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

Product Information

Yes. If you have a success on that kind of scale, I think it is natural to feel that it is in some sense undeserved, or that one has been disproportionately rewarded for one’s efforts! But that is the nature of this sort of work, criticism and praise are subjective, earnings are not neatly related to hours worked – I had plenty of experience of being completely ignored before I found success.

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. In chapter 33 a dog is killed. Although there was no suffering, I know that some readers will want to skip it.Both have an unreliable narrator (Rachel and Laura) who we think might be the murderer. Both feature a small group of people with a tangled past, the loss of a child or the inability to have a child, an alcoholic character (Rachel and Angela.) 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. 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. 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. Irene brings one of Daniel’s notebooks to show Carla. It’s the graphic novel. Theo throws it in the fire.

Daniel himself is hard to read. We begin to learn more about him, his unhappy and caustic relationship with his mother, his aunt Carla and others, but don’t really understand him even at the end. I thought the title was very apropo because of the slow burn of anger, hatred, jealousy and deceit brewing within these characters. October 2019!? Can't she wrote instead of... You know... Eating or sleeping? Is that too much to ask? 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.Welp, somehow I was able to finish the book with no enjoyment. Third time isn't always the charm in the case of Paula Hawkins. 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. There’s a great sense of suspense and tension. The story gets more engrossing as it goes along. This is a book where I was shaking my head in amazement/disgust at several points. It’s deliciously twisty and just when you think everything has been resolved, there’s one more twist waiting. A young man, Daniel Sutherland, has been found deceased on a houseboat. Leaving the scene of the crime is Laura, a young woman known to police. Fortunately for Daniel, there is a noisy neighbor Miriam who takes detailed records of all of the comings and goings. However, Daniel's mother, Angela, died just a few weeks before Daniel in an accident. Are these deaths connected? Was it Laura? What do we really know?

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.

Overall, I am greatly looking forward to reading this book again. It has the complexity of The Great Gatsby - everything was set up perfectly and was surprising at the end. However, the greatness of this novel is not apparent in the first half of the book. 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 Paula Hawkins earned her label of a psychodramatic writer when she blew us away with The Girl on the Train. A Slow Fire Burning is an atmospheric, suspenseful, psychotic thriller that will have you gripping the edge of your seat. To say I was not confused is an understatement, but I remember having that same feeling with her first one, but yet it reels you in at a tantalizing rate of emotions that you will revel in this when your finished. 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. Theo admits to Carla that he went to see Angela. Laura admits to Irene that she stole Carla’s tote bag of jewelry. Laura gives Miriam’s manuscript to Irene. Irene reads it and thinks it sounds familiar. She realizes it reminds her of Theo’s book, which she has in the box of books Carla gave her. In the book (which belonged to Angela) she finds Daniel’s drawing of a naked Carla.

I wasn’t entirely clear on the somewhat creepy relationship between Carla and Daniel. Was he just a really disturbed person who fantasized about his aunt, or did they really have a romantic relationship? The police notify Carla and Theo, Daniel’s aunt and uncle, about Daniel’s death. Theo says that very early on the morning the body was discovered he saw a girl near Daniel’s boat with blood all over her. All three women have many secrets and tell some lies, and ideally would like some sort of justice... or even better, revenge!And her brand new work “A slow fire burning” has exactly the same problems! The author decided to create a slow burn mystery which could be helpful to build high tension and increase the expectations of the readers as the pace gets faster at the second half. But unfortunately this book couldn’t be defined as a mystery. It looks like a contemporary fiction about crowded and very unlikable characters’ connections with each other! This is a murder mystery that has something for everyone. A man is found murdered on a houseboat by his neighbour. We learn of 3 women in his life who have good reason to want him dead. There are unreliable and unlikeable characters, a book within a book and plenty of twists and turns. Did Angela death was really an accident or was it murder? There are at least two instances where it’s mentioned the carpet on top of the stairs. One particularly where Carla is watching Daniel “fixing” the carpet which I find it odd.