Reviews with content warning for Incest - A Slow Fire Burning

Rosamund Pike was an excellent audiobook voice. She did a great job. I feel like the book strayed far from the plot of “Daniel’s dead” and instead gave us a lot of characters w a lot of backstory. I like multiPOV but there may have been too many.

Irene and Laura were the best part. The hinted at incest was icky too. Also complaining about the book that Ian (Paul? Troy?) wrote jumping around in non chronological order while doing the same, didn’t work. Also the victim blamey bits. That fourth wall touch wasn’t it for me.

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typedtruths's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

1.5

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bessadams's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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hollymd's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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abbysbooked's review against another edition

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2.0

This book is the story of traumatic events.

Every bad thing that could happen to someone managed to be incorporated into this book - in some instances it was sadly comical because you had to just say “oh, of course, why not”.

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paigestilwill's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

A Slow Fire Burning combines all the things one might love about a murder mystery—suspense, shifting perspectives, red herrings and their explanations. I thought the character development was well done, the plot hummed along but never divulged too much at once.

The death of Ben and the depiction from Daniel’s perspective was a bit difficult to face, though I venture that was the point. Just a fair warning to any moms of toddlers—you may want to sit this one out.

My only slight hang up with this one was the build up to Jeremy’s reveal—Miriam’s history was perhaps the most interesting to me—the resolution to which felt deflated and hurried compared to the other storylines that tied things up more assuredly.

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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Switching POVs between Irene, Miriam, Carla, Theo, and Laura! Also sometimes short chapters of an excerpt from Theo’s crime book, so I kind of liked the “book within a book” aspect. His book sort of reflects the main plot, in that we get switches between past and present and can’t rely on any one narrative over another.

A quick, easy read although predictable (I guessed two major plot twists within 50-60 pages). Some minor twists I didn’t see coming so that was nice at least to have some surprises!

I liked the slowly revealing of everyone’s secrets but didn’t particularly like any characters other than Irene. I did like the relationship between Irene and Laura also!

Good ending, it was wrapped up fairly neatly but with some open ended possibilities. I thought the pacing was also well done. I definitely enjoyed Girl on the Train more than this and I’m curious to read more from Hawkins! Apparently based on many other reviews, you either love GotT and hate this one or you love this one and hate GotT 😅

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bookishchaos's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Entertaining enough for me to finish but nothing special. The plot twist would've been clever if it wasn't so obvious right from the start. Though, I liked this a little more than Girl On The Train.

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