Book review: The Ending Writes Itself

Author: Evelyn Clarke (VE Schwab and Cat Clarke)

I don’t know when last I read a book in one sitting but I could not put this down.

Not that I’m surprised. When I got the promo for this book from Jonathan Ball and saw who had written it, I was itching to get my hands on it immediately.

Powerhouses VE Schwab, of the Invisible life of Addie LaRue and Bury our Bones fame, and Cat Clarke, who made a name for herself as a young-adult author and screenwriter, penned the book under the moniker Evelyn Clarke.

Synopsis

Two authors combined to create this novel about six authors trapped on a remote Scottish island, tasked with a secret, ghost-writing challenge which turns mysteriously deadly.

The romance, young adult, sci-fi, horror and two thriller writers — a husband and wife writing duo and young, recently-signed daughter of a failed author — have 72 hours to complete the series of a world-famous writer who died suddenly, leaving his most anticipated novel unfinished.

The locked room mystery is also a parody of modern publishing.

Reviewer’s thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It maintained the suspenseful creepiness of locked room mystery-thrillers while still managing to be fun and funny.

While I did guess the killer about midway, which is always a bummer, there were still more twists after the big reveal, which made the ending very satisfying.

Evelyn Clarke did a good job of making me emotionally invested in the character, just before they unceremoniously killed them off — but that is what makes this kind of book linger enjoyably.

Who should read it?

Anyone really. While it is essentially a locked room murder mystery, this novel is offbeat enough to entertain fans of other genres too. I’ve never been a fan of locked room murder mysteries, but I was still eager to get my hands on this one.

READ ALSO: Falls the Shadow review: when crime fiction hits too close to home