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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Miriam is a middle aged woman, living just several boats down from the boat where Daniel is brutally murdered. She sees, hears and knows a lot. She also has a vendetta against at least one of the characters. 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. Irene brings one of Daniel’s notebooks to show Carla. It’s the graphic novel. Theo throws it in the fire.

One of the most unpredictable and saddest characters in the book is Laura. Deeply damaged mentally and physically in a car accident and left abandoned by her mother and father. Her life is complicated and scarred by a number of abusive events. She confides and cared for by Irene, another character with a tie-in and side story. As if someone else wrote it, chapter 30 was my favourite one, where I asked why couldn’t have been like that throughout the book? It was a moment of great lucidity and that was what I was expecting from this author. I may be biased as I was expecting a book as extraordinary as ‘The Girl on the Train’ so therefore I left feeling mildly underwhelmed and wanting a hair more. Angela is Carla’s sister, living a lonely and unhappy life. She lived with her son Daniel until recent years when Daniel went to live on his own. They had a caustic, unhealthy relationship.

When a devilishly handsome man is found brutally murdered on his houseboat, police wonder who could have committed something this gruesome. While trying to stitch together his complicated relationships, investigators are left with three women who just might've had the motive to kill. But which one has blood on her hands, and what led her to do it? As secrets swirl and lies unravel, the town tries to get to the bottom of the murder before it's too late. A chilling story that'll leave you with more questions than answers, A Slow Fire Burning gives the term "thriller" a whole new meaning. With unexpected characters, unforeseen consequences, and unusual connections, Hawkins's new book is a bloody masterpiece that's darker than it appears. Standout Quote Miriam’s kidnapper, Jeremy, is found dead in a houseboat. Spoiler Discussion for A Slow Fire Burning One highlight is that the audio version I listened to was impeccably narrated by the brilliant actress Rosumund Pike. But in summary, I enjoyed this tale but I didn’t love it. It didn’t do for me what The Girl on the Trian did. I’ll be interested to see what others think of it: I expect some will absolutely love it though others might feel as I do, that it rather passed them by. I wasn’t impressed by the writing and I found the storyline and its structure to be pretentious and confusing. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

As the book begins, Laura is cleaning blood off herself. She calls her father for help but her stepmother intervenes and cuts her off. It’s unclear exactly what happened to Laura, but she has the watch of someone named Daniel. Paula Hawkins writes an ambitious thriller with multiple characters, all in one neighborhood in London. Her setting is in an area near a canal with moored houseboats. The title, “A Slow Fire Burning” reflects the emotional simmering of the female characters, all who have reasons for revenge. it also features a mystery novelist character who gives a little meta-commentary on the genre as well as roadmap to the novel itself: In an interview with NPR, Hawkins admits that while she was walking near her London home, which is near an area of moored houseboats, she often contemplated where would be a perfect spot to hide or dispose of a body. Hawkins liked this area because both wealthy and poor are living amongst each other in an unusual setting. And we know that Hawkins loves her unstable female characters whom the reader feels frustrated and sympathy with, in equal measure.October 2019!? Can't she wrote instead of... You know... Eating or sleeping? Is that too much to ask? I’ve found it interesting and it kept me hooked throughout the entire story. Although, I’ve some questions: I was expecting a big surprise, a major twist and I suppose it is here. But the reason I frame it in this way is that it came and went before I’d realised that that's what it was. I can’t say it was an explosive moment for me and that’s perhaps because there are many minor twists here and this one sort of melded in with the crowd. In retrospect it did explained things, it was the moment all should have become clear in my mind (as I’m sure it will in the minds of more switched-on readers).

This was a well written story that was well plotted with a good constant pace. Almost all the characters were damaged but not very likeable and unfortunately I just didn’t engage with any of them. The lives of the women was the interesting part of the story but again it didn’t offer anything particularly new and exciting. I loved the authors other book I read ‘Girl on the train’ which was much more enjoyable. The character development was awesome! I truly felt like I got to know each of the characters. Irene was a badass. I hope I’m exactly like her when I’m 80 years old. 😂 Theo has a dog, Dixon, who has gone missing. Theo is a writer. Theo and Carla’s son, Ben, was tragically killed at age three after he fell off a balcony at Angela’s house. Angela had been drinking and left Daniel, age eight, in charge. Their marriage was never the same. Growing up where I did was a big part of why I wanted to become a journalist, so in a roundabout sort of way it probably did affect my writing style. It certainly affected my perspective, in all sorts of ways, but I suppose the thing I’m most conscious of is not so much where I grew up, but the feeling of relocating from one place to another at a formative time. 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. 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.A young man is found murdered on his canal boat. Three women were among the last to see him - Laura, his one night stand, Miriam, his neighbor and Carla, his aunt. Each is an unreliable narrator and all seem to be hiding something. We actually hear from other narrators, this is a book with a lot of POVs. We also are given glimpses into small segments of a best selling mystery written by one of the characters. Laura goes to see Irene and does her shopping. When she’s passing Carla’s house, she sees the door open and steals Carla’s tote bag.