one way or another (or in many ways). I can’t imagine any woman reading this and not feeling anger and deep sadness. This is a feminist thriller for all of the women out there who are tired of being silenced.
Thank you to Minotaur for my copy. Opinions are my own.
livres_de_bloss's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
JFC. This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill thriller at all. Reading this so soon after Prima Facie was hard as it deals with many of the same themes.
This books is infuriating, frustrating, and upsetting but so, so important. I liked the representation across the characters and thought the story itself was well-paced and well-crafted.
Rose Wilding is one to watch: I feel like this knocked me for six. It wasn’t what I expected at all and it’s one of the better thrillers I’ve read in recent memory.
This books is infuriating, frustrating, and upsetting but so, so important. I liked the representation across the characters and thought the story itself was well-paced and well-crafted.
Rose Wilding is one to watch: I feel like this knocked me for six. It wasn’t what I expected at all and it’s one of the better thrillers I’ve read in recent memory.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Death, Rape, Transphobia, Outing, Violence, Physical abuse, and Stalking
Moderate: Suicide, Death of parent, Infertility, Grief, Pregnancy, Police brutality, and Gaslighting
Minor: Vomit
suvata's review
4.0
• Thank you to #StMartinsPress #Minotaur and #NetGalley for providing this Advance Reading Copy. Expected publication date is June 23, 2023.
#StoryGraph: fiction lgbtqia+ mystery thriller dark mysterious tense
320 pages • first pub 2023
Seven women stand in a cheap hotel room gazing at a severed head — no body, just a head. A head that belongs to the recently departed, Jamie Spellman. All of these women have been horribly mistreated by Jamie in the past. All have reasons for wanting him dead. As their stories unfold their intertwined connections become clear. Now their only mission is to protect one another and try to find out who killed him. Fantastic debut novel! 3.5 Stars, rounded to 4.
PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION
Seven women, inextricably linked by one man, must figure out which of them killed him in order to protect one another in this electrifying debut thriller.
Seven women are gathered in a hotel room at midnight; a man's head sits in the center of the floor. They all had a motive to kill Jamie Spellman. They all swear they didn't. But in order to protect one another, they have to find out who did.
The ex, who drowns her darkest secret in a hip flask as the woman she loves drifts further away.
The wife, living out her fairytale marriage in a house tucked into woods so thick no one can hear a scream.
The widow, praying to a past she no longer knows whether she can trust.
The teenager, whose wide-eyed crush has trapped her in an unrecognizable future.
The mother figure, battling nature versus nurture under the weight of her own guilt.
The friend, forced to choose sides over and over, until she learns the price of choosing wrong.
And the journalist, who brought them all together—but underestimated how far one of them would go to keep believing the story they’d been told.
Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman’s secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer. Marking the debut of an extraordinary new talent, Speak of the Devil explores the roles into which women are cast in the lives of terrible men...and the fallout when they refuse to play pretend for one moment longer.
#StoryGraph: fiction lgbtqia+ mystery thriller dark mysterious tense
320 pages • first pub 2023
Seven women stand in a cheap hotel room gazing at a severed head — no body, just a head. A head that belongs to the recently departed, Jamie Spellman. All of these women have been horribly mistreated by Jamie in the past. All have reasons for wanting him dead. As their stories unfold their intertwined connections become clear. Now their only mission is to protect one another and try to find out who killed him. Fantastic debut novel! 3.5 Stars, rounded to 4.
PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION
Seven women, inextricably linked by one man, must figure out which of them killed him in order to protect one another in this electrifying debut thriller.
Seven women are gathered in a hotel room at midnight; a man's head sits in the center of the floor. They all had a motive to kill Jamie Spellman. They all swear they didn't. But in order to protect one another, they have to find out who did.
The ex, who drowns her darkest secret in a hip flask as the woman she loves drifts further away.
The wife, living out her fairytale marriage in a house tucked into woods so thick no one can hear a scream.
The widow, praying to a past she no longer knows whether she can trust.
The teenager, whose wide-eyed crush has trapped her in an unrecognizable future.
The mother figure, battling nature versus nurture under the weight of her own guilt.
The friend, forced to choose sides over and over, until she learns the price of choosing wrong.
And the journalist, who brought them all together—but underestimated how far one of them would go to keep believing the story they’d been told.
Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman’s secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer. Marking the debut of an extraordinary new talent, Speak of the Devil explores the roles into which women are cast in the lives of terrible men...and the fallout when they refuse to play pretend for one moment longer.
the_book_bear's review
I just couldn’t read about this awful man any more. It was boring and infuriating in equal measure.
apaulino4's review
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0