Afternoon Everyone,

Hope you’re all enjoying your Friday. It’s a bank holiday weekend in the UK so I am clock watching until I can call it a day at work and log off for some much wanted R&R.

Book 📖

I had a little bit of a break planned between ARCs and therefore dug into my to read list for a book to read and knock off the pile. I remember there being so much hype and talk about The Whisper Man by @writer_north so it was a relatively easy choice. I decided to get my hands on the audio book and give it a go.

Description 🔖

Tom Kennedy and his young son Jake have struggled after the loss of their wife/mother and in an attempt of a fresh start, they buy a new house and move to the quiet village of Featherbank. What they don’t know at the time of moving is that Featherbank doesn’t have the brightest history. Twenty years ago, Frank Carter was imprisoned for the murder of five young boys and was nicknamed The Whisper Man.

But that was twenty years ago, so Tom and Jake should have nothing to worry about, right? Wrong. Another young boy has gone missing and Jake is starting to behave oddly. He tells his dad that he has started to hear whispering at his bedroom window.

General Thoughts 🤔

I am a moron for leaving this on my to read list for so long. What a fantastic crime thriller! I was blown away by everything in this book and it left me feeling so tense and shaken. The rhyme “if you leave a door half open, soon you’ll hear the whispers spoken” is so bloody sinister it frightened me to death. Just that alone should have given me an inkling for what I was in for.

I listened to the audio book and there was more than one occasion where I had to slip by earphones off and check behind me. I felt like there was someone breathing over my shoulder. That’s the best way I can articulate how this book made me feel and I loved it!

Characters 👭👫👬

I challenge anyone to read this book and not have their heart melted by the relationship between Tom and Jake. their back story is heartbreaking; the loss of Tom’s wife and Jake’s mother left them reeling and whilst Jake was struggling to deal with his mother’s absence, Tom was struggling to be the father that he wanted to be. All the time I kept thinking that their father-son relationship was amazing, they were both just putting too much pressure on themselves. It was enough to bring me to tears that neither of them thought they were good enough for each other.

Writing Style ✍️

Alex North’s writing made me feel so many strong feelings and that deserves huge rounds of applause. I was on edge, I was tense, I was scared, I was nervous, I was sad and I was all of those things all over again. The writing is not the kind to make you feel warm and fuzzy that’s for sure. It’s sinister and paced so eerily well that it’s nothing short of brilliant.

The story is written from multiple perspectives and I thought that the different “voices” were timed perfectly to give me just a small hint as to what was going to happen next. It also made me feel a lot closer to the characters and gave me insight into how they were each feeling about what they were going through.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖️

I was blown away by this book and I am officially on board with all of the raving reviews that I have seen. If you like or don’t mind to be made to feel uncomfortable and enjoy twists, turns and spooks then you simply have to read this book! I love finding authors like this and I can’t wait to read more.

😍😍😍😍😍