Many thanks to NetGalley, Blackstone Publishing, and Catherine Ryan Howard for the opportunity to read this creatively-told thriller. I was a big fan of her last book, The Liar's Girl, and this one is even better. 4.5 stars for a gripping read.

The story opens with a manager in a secluded seaside town watching video of a woman in her room from a hidden camera in a rental cottage - and is shocked to watch her murder before the camera is destroyed. Then the story is told in different time periods of rewind, play and pause. There is an interesting cast of characters in this story - the victim, who was made famous by her Instagram stories, her husband, a reporter, and lots of creepy people! This book will keep you turning the pages until you get to the ending - and it's a good one!

This is the first book I have read by Catherine Howard and I will definitely be looking to read more by her. The vivid descriptions of the settings really lets your imagination take you there and the characters are well-written and able to imagine and you might even know some of them in your life. It was a suspenseful plot told through different perspectives.

Catherine Ryan Howard gave the mystery/thriller plot a serious twist with this book. The creep factor went up exponentially when you think about staying in hotel or rental house and wonder if anyone is watching. What would you do if you were the voter and caught a horrific crime? This book jumped back and forth, with time before, and after the crime, and with characters. There were so many little connections that came back to be bigger parts of the puzzle. The "who" and "why" were both things I didn't see coming!

3.5 stars

Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard is a psychological thriller.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Blackstone Publishing, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

 
My Synopsis:   (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
Nathalie is a star on Instagram, but in her own life, she is troubled.  She thinks she is being followed by a crazy fan.  She wonders if her husband Mike is having an affair.  She wonders if she herself is going a little nuts.  When she finds a receipt for Shanamore Cottages billed to Mike's credit card, she decides to investigate herself.  She schedules her own stay at Shanamore....without telling anyone where she is going.

Andrew is the manager at Shanamore.  By all accounts, the village people find him a little creepy.  Little do they know that Andrew has installed cameras in the bedrooms of each cottage.  This is the least of his issues.

Richard is a resident of the village, and hangs around Shanamore, keeping an eye on Andrew, and on everything else.  He generally torments any woman he sees.  He has some anger issues, and a sketchy past, but he knows things.

Audrey is a rather down-on-her-luck reporter, who is the first to react to Nathalie's disappearance, and although it isn't her job, she's hot on the trail.



My Opinions:  
I will probably be in the minority on this one, but I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped.  The plot and twists, yes, without a doubt were good.

However, I didn't really like any of the characters, so found it difficult to relate.

My main problem was that I didn't like the way the story was told.

Although I generally enjoy books that go back and forth in time-lines, and don't mind when they also include different characters, this one did not work for me at all.  I don't think there was enough background provided initially for the story to make sense.  I found it confusing, and every time I picked it up to read again, I had to back up a few pages to determine who/when/where I was.  This doesn't normally happen to me.  Anyway,  although I had figured out what was going on by the middle of the book, I became very frustrated with the whole thing.

I do, however, maintain that the story itself was good.  It just missed my mark.

In Rewind, the events alternately jump backward and jolt forward while sometimes pausing in the present. Famous Irish Intstagram lifestyle icon Natalie is now missing, and the only clue to her whereabouts is Shanamore Cottage. Her apparently straightforward life is slowly peeled away to expose the rough edges as desperate for a real scoop Audrey goes against her boss' orders and persistently digs up any tidbits related to Natalie's case. She contacts Natalie's husband, Mike, and fairly quickly realizes that she will only find answers by tracing Natalie's steps back to the holiday cottages. The pace of the story quickly picks up once Audrey arrives in Shanamore and encounters the too perfect to not be the perp, cottage manager Andrew. But as with any well done thriller, it won't be that easy.
Does Audrey's persistence pay off? Was husband Mike, who was admittedly sick and tired of his photoshopped lifestyle gracing the internet, involved in his wife's disappearance? Just what is it that Andrew is hiding, and are the locals wise to give him a wide berth? This carefully crafted story gives each character a degree of gradation, making it difficult to ever know exactly who to trust and who to fear. Unfortunately, some sections do fall flat and were difficult not to skim, unnecessarily stalling the action and amateur detective work. Without this, this new twist on voyeuristic activity gone wrong could have been a five star read.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy. This did not impact my review.

A riveting thriller that kept my interest through out the book. Thank you Blackstone Publishing and Netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. 🌟🌟🌟🌟 stars from me!

I really liked this book. I went into this read with no previous knowledge of it or preconceived ideas and I really enjoyed it. The pace and the writing were captivating and kept me engaged.

Natalie, an Irish Instagram influencer, abruptly announces she’s taking a break from social media for a while, but after more than a week, her husband doesn’t know where she is, and he pleads for the public’s help in locating her.

Natalie believes her husband is hiding something, so she travels to a distant cottage in a desolate seaside town in search of answers. Little does she know, the proprietor of the cottage has his own twisted secrets, not the least of which is the hidden camera he has tucked away in the bedroom of the cottage she’s staying in.

The very same camera that captures a shadowy figure standing over Natalie while she sleeps.

This book relied a bit too heavily on coincidences, but I’ve read two other books by this talented author—she expertly knows how to grab the reader’s attention and not let go—and this book was no exception. From the very first chapter, which describes the chilling scene caught on tape (the stuff of every single girl’s nightmare) had me absolutely HOOKED!

NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing kindly provided me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Natalie finds some mail that suggests her husband is involved with another woman so she sets off to find answers. She now stars in a secretly filmed snuff film where she meets her end. Told from different timelines labeled as Play, Pause and Rewind as if we're watching a film and also from the POV of the different characters, the story builds at a quickening pace. The attraction to this novel is not so much who did it, your given red flags throughout, but the way in which it is told. Yes, there is the a-ha moment where it all comes together but sadly it's not that surprising. All in all its a well developed and written story with some likeable, some questionable, and some downright creepy characters but I didn't find anything new about the plot. That said, I did enjoy reading it and raced through it to see how the author tied things up but unfortunately it's not one of my favorites.

Thank you Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for granting me an ARC to read and review.

Okay, I’m definitely in the minority on this one! (Please don’t hate me!)😬

A popular Instagram celebrity is off to a nightmarish secluded seaside resort. And I use the term resort loosely! It's downright creepy! And soon she fears for her life...and maybe with good reason!

I was excited to see all the five-star reviews being given for this book! I launched into it fully expecting a five-star read too! But I kept thinking, I must be reading a different book than everyone else.

Usually I love a book told in multiple timelines. It’s much like working a puzzle, watching all the pieces come together. But in this case it all felt very choppy and I found myself lost on more than one occasion. And yet, I had most of the plot deciphered early on.

The WHO was obvious.
The HOW was a bit convoluted.
And the WHY just felt weak. Overall it fell short of my expectations.
I kept waiting for it to pull me in, and it just didn’t happen.

Again, I’m very much in the minority here. So if this book is on your shelf or reading radar, don’t let this review sway you! There are some fantastic five-star reviews out there.

Thank you to NetGalley, Blackstone Publishing and Catherine Ryan Howard for an ARC to read and review.

A woman sleeps in a dark room. In the shadows, a figure emerges and violently attacks the sleeping woman. All of this is captured on video.

Rewind is a sinister book. Everyone has secrets - everyone has an underlying motive - everyone could be a murderer. Told in the past and the present - skipping back and forth through the time - this story is a brand new puzzle in a box....all the pieces are there, you just need to put them together.

Elements of Psycho and Rear Window....as well as a good sprinkle of Single White Female are all captured in this fantastic book from Catherine Ryan Howard.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Clever! Natalie went to the holiday cottage because well......Andrew, the cottage manager, is a deeply creepy and and he films people in their rooms. And then there's Audrey, a reporter. The story is told by these three in chapters headed Play, Pause, and Rewind. It's hard to review this because the format is unusual and more importantly without spoilers but trust me-this is well done. It's a cautionary tale about Instagram, among other things. All three main characters are well done (as are the people in the village- not a place you'll want to visit!). Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. An unusual and well written page turner.

This book has so much going for it: It's an up-to-the-minute, atmospheric thriller with a killer premise (pardon the pun). A social media hotshot takes a break from her frantic online presence to ferret out a puzzle in her personal life, and ends up in a coastal Irish village. Actually, as readers know from very early in the book, Natalie ends up DEAD in aforementioned village.

The who and the why are revealed in a long series of flashbacks, which the author has cleverly expressed in the terms of video: PAUSE, FAST FORWARD, and REWIND (thus the title.) I called this device clever, since video played such a prominent role in the plot -- but for me the cleverness backfired.

I kept expecting the indicators to provide a sort of timeline, but could never get the indicators ("FAST FORWARD 0:00:41") to make sense, and I wasted so much time (using the search feature on my Kindle) trying to go back to the last similar point and pick up the thread that I lost all the emotional wallop of the overall plot.

About halfway through the book, I decided to ignore the smart bits of the chapter headings and just plunge my way onward, and discovered there was a propulsive plot and some chilling suspense that was impeded by the catchy device.

So, that's my advice: Read this book, but sail right past the timeline non-indicators. Thanks to NetGalley for an advance readers copy.

I'll admit, my only experience with Irish mysteries are Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad (which is a favorite series of mine). What I definitely appreciate about Howard's story is how well she portrays the discontent the Irish people have and the hardships of the country. The writing is solid, and there is a twist that I didn't see coming near the end - though I honestly should have copped on sooner.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the Rewind/Fast-Forward thing. At the beginning of every chapter, there was a heading that said Fast-Forward, Pause, or Rewind and a timestamp between 0:00:00 and 0:01:40 (approximately). I couldn't gauge what on earth the time meant. The heading - sure, it would help determine where we are relative to where we've been when we switch POV characters - but I still have absolutely no notion about the time. I tried to compare it with the video clip (which was 88 seconds, translating to 0:01:28 - but we definitely went past that), I thought it might be days and hours rather than minutes and seconds, but we went past 24 without ticking the next larger number. And there's nothing besides that video which would take less than 2 minutes, so I'm still lost. Also, the excerpt of the book-within-the-book at the very end seemed a little too self-contained to be an excerpt.

That stuff alone isn't enough to really warrant a lower rating. Honestly, there were too many POV characters. Sean and Andrew really were not necessary. Andrew in particular could have been a much deeper and more sinister character if seen from the outside (like Richard) rather than the inside. Sean served only a small purpose, which was to relay an old personal story - and that was it. I would rather have had a more streamlined story told between Natalie, Audrey, and Jennifer.

Lovers of domestic thrillers will appreciate this story told across two timelines, converging at a disappearance, which separates this story from the rest of the genre.

An extremely addicting murder mystery. It takes sometime getting used to the jumping back and forth in time, but the mystery will keep you on the edge of your seat.

This is a very suspenseful and kind of complicated book as it is done in a then and now format with several different plots and characters to follow. It was fascinating and really creepy at times. Natalie is an Instragram success and she suspects her husband, Michael, might be cheating on her. She goes to Shanamore Cottages to spend a couple of nights of nights to try and find out if he had been there previously with another woman. The cottages are managed by Andrew who is creepy and has his own problems. Meanwhile, Audrey is living with her sister Dee and needs to find her own place. Audrey is a reporter and ends up doing an article about Natalie disappearing. There are lots of twists and turns along with some creepy characters which adds to this very suspenseful story. Thank you NetGalley and Blackstone Publishers for the ARC of this really good book.

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the chance to read and review, "Rewind" by Catherine Ryan Howard. The story for this book was very intriguing but it just fell short for me. Despite re-reading pages, I felt lost. I couldn't really connect with any of the characters. Maybe sometime in the future, I will try to read this book again.

I wasn't a big fan of this book. I won't review it on other outlets, out of respect for the publisher and author. I just felt that this story was a little discombobulated and obvious. It's a light mystery with a little flair, but it just didn't work for me.

Lots to say about this book! First, I would have said that I was a bit overwhelmed by all the different points of view. A few of them were easy to stay on top of but a few times I had to stop and figure out who the person was within the story. Second, it took me a really long time to start figuring out who did it. The author doesn't really hide anything from the reader, but there is a lot to wade through. What is important? Seriously, she could have stopped several times and rolled dice to determine where the plot went. Third, this story is a great example about how crimes are not simple cut and dry events. They are not isolated, as many authors seem to try and present them. The end result is a book you don't want to put down, almost for fear that something within it will have moved while you weren't reading it. (Can you imagine?) The story was well thought out and oh so very nicely rich. Character development would be the only weakness I found. I would have loved to have had more time to learn about each character. It felt like a lot was left out, but how long of a book do you want? The author decided to focus on the plot and it worked!

Rewind is a fast paced thriller told through multiple view points. The story is told almost like a DVD- play, rewind, fast forward, etc which was a unique and interesting concept. It did however, make it a little confusing at times (as well as the number of points of view it was told from). However, I enjoyed the story overall. With the number of players involved I do think it impacted character development and I would have liked to learn a bit more about various characters. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.