Tag: the chalk man

Book Review: The Chalk Man – C. J. Tudor

Hi guys and welcome back to another book review post! Today I am sharing my thoughts with you about The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor. I actually read this at the end of July this year, so I had to pull my copy out to refresh myself on some of the details.

I have plenty to say though about this read, so shall we jump into my review?

 

The Chalk Man – C. J. Tudor

Goodreads – The Chalk Man

 

In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he’s put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead.

That’s when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

 

My Thoughts…

First and foremost, how does this book only have 3.7 stars on Goodreads?! I demand to know because EVERY SINGLE blogger review I have read has raved about this book. And I get that too, I loved it! I think it’s a fantastic read! That I read this from cover to cover in three days is a testament to that fact. I’m pretty sure I had a good go at enthusiastically ranting about it to my parents too.

C . J. Tudor does a brilliant job of drawing you into the book from the very beginning. The dramatic events in the prologue and an accident at the fair in 1986 occur within the first 20 pages. From there, the story unravels in two timelines; continuing on from the fair in 1986 and the second thirty years on in 2016.

I really enjoy dual-timeline structured narratives. When written well, as The Chalk Man is, they interweave and spur you on to read the next chapter, and the next to see what more you can uncover. It also serves well to keep the narrative fresh. It works as a second perspective, even when you are using the same pool of characters to tell the story. I did not want to put this book down. I was captivated by the story and the unnerving events that haunt Eddie, Fat Gav, Mickey, Hoppo and Nicky from their childhood.

The re-emergence of the chalk men after thirty years is a mystery begging to be solved, especially when the murders begin. It’s a race against time to find the killer. The conclusion of the novel is brilliant and was totally unexpected! I have a bit of a gripe with thriller novels that claim I won’t see the epic plot twist. If you tell me that, I’m going to expect one! Half the fun is trying to follow the clues and make your own mind up without knowing ANYTHING about the ending. If I try to deduce the killer and I‘m wrong, or come up short, then even better! You know you succeeded in your plot twist. The Chalk Man makes no such claim so I had no idea what to expect!

The Chalk Man is definitely up there in my top reads of the year. I’ll be recommending it to anyone in the market for horror/thriller/mystery book recommendations!

 

If you haven’t read it already, seriously, please do! If you have, tell me what you thought of the book! I would love to hear from you!!

 

 

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Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary – 9th September 2018

Good evening – I hope you are all having a lovely weekend, as always!

It’s time to share my Sunday Summary again! Where do the weeks go? Isn’t it scary how time flies…? I can’t exactly say it’s been fun. I’ve had an exceptionally busy week at work, with colleagues on holiday or off getting their little ones into primary school. So sweet!

Anyway, less about them and more about me. I can be such a diva sometimes!

Earlier this week, I shared my top ten authors in a Top Ten Tuesday post. I actually enjoyed writing this post as it gave me the scope to talk about more books. Frankly, there are so many books out there that deserve recognition. Writing this from an author perspective felt less restricting. I did find it difficult to narrow down to ten though. I enjoy reading books from MANY authors. If you weren’t included, then I am sorry. I love you all really!

On Thursday I published another Throwback Thursday mini-review. This week, I featured two books by Rachel Hartman – Seraphina and Shadow Scale. These two books take a completely different approach to a world in which dragons and humans live together. I really enjoyed reading them, with their interesting characters and gorgeous descriptions of music. If you want to read more, you can do so in that post.

On Saturday I was nominated for the Mystery Blogger award by Emma @ Emma’s Chapter. I’m very grateful and excited to have been nominated for the award!

 

Books Read

Last Sunday I mentioned that I was going to finish reading Three Bloody Pieces that night. I didn’t have long left with the book, after all. I confess though, I did not. My blog post was finished and published later than I expected, so I finished the book on Monday instead.

Next, I started reading The Barefoot Road by Vivienne Vermes. I am about halfway through the book at the moment, but I want to read more tonight to get further along. (I know I said this last week, but oh well!) I had hoped to have this book finished by today, as I want to have plenty of time to write my review prior to the Blog Tour on the 19th. I haven’t, but I’ll be making a conscious effort to get this book finished early next week!

 

Books Discovered

I told you last week that I had nothing to report here. I regret to inform you, friends – I lied.

I didn’t mean to lie to you; I just kinda forgot I bought a book. That happens to us all, right? So, I apologise. Last week, I bought a copy of The Chalk Man. Having read some excellent reviews, I wanted to pick up a physical copy of the book, and I did!

The second book on the list this week, A Discovery of Witches, was recommended by Paige @ Just One More Paige.  Thank you very much for suggesting this to me!

 

Coming Up…

 

So, what posts are coming up on my blog this week?

Striking whilst the iron is hot, I’m going to write my own Mystery Blogger post in reply to Emma’s nomination (above). I truly am grateful that she has thought to include me in that list. A little bit of recognition can go a long way! I’m going to have to get blog-hopping to find some other posts fit for nomination! I’ll admit I’ve been a bit lax on that lately anyway. Better late than never!

 

 

 

My nomination for the Mystery Blogger award recognises the mini-review series I started a few weeks ago now. The aim of that series is to look back at books I have read previously and feature them on my blog. I feel it only appropriate to write another one of those posts again. This week though, I’ve decided the subject already. I felt it to be a little cliché starting the review series with these books, so I held back. Now though, I think I’m ready to talk about the books I would argue J. K. Rowling is most famous for. It’s a series that I can hand on heart say I grew up with; as I am sure many of you did too.