Finlay is a must-read author for me and this latest is a highly effective thriller. Told in multiple POVs, Finlay's three MCs are dealing with trauma and secrets from their childhood so be sure to check CWs. I especially liked Jenna's character and storyline. The shifting timelines, while effective in explaining the characters backstory, could a little bit confusing at times if you're not paying close enough attention. Overall this book's fast paced, action-packed with plenty of twists and turns and is totally engaging.


I received this eARC thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books in exchange for an honest review. Publishing dates are subject to change.

One of my most anticipated books of 2023 and I got the pleasure of receiving an audiobook from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review!! Yesssss!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Where to begin with this one … let’s start by saying this was again highly anticipated, mesmerizing and heart pounding at times Alex Finlay novel! This was all wrapped up nicely in a bow but dropped a star because it felt a little rushed and I would have loved some more character development.

Alex Finlay is a great storyteller!! The audiobook narration mixed with the storyline fit together perfectly! I highly recommend the audiobook!! It’s definitely a binge worthy book!!

Nothing about this book worked for me. A quick summation as to why:

The characters aren't well developed, and they feel like cliches dropped onto the page.

The plot is over-the-top implausible.

I was irritated with all the flashbacks to the characters' teenage years, and the constant shifts in POV characters gave the story a disjointed feel that I couldn't settle into.

I loved Finlay's first book, liked his second, and clearly didn't like this third one. Might be that I'm ultimately not the right reader for this writer.

Well dang. I just really didn’t enjoy this book at all.

I don’t want to bash it but it just wasn’t an enjoyable storyline to me and there was so many characters to keep track of.

WHAT HAVE WE DONE
By Alex Finlay

Review by Valerie J. Brooks

Years ago, a group of kids from abusive Savior House fled the place after committing an act of violence. Twenty-five years later, one of the group, Benny, a federal judge, is murdered. The remaining members find themselves targeted: Jenna, a former assassin and now happily married wife and mother; Donnie, a former famous musician and alcoholic who has been fired by his band; Nico, a Hollywood producer famous for a reality show about miners; and Artemis, a billionaire tech whiz.

Jenna is set up by what she thinks is her former boss to kill someone and, when she finds out it’s Artemis, she doesn’t pull the trigger, putting them both in peril. Donnie is forced over the side of a cruise ship and is saved by a passing fishing boat. Nico survives a mining explosion.

When they determine they’ve all been the victims of these unusual “accidents,” they realize they are not accidents. The common factor in all of them seems to be a pretty young woman with dark hair and killer blank eyes. Plus, an FBI agent, knowing they were accidents, dogs Donnie’s every move hoping for information and the truth about his fall from the ship.

Now on the run, they each try to figure out who this female assassin is and why she’s after them. They haven't seen each other in years but expect to reunite at Benny’s funeral. Donnie, now famous again and in the media because of surviving the cruise ship overboard, is accompanied by Reese who is writing Donnie’s biography. But is he who he says he is? Donnie, a drunk who lives for his rock star status, doesn’t question this.

Alex Finlay has written a nerve-wracking thriller of interconnected lives of orphans who were bullied and disappeared and then as adults are forced to face their past. Moving smoothly in and out of each character’s voice, What Have We Done easily lays down the puzzle pieces of the characters’ past and current lives. Savior House was no savior house, and the time there has pushed Jenna, Nico, Donnie, and Art out of their carefully constructed adult lives after successfully escaping the torment of the place as teens. The past is not finished with them. Once again, they must band together or suffer the fate of their friend Benny.

What Have We Done is a taut, twisty, complex thriller that deals with how the past will never let go, no matter how successful one becomes. For those who love how specific details in fiction can bring a story to life and show so much about the characters, Finlay brilliantly creates a discussion between Donnie and his biographer about the comic world of Calvin and Hobbes. If you’re not familiar with it, you’ll want to be after reading this page-turner of a thriller because it's impossible to put down until the very last page.

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

2.5

This one was okay, I guess. I never really got invested into the story and figured out one of the “twists” long before the reveal. It was almost like the book moved too fast. With the constant switching between the POVs and something constantly happening I felt like I had whiplash trying to keep up. By about the 60% mark I just wanted to be done with it.

The initial premise sounded enticing, reminiscent of the Jason Bourne movies in a way. However, the actual story almost felt too far fetched if that makes sense. In the end I liked the fact that I was able to finish the book quickly (likely due to the short chapters), but I was never invested in the story or characters.

Overall I would skip this one and read The Night Shift by Alex Finlay instead!

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Read if you like:

💔 tragic pasts
4️⃣ multiple POVs
🏃‍♀️ fast paced thrillers

This was a fantastic thriller from Alex Finlay, just as his last couple have been for me. Fast-paced, interesting characters, and plot. He doesn't typically disappoint!

Listen, I have read all three of Alex Finlay's books released over the past few years. I have enjoyed each of them. Alex Finlay is a must-read author for me, and whatever I thought of this novel won't change that. That said, What Have We Done was a very different novel than his previous two. What Have We Done is much more soap-opera-esque. And while that is not always something that turns me off, it is certainly not what I would have expected from Mr. Finlay based on his previous novels. It was a fun novel with occasionally funny, over the top villains. I loved the idea of these friends from rough childhoods coming back together to solve the mystery of who is trying to kill them (and why) so many years after a mysterious event that shaped them all. The book never lost my attention, but it did make my eyes roll a few times from its sheer eccentricity. I would recommend What Have We Done with the warning that it is not as realistic as what I usually like.

ʙᴏᴏᴋ ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ
ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴡᴇ ᴅᴏɴᴇ ʙʏ ᴀʟᴇx ғɪɴʟᴀʏ
3.5/5

Summary:
Jenna, Nico, and Donnie were best friends who endured abuse and neglect while they were living in a group home for teenagers who didn’t have parents. The home was shut down after several teenage residents went missing and the three friends were separated. They haven’t seen or spoken to each other since their time at the home but have recently been reunited because someone is trying to kill them. Why? That is the question the book answers through a series of perspectives told by each character. In order to live, they will all have to confront the horrors of their past- a past with a secret that they all share that may just be the reason why someone wants to kill them now.

My Thoughts:
This book was good, but not great. I liked it, but did not love it. It was definitely thrilling, and had me on the edge of my seat several times, especially in the end with the ultimate twist. Overall, it was a fast read for me and I did enjoy it. However, there were a couple of issues that I had with it. There were SO. MANY. CHARACTERS. The story was told from several different perspectives that switched each chapter. At times it was hard to follow and I found myself flipping back to refresh my memory. The plot also resembled that of an action movie, with multiple different things going on at one time and never a solid path to follow. I also felt like the ending left me with many different questions, which I won’t put here to avoid there being spoilers in the review. With that being said, it was a book with a unique story and there were things I did like about the book. Also Jenna is a complete bada**!!

Read this if you like:
-fast paced thrillers
-stories told from different perspectives
-books with A LOT of characters

Trigger Warnings: Childhood abuse and neglect, gambling, gun violence, substance abuse/addiction.

Thank you NetGalley, Minotaur Books, and Alex Finlay for a copy of What Have We Done to review!

Finlay does it again. I am a MAJOR Alex Finlay fan and his newest novel didn't disappoint. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough and always was upset when I had to put the book down to be a responsible human being. Finlay has an uncanny ability to get your heart racing and have you rooting for his characters at the same time.

25 years ago a group of kids formed a bond at a foster home called the Savior House. After it was shut down, they grew apart, hoping to never see each other again. That is, until someone decides to start killing them one by one. A forced reunion no one wants, revisiting old memories and bringing up the question, what actually happened to the owner of the foster home, will have everyone wondering who is responsible.

Page-turning thriller. By shifting point of view between a group of people, now grown, who knew each other in a children's home years ago, Finlay keeps you going as you need to know what happens to each of them. There are many surprising twists and I really enjoyed them all.

Twenty-five years ago, Jenna, Nico, and Donnie formed a strong bond when they survived being residents of Savior House. After several kids disappeared, the home was shut down and the kids separated. Years later, they are unexpectedly reunited. Someone is trying to kill them. Surviving means reliving the past and confronting the nightmare that was their shared childhood.

As much as I enjoyed The Night Shift, this one just didn’t do it for me. I’m big fan of books with multiple points of view but this one was just very all over the place and I really struggled to keep people/events straight. Typically, I enjoy books set in the present with flashbacks to the past, but the flashbacks in this book came without any warning and I’d end up having to backtrack a little bit. Out of all the characters, I enjoyed reading Jenna’s perspective the most and loved her assassin background. I really didn’t care for the twins, they came off as very cheesy and awkward. Although the pacing felt off for most of the book, the last 25% was good and kept me on the edge of my seat! Just because this wasn’t the book for me, doesn’t mean it won’t be for you. Thank you to Minotaur Books, Alex Finlay, and NetGalley for my gifted e-arc. This book is out now!

I need to give up on Finlay. His books are just not for me. I dislike his characters and his writing style is not my thing.

This was such an easy thriller to read. Overall I enjoyed the story, I thought it was entertaining and it had me hooked from the very beginning. I liked reading from each MC's POV, I thought it made the story much better knowing each perspective. Some of it was a little farfetched to me (the assassin, the twin murder chicks, you know) but I still liked it regardless.

Thank you St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for inviting me to read my first Alex Finlay, WHAT HAVE WE DONE!

I requested this book because I liked the author's last book Night Shift, but I learned too late this book is about youths with traumatic pasts and that is triggering for me. Also I reached out to the author (he follws me on Instagram) and didn't get a response so I lost interest. I want the book finally off my shelf so I'm leaving a review.

I truly couldn’t tell you what happened in this book. I binged it on audio in 24 hours while cleaning my apartment and it was fast-paced and “thrilling” but I just felt like it was trying to do too much. The amount of characters and the switching between past and present day within the same chapters made my head hurt a bit.

But take this review with a grain of salt because I didn’t love THE NIGHT SHIFT either (for many of the same reasons). I thought I would give Finlay’s books another try but probably just not for me 🤷🏻‍♀️

TLDR: this thriller fell into the trap of being too confusing and too many characters in order to get a good “twist”

Hmm. I do love a multiple POV book but it has to be done right and I'm just not sure this one worked? It just seemed like there was so much going on and I had to keep track of so so much that I forgot a lot that happened in the mean time. It almost felt a bit like the author was trying to distract me, which I get for this kind of book, but I do not want it to feel so intentional.. The pacing was just a bit off. Some moments I was totally engrossed, others I was just trying to muscle through. It was not bad by any means, I just needed a little bit more (or less) from it.

I’m sad to say I didn’t enjoy this! I absolutely loved The Night Shift, it was one of my favorite thrillers last year and I’m bummed this was such a miss for me.

This read like an action film — extremely fast paced with character backstory revealed in flashbacks over the entire book. There were a large number of characters that would reappear later in the book, and it was difficult for me to keep track of them all.

I felt some of the big reveal twists didn’t need to be withheld from the reader — it made the experience confusing and to me didn’t have the “big twist” intended impact… it just left me thinking, this could’ve been revealed a lot sooner.

I think this would make a great Netflix series or movie, but as a book I’m sad it didn’t work for me

Book: What Have We Done
Author: Alex Finlay
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Pages: 368
Genre: Mystery Thriller
A stay-at-home mom with a past.
A has-been rock star with a habit.
A reality TV producer with a debt.
Six kids meet in at the very misnamed Savior House, a group home for teens without parents. The place is a house of horrors with bullying and inappropriate adult caretaking. And girls go missing, never to be seen again.
Now one of them is dead and it seems an assassin is trying to kill the rest of them. These adults are going to have to dive back into their past to stop what is happening now. The narrative alternates between the three, with a few additional chapters thrown in from the killer point of view.
The book has a lot of action. While reading it, I imagined that I was watching a movie.

Alex Finlay has written some of my favorite thrillers of the past couple of years so I was curious to see what his latest had in store. Right from the start, it’s very different from his first two novels, leaning more in the action/thriller genres than your typical procedural mystery.

While the action starts immediately with assassins and shady organizations chasing Jenna, Donnie, and Nico, it takes a little longer for the mystery to unfold, which is another departure from his previous work. I was left with a few lingering questions at the end, but I largely enjoyed the reading experience.

Jenna’s chapters were my favorite as they felt a little more fleshed out and her action scenes made it hard to put down and added to the cinematic feel of the novel. As a bonus to any DC bookstagrammers who may read this, part of the story takes place in the city, providing a bonus activity of looking for all of the local landmarks mentioned throughout.

What Have We Done is out now. Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.