A Slow Fire Burning: The addictive new Sunday Times No.1 bestseller from the author of The Girl on the Train

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Laura Kilbride – had a traumatic brain injury as a child and was with the victim the night he died. Like the three parts of a braid, the stories of the three women in A Slow Fire Burning come together and are interwoven into one. The atmosphere is dark, the small group of characters unlikable, harboring secrets and truths. The young woman Laura, a tragic past, I felt sorry for and Irene a older woman, with a big heart, the only character I actually liked. There are many misdirections which change the story in small and big ways. A book within a book which also serves to confuse. The pacing is slow, but there are constant revelations and the truths are slowly revealed. Being uprooted and having to make a new home somewhere else had a significant impact on me; I felt an outsider for many years, in a lot of ways I think I still do. Paula Hawkins

The police tell Laura that Daniel’s blood was found on her clothes. She says she bit him. They produce the murder weapon, a knife, and Laura says that it’s not hers. Also, she tells them Miriam could have planted it, since she took Laura’s key. When Theo went to talk to Angela about Daniel, she showed him a sketch Daniel had done of Carla, naked. They argued, with Theo telling her that she was responsible for his son’s death and her own son becoming a sociopath. The narrative also includes excerpts that I think are supposed to be from Theo’s book, which is based on Miriam’s real experience. I am not including these in the summary. In short, Miriam and her friend were abducted at age 15 while hitchhiking. The man took them to a house, and Miriam escaped but her friend was murdered. Did Daniel really lure Ben to his death or was that aspect of his graphic novel just a manifestation of his guilt?

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Laura denies killing Daniel. The police find Daniel’s watch in Laura’s bathroom and take her to the police station for questioning. They mention that she was recently charged with stabbing another person with a fork. Laura has had issues since she was hit by a car at age ten. and left with a traumatic brain injury. Since then she has problems with memory, anger management and impulse control.

What did you think of this one? It was definitely a slow burn. I didn’t mind that, though I wished for a little more tension and suspense.A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. Jealousy and deceit are the catalyst for this powerful book. With a number of unlikeable characters that are complicated and deemed as troubling, it was hard to cheer for any of them. Theo and Carla have an unhealthy marriage that appears on and off due to an accidental death of their 3 year old son left in the care of her sister Angela and her son Daniel. Angela allows her bad habits to interfere with the love and care for her son... revealing a terrible cycle of child neglect.

Theo confronts Miriam. He thinks she’s been sending him letters, accusing him of stealing her manuscript, but then he realizes the letters are from Jeremy, the man who abducted Miriam and her friend Lorraine. Miriam catches Laura stealing some earrings and finding her own key, the one Miriam took. Miriam also gives her a copy of her manuscript. Here are characters who are real and likeable, even when they are complicated and flawed. Paula Hawkins is a genius' it also features a mystery novelist character who gives a little meta-commentary on the genre as well as roadmap to the novel itself:Pike makes deft work of these unreliable narrators who span several generations, imbuing their voices with a defensiveness and vulnerability born from past disappointments and trauma. Miriam is forever second-guessing the judgment of strangers who she knows see her as a lonely busybody, while Laura is chaotic and brittle-sounding, convinced that none of the calamities that befall her are ever her fault. In particular, Pike captures the melancholy of the widowed Irene, whose frail appearance and occasional mishaps prompt others to condescend and patronise rather than treat her as a sentient adult. This being a Hawkins novel, the plot twists are sprinkled liberally to keep listeners on their toes, though the story is sustained by the humanity of these expertly narrated characters whose secrets are slowly brought to the surface. Laura is a poor young soul. She was in a horrific accident at the age of ten which left her with some brain damage, causing all kinds of unacceptable and out of control incidents to occur. She was also left with a terrible limp, all of which left her with a terrible self image. Add to this a mother who is not supportive and a father who is emotionally absent and you have one troubled young woman. Theo Myerson and his wife Carla, who had the start of an incredible marriage, until their young son Ben died accidentally at only 3 years of age. They are both hiding enough secrets to bury any average human being. You may think you know their secrets, BUT JUST WAIT UNTIL THE ENDING!!!!!!!!!! Overall: maybe this book may have been promoted as contemporary fiction, I could have a chance to like it more. From the beginning of the novel, I expected something big, earth shattering, surprising will happen or something so smart will come out to fool me but none of them happened. That’s why I still hear the choo choo sound of disappointment train.