Thank you Viking Books #partner for the e-copy in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Viking
Published: April 15, 2025
Summary:
It’s the night we never talk about.
It’s the story the world wants to hear.
But this isn’t the story of that night. This is the story of us.
Together, Edward and Isabel move to London. They are young and in love, occupied by friends, work and fun. But late on a spring evening when they are thirty years old, their home is invaded by a serial killer. In the wake of this violation, each tries to come to terms with a night that changed everything—and their marriage begins to crumble.
Twenty-five years later, their tormentor is caught, and Edward and Isabel reunite for his sentencing. Isabel has waited years for the man who nearly ended her life to be brought to justice. Edward has tried to think about anything else. As they prepare to deliver impact statements in the public eye, it is time to revisit their love story. Will they finally be able to confront the secrets, longings and lies that tore them apart?
Or will the horror of that night be the death of them?
A captivating portrait of a marriage and its implosion, The Death of Us digs into the stories we tell ourselves about love—and everything love can bear.
My thoughts:
I’ve had this sitting in my Netgalley queue for a while and while I meant to get to it, it wasn’t until I started seeing a bunch of trusted sources putting it in their tops reads, if not making it their TOP reads of the year, that had me finally picking it up…and now I’m kicking myself for not doing so sooner!
It’s no secret that I love a good serial killer story, but this is like no other. It’s more of a love/survival story, a story of how one couple responds to an unimaginable trauma. This character-driven story is incredibly dark but also emotional. It had such a hold on me as I was reading it…so much so that I ended up reading it in less than 24 hours. And I have not stopped thinking about it since. It’s one of those books that gets under your skin, haunts you and doesn’t let go.
Because of the way this is told, from both Isobel and Edward’s POVs, I felt I really got to know both of them by the end of the book. The author really digs deep into each of their characters, allowing us to feel their grief, trauma and even survival as much as they will let us. And at the end of it, as much as this is a hard read at times, there is a sense of hope, there is a bit of a love story that we are left with.
This is my first experience with this author, and I plan on adding her other books to my shelf ASAP! Her writing has completely captivated me and I am a fan!
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