Wrong Place Wrong Time

A proper murder mystery set in England, Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister.

Goodreads Stats

Why I Read This Book/How I Heard About It

So, I actually do pay attention to what my friends read on Goodreads. I've connected with my husband's cousin, Alexis, on the app and I noticed that she reads nearly as fast as I do and we occasionally overlap. After a couple attempts at other books that ended in abandonment because I couldn't really get into them, I picked up this one because I noticed that Alexis had started it and there was a really compelling quote on the cover.

I mean....that is some high praise! So I had to see if it was worthy of it!

Goodreads Summary

Late October. After midnight. You're waiting up for your eighteen-year-old son. He's past curfew. As you watch from the window, he emerges, and you realize he isn't alone: he's walking toward a man, and he's armed.

You can't believe it when you see him do it: your funny, happy teenage son, he kills a stranger, right there on the street outside your house. You don't know who. You don't know why. You only know your son is now in custody, his future shattered.

That night you fall asleep in despair. All is lost.

Until you wake . . .

. . . and it is yesterday.

And then you wake again . . .

. . . and it is the day before yesterday.

Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. With another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lies an answer. The trigger for this crime--and you don't have a choice but to find it . . .

First Impressions

As always with audiobooks, I judge the narrator right off the bat. This is narrated by a wonderful British lady named Lesley Sharp, who sounds a lot like Olivia Colman. Needless to say, a delight!

This book grabs you from the start and doesn't let go. There are books that are unputdownable and this is one of them. I completely ignored my family for an entire day. When I did have to stop to take my kid somewhere, it just gnawed at me and I couldn't stop thinking about the plot of the book. I was just itching to get back to it.

Side Note: can you believe this is a real word?

As my teenagers would say, "I am shooketh."

Then, after reading the previous sentence, they would say, "Mom, no. Can you not? Don't ever say that again."

What can I say? I was born to humiliate them. Lolz.

Final Thoughts

I really can't give you too many details without ruining the plot of this book. But I will say that it was one of those books that keeps you guessing all. the. way. through.

Around the 60% mark (approximately 500 days before the murder - because this book is constantly going backwards in time), I started to put things together a bit and had some pretty solid theories on what was happening. I did figure some things out, but not completely, which means there were still a couple little surprises for me to discover when it all resolved at the end.

I'm still thinking about it, to be honest. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around time travel and the constant mental work of attempting to understand the reverse order of time was really difficult for me in some spots. That's not a detraction from the book at all...just a personal challenge for me with the way I think. But what a brilliant idea for a novel!

As a writer, I always marvel at murder mystery writers because they really have to plan out their story in reverse. The idea of it overwhelms me. Then, to add the additional dimension of time actually going backwards, well...that's pretty genius. Why didn't I think of that?!

You should read this, even if you aren't normally a mystery genre fiend. It's great.

Rating on Goodreads

I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars. It was really, super, amazingly good.

My rating method:

• I rarely rate books 5 stars. I save this for the absolute best books I've read. You know the ones...the ones that you can't get out of your head, even after you've finished them. The ones you think about for weeks afterwards.

• If a book is really, really good, I'll give it 4 stars. If you see a 4-star rating from me, I'd definitely recommend it to you to read.

• If it's just OK, it gets 3 stars. Basically, it means I could take it or leave it. I'd probably read it again because it wasn't terrible. But not like a favorite or anything.

• If I rate it 1 or 2 stars, I would not recommend anyone read it. It either didn't hold my interest or I couldn't relate to the characters/plot.