A big thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins UK and One More Chapter for the advanced copy of this book to read for free in return for an honest review.
The Woman At No 13 by C K Williams, published on 13.8.21. Read the synopsis here.
Overall rating – 4 out of 5 stars.
TRIGGER WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF ABORTION.
I also want to preface this review by saying there is A LOT of discussion surrounding politics, the Catholic Church and their traditionalist views, the IRA, the troubles in Ireland and Brexit.
Woooooow, this book was a wild ride wasn’t it! I think by the time I reached the words “the end” I had come a complete full circle!
I was not prepared for this book to make me feel the way that I did about it. From the blurb I had an idea of how this book would go and when I finished reading it I felt it couldn’t have been further from that description we are given. However, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an excellent book to read.
Also, I had expected the book to written from a completely different POV to that which it was written, and to start with it bugged me a little bit. But as we got deeper into the story I felt it added real value to have it written from Jannis’s POV, it allowed us to see Kate (our main character of the story) from a less skewed POV that we would have had if Kate narrated the whole story.
And because Jannis narrated the story and tbh he was a little bit of a scaredy cat it really helped the author to build a super intense atmosphere. Although I shouldn’t say Jannis was acting a bit too scared because at points this book really did get to me and made me feel quite unnerved!
The one thing that did let this book down a little bit was the plot. I felt it got quite lost at points and personally, I thought the author was trying to use the book more to discuss the troubles in Ireland and be political (which is absolutely fine, I had no issues with the topics at hand) but it felt too far away from the blurb. The blurb became quite misleading one you started reading.
However, the writing of this book was undeniably a high point and really elevated the book. The quality of the writing together with the authors ability to build an incredible and tense atmosphere truly made the words stand out on the page and imbed themselves into my head.
Overall, I did enjoy The Woman At No13 and I felt that it was very well written and had some interesting themes brought up for reading and discussion. The only letdown for me was that it felt like the blurb misled us with the plot, and whilst I would have read it anyway if the blurb was different I felt disappointed by the difference in them.
I was hoping for a good whodunnit murder with a little bit of suspense thrown in and instead I got politics, the Catholic Church, the IRA, the troubles in Ireland and Brexit.
Happy reading bookworms! Until next time, Em xxx
What Em's Reading 