Thanks to Tracy at Compulsive Readers (@Tr4cyF3nt0n) for the tour invitation and to author James Carol for a copy of 17 Church Row in return for an honest review. I appreciate it!
17 Church Row by James Carol
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Publisher: Zaffre Books
Publication Date: November 14, 2019
Blurb:
“For fans of J. P. Delaney’s The Girl Before comes a thriller that makes us question our relationship with technology and the lengths we would go to, to keep our family safe.
“Three years ago, Ethan and Nikki Rhodes suffered a devastating loss. Their four-year-old daughter Grace was tragically killed when she ran from their garden into the path of a car. Ethan, a radio personality, escapes into work, while Nikki quits her job to care for their remaining child, Grace’s twin sister, Bella, who hasn’t spoken since that night.
“Trying to give the family a fresh start, Ethan moves them to a revolutionary house designed by the world famous architect, Catriona Fisher. For the Rhodes’, this is a life-changing move because a key feature of the house is the state of the art security system that allows them to be completely safe from the outside world within their own home.
“But what if what they fear most is actually inside the house? What if 17 Church Row isn’t the safe haven that they think it is?” (from Amazon)
Want to buy it?
Doesn’t that blurb make you shiver? If you’re already sold on the book, click here to check out 17 Church Row on Amazon.
If you need a little more persuasion, read on for my thoughts, then check out the rest of the reviews on this blog tour.
My thoughts
From the first line, this book captured my interest:
Father attempted to murder me once.
Carol gives us a strong voice in this opening. Immediately we know someone in this book is a menace whose father attempted to kill . . . him? her? We don’t know. But we recognize the threat. I wondered which character(s) was the would-be killer and victim. Could it be–? I thought, questioning each character’s actions in turn, discarding and embracing various ideas. No, but could it be–? Then I found out that I’d been wrong about many, many things.
Carol plays with our expectations.
He does this throughout the book. Every time I thought I had something figured out, he twisted the narrative. These are the types of twists that made me think, oh, why didn’t I think of that? The framework was there. It makes sense. Carol prepared the ground for twists (multiple ones!) so subtly, so expertly that even though I read dozens of suspense novels a year, critique suspense manuscripts for other unpublished writers, and have read gobs of books, articles, and the like on the craft of suspense writing–even with all that, he still surprised me. Nicely done, sir.
One of the key innovations of this house is Alice, the state-of-the-art security system/personal assistant who speaks to the family. Need a pizza ordered? The drawer opened? The laundry folded? Tell Alice, and you’ll get your pizza delivered (and the order correct!), the drawer opened as you approach it, and a verbal reminder about the laundry as the dryer door opens. After a while, she senses your desire. Her intelligence is built to constantly expand and develop, rather like a human’s.
This sounds terrific . . . until it isn’t.
If you think about it, this is chilling. All intellect. No human limitations–including morals. What is an all-powerful technology capable of doing?
But no one’s foreseen the consequences of a technology with these capabilities, least of all architect Catriona Fisher. She is creepy, ambitious, and determined to exploit Ethan Rhodes’ fame to benefit her architectural career. (She was one of the most interesting characters. Ruthless, but interesting.)
But given this premise, the book couldn’t simply be a rollercoaster of action. It needed to be more.
My heart ached for Nikki, Ethan, and little Bella at the loss of Grace, the daughter and sister lost several years before. The family needs a new start. They need a safe, quiet place. They need hope: hope that Bella will speak again, that life will be worth living, that what is broken can be fixed.
But while I felt sorrow for them, I couldn’t sense who they were as people apart from that loss. The death of Grace defines them. In one way, that makes sense; the death of a child is a loss that forever changes one’s life. But it does not define anyone as a person. And that’s what I felt was missing.
Bella’s defined by her mutism, Nikki by her all-consuming worry of another impending disaster, Ethan by his workaholism. That wasn’t quite satisfying for me.
Still, though, this book isn’t a personality-driven novel about the effect of a child’s death on a family.
It’s a thriller about technology-gone-wild. I finished it in two days, and paused only long enough to deal with a migraine before returning to find out what happens. As a thriller, the book succeeds.
Riveting, mesmerizing, and chilling. Recommended for thriller readers.
About James Church
“James Carol was born in Scotland, where he spent his early years. He moved to England in the eighties and has lived there ever since. At various times he has worked as a guitarist, sound engineer, guitar tutor, journalist, and a horse riding instructor.
Broken Dolls, the first Jefferson Winter thriller, was published in 2014 and has sold a third of a million copies and been translated into twelve languages. This was followed by three other Jefferson Winter thrillers and a trilogy of novellas set during Winter’s FBI days.
James has also written three standalone thrillers. The first of these, The Killing Game was shortlisted for a CWA Ian Fleming Dagger award.
When he’s not writing, James can usually be found in his recording studio where he is currently writing and recording the first Dream Nation album.
James lives in Hertfordshire with his wife, two children, a dog and a horse.”
Thanks to Tracy at Compulsive Readers (@Tr4cyF3nt0n) for the tour invitation and to author James Carol for a copy of 17 Church Row in return for an honest review. I appreciate it!
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