The Blue Hour

James Becker who’s the curator at a museum focusing on the foundation of the now deceased famous (or infamous) artist Vanessa Chapman. Even in death, Vanessa still has her critics as one of her pieces has been revealed to have human bones instead of animal ones. It doesn’t make Vanessa look worse than she is, as her unfaithful husband Julian disappeared two decades before.  Becker is now going to have to get to the bottom of this and makes multiple trips to Eris Island. The island is only accessible 12 hours a day before high tide. Becker meets Grace who is still squatting at Vanessa’s home on the island. Becker doesn’t understand Vanessa & Grace’s relationship with one another but as he reads old journal entries and letters of Vanessa the truth slowly but surely becomes disturbingly clear.

Writing, Setting, Characters & Too Much Wordiness

I’ve always liked Paula Hawkins ever since I read The Girl On The Train & then three years ago read Slow Fire Burning. As usual Paula’s writing is excellent. I love that the setting is on Eris Island, a very real island in Scotland. I enjoyed reading Vanessa’s journal entries as we got to know a little bit of who Vanessa was. Becker & the other characters I was either in different to them or I didn’t like them. I also felt like Douglas Lennox’s suspicious death was hinted at but it wasn’t investigated enough and I would have liked more story on that.  I must agree with some of the other early readers as this book was too wordy and it took a long time for the story to get exciting. I persevered since I enjoyed Paula’s past work, and I expected this one to be fantastic. This book was unfortunately the slog hour or the boring hour.

Overall

Overall, if you’re expecting The Blue Hour to be just as good as Paula’s previous books, don’t. That doesn’t mean I am going to stop reading anything she writes next. I just think this book ended up being a dud. I know not every author’s books are going to be a hit. Read it if you’re a diehard Paula fan, just don’t expect it to be similar to The Girl On The Train or Slow Fire Burning.  The Blue Hour will be available on October 29^th! Preorder your copy now if you don’t have an early physical or digital copy.