Reviews

The Shape of Night by Tess Gerritsen

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charlottereadsalot's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

the_coycaterpillar_reads's review against another edition

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3.0

The Shape of Night is a story about guilt and loss. It tells the story of Ava Collette, a woman that is running from her past. She distances herself from her family, her work, and predominately her memories. I don’t think you can outrun your past, you can just maybe stall it for a while. A food writer that has become hooked on alcohol to deal with her emotions. It all gets too much and she decides to rent a house, Brodie’s Watch, a large stately home overlooking the sea in a remote coastal peninsula of Maine. Will it provide Ava with the distance to get her head straight and finish writing her much-anticipated cookery book or is she walking further into the lion’s den?

The Shape of Night is very different from Gerritsen’s Rizzoli & Isles series. For me, some aspects just didn’t work well together. I love a gothic horror/thriller but whilst reading some scenes I just found myself uttering WTF? BDSM is one of them (I’m no prude, believe me, but it was the combination in which it was utilised that had me scratching my head.) it was by no means a bad story there were just little niggly things that bothered me.

Once Ava enters Brodie’s Watch she feels a presence, but soon it seems to accept her. Quickly she comes to realise that some aspects of the house make her feel uncomfortable. After researching she discovers that the house was built by Captain Jeremiah Brodie. A seafaring man with a bit of a reputation. Late one night she is visited by an apparition that promises her safety and things that she never quite imagined. Her experiences within the house lead her to look into the previous owners more and she is faced with a harrowing decision.

That said, The Shape of Night isn’t a bad story, not at all. The storytelling and compelling narrative kept me reading. I was intrigued to find out what the backstory of the house was and just how that played into the present events. The unreliable narrator in Ava had me guessing for a while and trying to decide whether the events were occurring or it was all in a drink-fuelled mind. Some small-town stereotypes just felt a bit too unoriginal.

hummel99's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

2.0

chelseamayxxx's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This book is so weird and screwed up it’s mainly about a women who keeps getting drunk and seeing ghosts. This book is so strange and I didn’t really enjoy it much this book but I kept reading as I wanted to know if my theory was correct and that I did guess the killer how way though the book and sadly I was right I know the killer from about page 120 which really let this book down for me and the ending was just okay. Sadly this isn’t a author I would read from again xxx

author_d_r_oestreicher's review against another edition

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4.0

Ava Collette is an author, suffering from guilt for a drunk New Year’s Eve transgression which she is self-medicating with copious amounts of alcohol. She has retreated to an old, possibly haunted, house on the coast of Maine, Brodie’s Watch. How haunted? She had BDSM sex encounters with the ghost, Captain Jeremiah Brodie who died 150 years ago. All this might have been fine until the body of a young woman washes up in the harbor.

A supernatural, horror, romance thriller from Tess Gerritsen, the author of Rizzoli and Isles.

For my expanded notes: https://1book42day.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-shape-of-night-by-tess-gerritsen.html
Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.