What if there was no freewill and everything was predestined? What would you do?

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of The Angel Maker by Alex North. So, I have been in a slight reading slump lately and then I received this ARC and now I’m back. I have read The Whisper Man and The Shadows, I still believe the Whisper Man is my favorite Alex North book but The Angel Maker is a close second.
The story follows several people that are interconnected by a single belief of determinism. That there is no freewill and everything is predestined, no matter what you do it’s been figured into your future.
It was amazing how North was able to pull all the characters together and wrap it up so neatly. I did figure out some of the ending beforehand but this was a unique story and I really enjoyed it. I would give this 4.25 stars!!!

I was approved for both the book and the audiobook. I could not get into either one. It was difficult to keep up with so many characters.

The Angel Maker (ARC)
Alex North
5⭐️
Pub Date: 2/28/2023

Katie lived an amazing life. But there's one thing that she cannot forgive herself for-- a violent crime on her precious brother that changed her family's lives forever. A few years later, the fear from that incident still creeps up on her and now that she has a child of her own, the fear and threats of a cruel world seems to intensify. Meanwhile, Detective Page investigates the death of a prestigious professor. But his clues all lead back to the brutal attack on a teenager, and a serial killer who claims he can see the future. "Everything is connected below the surface."

I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK!

I was so confused, yet captivated, by this story. There were so many questions, so many characters with name changes, secret identities, and plenty of word clues that gave me NO definite answers until the very end! The whole plot is a big fat web of mysteries. There are multiple storyline that I initially thought, had no real or obvious connections. Like, why are we even talking about this? Ofcourse, based from my rating, we all know that it all ties together beautifully. This book gives a *horrible* insight to a psychopath's mind and musings. As someone interested in psychology/psychiatry, I found this facinating but disturbing. It also shows how big environmental , familial, religious and social upbringing affects our growth as a person. I had so many *gasps* and "what the heck" moments for this book. There's one major character in the book that I'm still kind of feeling gray with. I'm not entirely sure of what his significance to the grand scheme of things. Like he is a nice addition to it but this is the one loose knot in the plot. But overall, I enjoyed this book tremendously!

First, let me start off with the fact that I’m definitely in the minority on how I felt about this book. However, if you’re a huge fan of philosophy and love plots with multiple characters and timelines then I’m sure you’ll really enjoy this one 📖

It started off great and I was hooked within the first few chapters, but then I just got confused. Now this could totally just be a me thing but I couldn’t keep track of the multiple characters from different timelines for the life of me. I found myself having to flip back a few pages each chapter and be like, oh yeah Edward and Leland are the same guy (I think hahaha).

ALSO so many questions, like why did Hyde have all those photos in his house of Sam, Katie and their daughter? Was she ever charged with injuring him? Why did Hyde even do that crime and how did he really connect to the end? Was Lock even a necessary component to the story? I feel like I could have read an entire story just about the boys upbringing with their dad.

Thank you Netgalley and Celadon books for the opportunity to read this in advance of its publication date on Feb 28!

I want to thank Celadon books and Netgalley for an early release copy of this book.

I was approved for both the book and the audiobook, and I have to say that the book was much easier to handle.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story, however, it was sometimes difficult to read with the vast array of characters. I am not going to attempt a synopsis, because it is too twisty to try to explain. Essentially, it is based around the ideas of a famous serial killer who believed he could "see" the future (more so that he cracked the code of the future of everything being pre-determined, so there was nothing you can do to change it).

As with North's other books, you need to slow down and really focus on this one, because things are developing so quickly, you may miss an important point, if you are zoning out.

The only thing I didn't love were the number of characters that you had to keep track of. I kept finding myself confused as to who was related to who and in what way. I almost needed to make a flow chart.

Overall, if you like dark thrillers, that are a little more difficult to read, I recommend this book. If you are only interested in popcorn thrillers, it probably isn't for you.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced readers copy of The Angel Maker by Alex North! I really enjoyed this thriller/horror as I devoured it all in about 24 hours. Alex North is now an auto-buy author as I’ve loved all their recent novels. I have to say I did not guess the big twist and how all the characters actually intertwined. The story was very fast paced and kept me wanting to turn the page to see what happens next rather than go take care of my adult responsibilities! The whole concept of ‘is our fate already chosen for us or do we have our own free will to choose’ was a great base for this novel and Alex did a wonderful job in writing about it to make the reader really contemplate what the answer is. The theme around family was also really well done. Not just between Katie and Chris, but their mother, and Katie and Sam and Siena, Alan and Edward and John, Chris and James, and even Michael and his father! You could also put Laurence and Pettifer as family since partners on the force are seen as family. Overall very good book! Highly recommend as a quick thriller that will give you the creeps at the same time. Thanks again to NetGalley for the ARC of The Angel Maker!

The usual aura of suspense you expect from Alex North hangs over this story towards an interesting conclusion that most people probably won’t see coming. The characters and their relationships are rich and believable as is the evil in the world touched upon in this tale.

Wow, what a roller coaster! This is the first book I’ve read by Alex North, but I just put his other books on my TBR list after reading The Angel Maker. Our story stars with Katie Shaw, high school senior about to graduate when her brother Chris is brutally attacked. Both their lives are changed and Katie never gets over the guilt she feels. Years later, Katie is married with a daughter and estranged from Chris, who tried to steal from her the last time they saw each other.
At the same time, distinguished philosophy professor Alan Hobbes is found murdered in his home. Two detectives are working to find the murderer while Katie is trying to find Chris after she learns that he’s gone missing.
All these things are related, but it’s a puzzle that doesn’t get solved until the very end. There’s a lot going on here and I did get lost a couple times, but I loved the fast paced thriller and was shocked as the puzzle pieces came together!

When Katie Shaw was in high school her brother, Chris, was attacked by a stranger. Years later, Katie is married to her high school boyfriend and they have a child of their own. She constantly lives in guilt by what happened to her brother all those years ago. Then she gets a call from her mom that her brother has gone missing. Detective Laurence Page is investigating a murder that leads him to two old cases: Christopher Shaw's attack and a serial killer who could see the future.

The Angel Maker is marketed as a thriller. To me it reads more as a mystery with some thriller elements. Despite the hype this novel has been receiving, I was not a fan. This novel was all over the place. Katie, Chris, and Laurence's stories were easy to follow, but then the story goes on all kinds of weird tangents that made no sense at all. I really wanted to stop reading because I honestly had no clue what was going on, but I continued on. I finally made the connections to figure out what Alex North was actually trying to do with this hot mess of a train wreck novel. The ending was very anticlimactic for me as I had already figured the main "twist" out. The whole "supernatural" vibe just didn't work either. It just wasn't developed well enough. This novel left much to be desired.

This slow moving story had multiple POVs and moves back and forth between various points in time - which can make it quite confusing at times. However, the book comes together beautifully at the end

After reading "The Shadows, I definitely became an Alex North fan. This book does not disappoint. This is the story of Katie who has recently gotten a message that her brother Chris needs her. Chris was brutally attacked when he was a teen, by a crazy man who and has then suffered greatly using drugs, stealing being homeless and endlessly borrowing money from his family, yet not returning it. Katie is now married with her own daughter and has not talked to him since she called the police on him for stealing at a family event. This novel stars with the brutal murder of a distinguished professor which eventually lead police back to Chris's case from years ago and another serial killer who has never been caught. Katie helps her brother immediately but going to her mom's house and collecting info as well as Chris's new apartment in which not only he is sober but also has a boyfriend. As Katie continues to investigate her brother's disappearance she finds more twist and turns than she expected and finds that everyone is unexpectedly connected. The plot was a little confusing at times but I stuck with it and I was really glad that I did. This is a great horror/thriller book that kept me on my toes and I really enjoyed reading it.

Thank you NETGALLEY and Libro FM for an e book and audiobook in exchange for an honest review



Ok sooooo I know that I defiantly unfairly judged this book because I always compare to the Whisper Man which was downright INCREDIBLE. This was good but not to the level of The Whisper Man. I had a hard time differentiating the characters, it was just a lot of fucked up white guys with generic white guy names and the audiobook narrator didn’t attempt different voices so it was hard to follow at times. Other than that, the story was unique but again, just not a knock you off your chair kind of book. I wouldn’t run out and grab a copy but it was good nonetheless.

Thank you to Netgalley and Celadon for the ARC! This was another creepy and mysterious thriller from Alex North. I have consistently enjoyed his books and given them all 4 stars now. Once again, we have a serial killer from the past who seems to have some sort of supernatural power to see the future and a seemingly normal family in the present that gets wrapped up in this case. We also follow a detective perspective which I didn't find super relevant in the story and could have done without. But I think this had some good twists and a fun ending that left me with chills.

After reading The Whisper Man and The Shadows, I became a fan of Alex North and his dark, twisty stories. When I got approved for an advance copy of The Angel Maker (publication date February 28, 2023), I dropped what I was reading and dove in. This book is so gripping I finished it in record time--it's just as good, if not better than his two previous books.

When teenager Katie Shaw's younger brother Chris is attacked and mutilated when she is supposed to be with him, the guilt overwhelms her. Flash forward and now Katie is married with a child of her own. Chris has become an addict and living rough. When she gets a call that he has gone missing, she vows she will not let him down this time.

Detective Laurence Page is investigating the murder of retired philosophy professor Alan Hobbes whose teachings that we have no free will, and that God has preordained all have made him controversial and a lightning rod for hate mail. Hobbs, appearing to have had a premonition of his death, fires all his staff hours before his murder, leaving Page to wonder if perhaps there isn't something to his "Deus Scripsit" teachings after all.

What links the missing Chris Shaw, the murdered professor, and Laurence's and Katie's investigations? Perhaps a decades-old serial killer who believed he could see the future.

In this book, North does an excellent job of weaving a tapestry of clues that leads the reader forward by slowly revealing connections. It's like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle when all that is left are sky pieces of nuanced shades of blue: the reader is left wondering if this piece fits the known facts. Both intriguing and, at times, enlightening, the slow reveal of the interconnectedness of the past, present, and perhaps the future is a puzzle worth solving. This is not only an engrossing book of murder and suspense, but it also raises philosophical issues that may provoke further exploration. All-in-all, it's an entertaining read and a welcome addition to my Alex North collection.

Thank you, NetGalley and Celadon Books for an advance copy of this book for review. The publication date is February 28, 2023.

With apologies to everyone who loved this book, I did not. It slots comfortably into the “it was OK” category. . It’s possible I’ve read too many books in this “thriller / horror” genre that it takes a lot to wow me … if that’s the case, others might find this story captivating and suspenseful. For me, I never felt “gripped” with the plot or the characters (always a bad sign). It never delivered on the promises in the book summary related to a “serial killer who could see the future”; it had too many subplots and characters (some with different names confusing histories) and the plot resolution was rather disappointing.

3.5

A little blurb: Katie is one of the main characters. Katie now has a husband and child. When she was in high school her younger brother Chris was brutally attacked. This has been hard on Katie. Katie's mom calls and says Chris is missing. Also, a professor fired all his staff and is now missing. Clues connect the professor and Chris.

This book was definitely a hard one to understand. There are so many characters. It was REALLY difficult for me to put all of these together. All of these characters somehow tie in together. Also, the timelines are all different for the characters. I honestly felt like I should have wrote them all down to figure out who was who. It was like a clue who done it and I was confused a LOT.

The beginning was slow and the ending wrapped up fast. I did love the ending and I was surprised so that redeemed it for it.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and Netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Celadon Books for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is my first Alex North book. I have been meaning to pick up his books but just haven’t made it around to them.

I was a little disappointed about the hype that this book has brought as I felt like it was very hard to get into and slow to start. While things happen in the beginning of the book it just didn’t sell me on it entirely. After about 50% of the way through the book I was more interested in it and it did pick up and move a little quicker.

I’m not sure that I would have read it if it wasn’t so hyped up. I did enjoy the book; I just almost wish it had been a little shorter.

This book is out February 28th, 2023.

This book was amazing! In my humble opinion, of course.... While initially a bit confusing, if you stick with it through the plot set up (actually, multiple plots) you will not be disappointed. On the surface, it's about a young boy who is attacked by a psychotic young man and an older man who seems to know that he's about to die, the book is so much more. As time progresses, the young boy (Chris) goes through some rough times, his sister Katie enters the story and tries to help when he vanishes, and Chris and Katie's mother, who knows more than she lets on. I think the various storylines weave together in a most satisfying story. There are more threads to pull here, but I don't want to add any spoilers.

My copy was provided by the publisher and by NetGalley, but the opinions expressed are my own.

I really enjoyed this dark mystery/thriller. Though I admit I felt a little lost early on. There were a lot of characters to keep straight. I didn’t need to resort to making a spreadsheet-but I was tempted! As I got further into the book it was easier to remember everyone and I really enjoyed the story.

This was a dark crime novel but not super disturbing. I thought the writing was great. I sometimes avoid crime fiction because some authors spend too much time on gory details making the reading experience unpleasant! This had just the right formula for me. I really enjoyed the hint/possibility of a supernatural element.

I enjoyed The Shadows by Alex North so I was super excited to get this as an ARC from NetGalley. I’m now more eager to read my copy of The Whisper Man!

This was an action packed, fast paced, dark thriller. The plot was engrossing and the mystery about whether there was actually a supernatural element contributing to events was really interesting. I liked that the main characters were complicated and flawed (apart from a couple characters who were just evil). It was a bit confusing figuring out the setting. It mostly seemed American (maybe just the fact that the two detectives weren’t referred to as detective inspector/detective sergeant/etc), but there were a handful of times something was written that seemed more British (use of the word posh, some British turns of phrase) and that made me a bit confused. After rereading the summary I realized the settings actually is England, but that’s not very clear throughout the story. Also, the truth about Alan Hobbes son was a bit strange considering the age gap. It almost would have made more sense for the son to actually be the grandson.
This is the third book I’ve read from this author and I’ve enjoyed them all, although I think Whisper Man was my favorite of the three. I think anyone who enjoyed his other books will probably enjoy this one as well.
Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for providing me access to this eARC for my honest opinion!