The Hanging Girl by Eileen Cook: Review and Giveaway

About the Book:  Title: THE HANGING GIRL Author: Eileen Cook Pub. Date: October 3, 2017 Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers Pages: 320 Formats: Hardcover, eBook Find it: Amazon, B&N, iBooks, TBD, Goodreads Synopsis:   Skye Thorn has given tarot card readings for years, and now her psychic visions are helping the police find the town’s missing golden girl. It’s no challenge—her readings have always been faked, but this time she has some insider knowledge. The kidnapping was supposed to be easy—no one would get hurt and she’d get the money she needs to start a new life. But a seemingly harmless prank has turned dark, and Skye realizes the people she’s involved with are willing to kill to get what they want and she must discover their true identity before it’s too late.

My Review:

I loved With, Malice the author's last thriller and so I was so excited to read her next book. And I definitely was not disappointed by this book. It was a really good read with an atmospheric setting with a good mystery and complex characters.

One of the things that I liked most about this book was the setting. For one thing The Hanging Girl has a small town setting, something that I love when it comes to mysteries. It's the kind of location that lends it self well to a mystery because everyone knows everyone and is in their business. Plus it had this really great subtle fantasy feel to it that made it the perfect read for fall. There was no real magic here but there was enough atmosphere to give the book the perfect amount of mystery and wonder. I really enjoyed that.

But the best part for me was the plot development and mystery. I am such a plot driven reader and I really need a strongly engaging plot to keep me engaged and I definitely found that here. I would say that they book and the mystery was split into three sections. In the end of each third there is a twist, the first one which caught me completely off guard. That's right, a third of the way in there is a fantastic plot twist. It might seem from the outset that the book reveals things too quickly, and I would be the first person to say that, but it doesn't get in the way of enjoying the book. In fact it has the opposite effect and made want to keep reading. It made for an incredibly engrossing read that had me wanting to find out what the twists were going to lead two. I did however find the final twist a little bit obvious but I still really enjoyed it. Eileen Cook is really good at throwing her readers for a loop and she definitely did that here.

I also enjoyed the characters here. I feel like Cook does a fantastic job of writing characters that are complex and odious. So many of these characters are doing terrible things for the right reason, or maybe for the wrong reason, but they are still incredibly sympathetic. There are some really terrible characters in this book but I still found my self rooting for them. But the person I rooted for the most was of course Skye. She is one of those characters who wanted to get out of her small town and do more with her life but wasn't sure how to do that. I really identified with her and her struggle in that way. When things went badly for here I was nervous for what that would mean and when things went well I was really happy for her. Cook succeeded in developing characters who were sympathetic in spite of, or maybe because of their mistakes and the mistakes of people around them.

The Hanging Girl is a really fast read. It's only about 320 and because of how engrossing the mystery is I flew through it. I didn't expect to finish it as quickly as I did. With everything that is going on with my life I thought I would have to spend the weekend reading it but I really could not put it down. I finished the book in a few days. Now I do think that maybe that is the book is a little bit more simple than I expected. I didn't find the ending a bit rushed. It seemed like there wasn't really enough attention spent on the big finish and with a book that had great twists throughout I expected the ending to hit just as hard and it didn't. But on the whole that didn't impact my feelings of the book.

The Hanging Girl is a fantastic book with a atmospheric small town setting, a plot full of twists and mystery, and complex and sympathetic characters. It was the perfect fall read for fans of thrillers or anyone looking for a good YA mystery.

I give The Hanging Girl by Eileen Cook 8.5 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: Buy/Borrow. If you enjoyed With Malice than I would definitely recommend the author's second thriller. I liked that one more but this is still a really fantastic thriller full of surprises that fans of YA mysteries and thrillers should check out.

About Eileen: 

Eileen Cook is a multi-published author with her novels appearing in eight different languages. Her books have been optioned for film and TV. She spent most of her teen years wishing she were someone else or somewhere else, which is great training for a writer. Her newest book, WITH MALICE, will be out in June 2016. She’s an instructor/mentor with the Simon Fraser University Writer’s Studio Program. You can read more about Eileen, her books, and the things that strike her as funny at www.eileencook.com. Eileen lives in Vancouver with her husband and two very naughty dogs and no longer wishes to be anyone or anywhere else.

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Giveaway Details:  

3 winners will receive a finished copy of THE HANGING GIRL, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rafflecopter link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e2389ba2635/? 

Tour Schedule:

Week One:
9/25/2017- Falling For YA - Interview
9/26/2017- My Thoughts Literally - Review
9/27/2017- Novel Novice - Guest Post
9/28/2017- A Dream Within A Dream - Review
9/29/2017- BookHounds YA - Interview

Week Two:
10/2/2017- books and photographs - Review
10/3/2017- Wandering Bark Books - Guest Post
10/4/2017- JustAddaWord - Review
10/5/2017- a GREAT read - Review
10/6/2017- Jump Into Books - Review

Audiobook Review: With Malice by Eileen Cook

Title: With Malice Written by: Eileen Cook Published: June 7, 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis: For fans of We Were Liars and The Girl on the Train comes a chilling, addictive psychological thriller about a teenage girl who cannot remember the last six weeks of her life.  Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron wakes up in a hospital room, leg in a cast, stitches in her face and a big blank canvas where the last 6 weeks should be. She comes to discover she was involved in a fatal accident while on a school trip in Italy three days previous but was jetted home by her affluent father in order to receive quality care. Care that includes a lawyer. And a press team. Because maybe the accident…wasn't an accident. Wondering not just what happened but what she did, Jill tries to piece together the events of the past six weeks before she loses her thin hold on her once-perfect life.

Wow! Seriously, wow. This book is really fantastic. I was stuck on which book I should listen to on audio this week so as usual when decisions are tough, I took to Twitter. I asked you to vote and the odds were overwhelming, With Malice. So I snagged the audio and had very high hopes. And boy was I not disappointed. This book is everything I look for in a YA mystery and more.

For one thing I absolutely loved the mystery. This is my mystery month on the blog and I am often in search of a good YA mystery. One that is solvable but still shocks me. Those are rare. This is one of those books. It really built to a thrilling conclusion that had me totally shocked. For the first time in a long time I have found a mystery that I couldn't solve which actually had clues to back it up. It's rare for me to be so convinced of a solution and have it not be proven correct. So well done, With Malice. You surprised and shocked me on a mystery and that made you thoroughly entertaining for this fan of the genre.

Speaking of the mystery, this is one those books where the main character has amnesia or lost their memory. This is a really common trope in mysteries and if I'm being honest, it's not my favorite. I find that it can very easily be done done badly. When they have amnesia that is more of a plot device to put off solving the mystery and it typically prolongs things for me. Usually they avoid giving you clues and then end with a dues ex machina. But With Malice didn't do that. Despite the fact that the character couldn't remember anything, we as the reader were given a lot of information about what could and did happen. It had clues by way of blog posts and police investigations. It made for a really creative format and a unique mystery which added to my love of the book and it's mystery.

But the best thing about the character with amnesia is that it means we had an unreliable narrator. I love those kind of MCs and it's one of the ways that lost memory tropes can go so well. When the main character has doubts of what happened it creates so much doubt for me as the reader and that always makes for a really fantastic mystery. Jill was that kind of narrator and it made her very compelling even when she was not very likable. But the MC is not the only unreliable character. This was also a mystery that was full of characters that made me question and doubt their actions and motivations. At one point or another I questioned almost everyone who was involved and even some people who couldn't possibly be connected.

I also want to take a second to talk about the audiobook for this one. I thought the format for this book translated really well to audio. I feel like the narrator did a good job of establishing the tone of the book. She was able to create that doubt and uncertainty with her narration and the blog posts and interviews added an interesting level of the story. I did sometimes get confused by who was speaking because she didn't really vary her voice a lot between characters but in general I found the audio to be really good and engrossing. I would definitely recommend the audio of you want to read this book and are curious about the format.

On the whole I absolutely loved With Malice. It's that rare YA mystery that totally surprised and shocked me. It had a mystery that had great clues along the way despite having a character without any memory of the event and an unreliable narrator that developed a real feeling of doubt.

I give With Malice by Eileen Cook 9.5 (but probably like 9.8) out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: BUY! Buy this book for sure. I would also absolutely recommend this book. It's one of the best YA mysteriessies I have read in a long time, maybe ever. It's full of intrigue with suspicious characters and a surprise ending. A must read for fans of the genre.

Have you read With Malice? What did you think? Leave me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!