Review | The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Aiden Bishop finds himself in a forest, calling a name of a person he doesn’t know. He realises he’s in a stranger’s body with no clue to his location and his purpose. He learns that every day he will wake up in a different stranger’s body and the day repeats. On top of that, he also learns that there will be a murder. And the only way he can escape his situation is by finding the killer and solving the mystery once and for all.

“How did -” I’m cut short by the sight of my own hands. They’re bony, ugly. A stranger’s hand. I don’t recognise them at all.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (titled The Seven 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in the US) has a brilliant premise. I imagined that it’s an Agatha Christie mystery version of Happy Death Day where a man repeats the same day except in different bodies. But this book is actually more complicated. What the protagonist, Aiden, does in one host affects what happens to the other hosts on their days. And the story is not written in a linear fashion so we jump between days too. I’m a sucker for time travel stories so I found this fun but the setup requires a lot of patience!

There is a large cast of characters and I appreciate that the author provides a list of character names at the beginning of the book. When I was finally familiar with everyone, I became immersed in the mystery. Every little clue plays a part and I was satisfied at how the murder is solved. But since the book spends a lot of time on the mystery, it fails to build a clearer picture of the universe the characters are in. While I liked the complex plot, I thought at 500+ pages it was a tad too long and there were times when my attention drifted.

As a protagonist, Aiden Bishop is a blank page. He’s easily swayed by each host he inhabits so I never knew who he really is. I didn’t feel like I could root for him. He dislikes every host he’s in but his disdain for an overweight host is really over the top. There are tons of pages describing the man’s weight and body, how disgusted and ashamed Aiden feels to be in him. None of the other hosts is given that much physical description so it feels jarring and unnecessary. Luckily, the other characters fare better and I did find them entertaining with every conversation Aiden had with them.

In the end, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle has a fantastic, unique concept but I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. This would be suitable for fans of time travel and multiverses!

About the author: Stuart Turton

Photo by Dylan Nolte