Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape media for this ARC Audiobook! This was a middle of the road read for me. I enjoyed the narrator and the premise of this was incredibly interesting. Without spoiling too much, this book lost me at several parts. I do think it dragged on at times, but overall it was a little out of left field. By the end, the story fell flat for me.

All that said, I would be interested in reading more from this author in future. I enjoyed the writing and the narrator used for the book.

I couldn’t get past the first 10 chapters (maybe more but I can’t track where I stopped). This story was weird, rushed and a lot of the characters were annoying. Sadly I couldn’t finish it.

For some reason I had a hard time keeping focused and engaged during this story. I thought the premise was great, but it was lacking a certain “it” factor.

Book of Knives follows Nora after remarrying and relocating to a former summer camp. Paul's sister Salish has this collection of knives, 13 to be exact. But things start to go awry when the knives go missing.

I wanted to like this book. Really. However, the story was just so bizarre, and I didn't really care for Eve Passeltiner's narration. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ALC, but this book wasn't for me.

Nora, a documentary filmmaker and recent widow, marries her husbands close friend, Paul. Everything seems like a happily ever after until Paul’s parents fall terminally ill, and Nora, Paul, and Paul’s 18-year-old son travel to Paul’s childhood home, a closed down and dilapidated campground with a long and complicated history, with the goal of fixing it and selling it.

Nora meets Paul’s younger brother, Gabe, and sister-in-law, Salish, as well as their four children. Salish immediately takes charge of the kitchen, showing off her prized knife collection. However after the first disastrous meal the trouble begins, when one-by-one, the knives begin to disappear. Nora, the documentarian, begins filming everything, trying to discover who is to blame for this and many other strange occurrences. There's talk of ghosts, secret rooms and someone at the summer camp found dead in the tall grass.

Book of Knives is a very well written, extreme slow-burn thriller that is full of suspense. The writing is very immersive and descriptive, making it easy to picture the run down buildings, setting, and characters. Each character had a unique personality, with even the children being fully fleshed out and explored. I found the mystery to be incredibly intriguing, and it did a fantastic job exploring the paranormal, as well as family drama, decades old murder mysteries, and the suffocating nature of being stuck in a house with your crazy in-laws.

The ending did surprise me, and although there are a few questions left unanswered, for the most part everything is solved. I do think that it times it moved a little too slowly for me, and I think certain parts could be trimmed. However, overall this was an interesting read with an intense climax! Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

I loved this book ! I won’t summarize the plot but the characters were creepy that interacted with the protagonist. It kept me guessing what would happen and how this and that would be explained?

One of my top 3 books this year ! The writing was fresh and different. Atmosphere and environment I could picture. I felt like I knew Nora from the descriptions . Her tragic tale of losing the love of her life and pretty much settling for Paul
The ghost story element was interesting and I found myself listening at all hours of day and night.
I would of liked a better explanation of the end but still highly recommend.
Thanks for the opportunity to listen to this arc

I received this audiobook in exchange for my honest review. I found this story unbelievable, and confusing, and I didn't like any of the characters. You may feel differently when or if you read or listen to the book. I found the characters to have no depth, the events were scattered and hard to follow to see the point. I even re-listened to parts to see what I may have missed but I still didn't get even the second time. Nora can't get over the love of her life’s death. But she jumps into bed with his best friend and marry’s him. They go to help his family whom he doesn't like or get along with. The family is weird and frankly crazy. I didn't care for the book, the narrator was fine she tried. I had high hopes for this book but I can't recommend. You may feel different just so you understand this is my opinion. It left you wondering what was the point of it all and just where did it end up. Some loose ends were left open. I thank NetGalley and publishers Dreamscape Media for this audio arc.

Thanks to NetGalley & Dreamscape for providing an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nora, a documentary filmmaker, recently widowed, takes up with lodger/friend of the family Paul after her husband, Takeo's death. They are invited to live at Paul's aged parents' campground to fix it up to sell after its being out of commission for several years. Nora, Paul, and Paul's son, Leon, join Paul's brother, Gabe and his wife, Salish, and their small kids at the campground. The men's dad has terminal cancer, and their mom has dementia, and though the two men are taciturn about it, they had unhappy childhoods and left home at a young age.
This presents the first of many questions I have about this book. Why would you come back to help parents who you hate?
Salish has promoted herself to head chef and prepares all the meals, sometimes spending the whole day in the kitchen prepping. She also has an unhealthy attachment to a set of novelty knives passed down to her from her father. These knives begin to disappear despite her best efforts to hide and protect them, including leaving them spread out on the counter while she spends the night in the kitchen and *burying them in the ground.* Ohhhhkay. She also starts locking the pantry and fridge for reasons that were not clear to me (maybe I missed this part?). This, of course, makes everyone completely reliant on Salish for food even more so than before. Salish is also fairly aggressive towards Nora, who is childless and trying to conceive, and has become close to Salish and Gabe's youngest child, Lily.
Meanwhile Salish and Gabe's oldest child, Jones, is obsessed with ghosts and convinced the camp is haunted. Nora helps Jones record some of the weird, supernatural goings-on.
There is a TON of interpersonal drama here, to the detriment of the plot. There is a lot going on, and it all goes by sloooowwwlllyyyy. Too slowly. Until the denouement, which seems to happen very quickly and is rather shocking, given the molasses of the previous 3, 284 chapters.
The voice acting is OK, but it is difficult to discern between Nora and other characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This book was very odd and twisted. The family in the story was crazy! They were so dysfunctional and made the story crazy. I am still not sure about the spirit/ghost bits of this book because it left too many questions in the end.

I normally like a slow burn, but in this case it was so slow I lost interest quickly. And I wasn't aware there would be "ghosts"...why? I was hoping for a more "Knives Out" type of story and maybe that's why I'm disappointed. I liked the narrator, but she couldn't save the story for me.

This book was soooo slow and boring. I had very high hopes for it and it sounded like something I’d love but unfortunately it just wasn’t interesting at all. Towards the end I thought it’s wrap up and a way that it’s redeem it for me but I just found it unfulfilling.

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and Lise Haines for sending me a free audiobook copy of Book of Knives in exchange for my honest review. This is the first book of Lise Haines that I have read/listened to and it definitely will not be the last. I thoroughly enjoyed the twist and turns this book provided. I do feel at times, it was slightly slow, but overally I very much enjoyed it. Nora goes with her new husband to his family owned property to do some minor repairs in order to sell it, only to realize it is far worse than he had anticipated. Nora is left to be surrounded by his not so pleasant family and it is only then that things start to get a little weird. A knife from an heirloom collection of knives goes missing and things get creepy. Ghost talk and other mischief starts to stir and Nora tries to unravel the web as more and more knives go missing. Will Nora make it out of this new family alive? I will let you listen/read to find out.

I feel like I was dropped right in the middle of a story. All of these names and interpersonal stories popped up without much background made for a confusing start and put me off a bit. I even double checked a few times to ensure I wasn’t reading a book in the middle of a series (which I do relatively often 😅) That, plus a less engaging narrator and weird, problematic scene at the beginning did not particularly make me want to continue on with this book, to be quite honest.

But, it gets better as you go along and finally make it to the abandoned summer camp where the knives keep going missing. I found the incorpaatuon of documentary film-making elements in the story to be interesting and I found myself dreading what was going to happen next.

For the last third of the book, I was on the edge of my seat, enthralled by the progressively weird occurrences. But that ending—I still have no idea what happened and walked away from this book feeling incredibly confused. And not in a good way either, more in the way where I just couldn’t buy into the whole story.

Overall, fitting for spooky season, but not my favourite. This one might be for you if you like:
- Slow burn family dramas
- Books that deal with grief of a loved one
- Unlikable characters
- Thrillers with a summer setting
- A touch of paranormal activity

Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for providing me with a copy of this ARC!

DNF @ 52%

This book just wasn’t for me. The only thing that I liked, the first thing that drawed me in, was the beautiful cover!!

dislike #1
First off, the chapters are incredibly long. Some chapters are a 45 minute read🤯🤯 I’m not a fan of long chapters at all.

dislike #2
There were way too many characters to keep up with. This especially made it a difficult read, since I read as an audiobook.

dislike #3
The ghost element was just kind of cringy? I felt like it added nothing to the overall book. It would have been super cool if someone in the cabin was stealing the knives and murdering people one by one. But i didn’t write it, so I can’t complain there.

dislike #4
It was a super slow burn. By the 52% mark, I feel like the story hasn’t started really. Hardly anything happened up to this point.

This just wasn’t my type at all. Nevertheless, thank you NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was another "meh" book for me. Nora is widowed and climbs into bed with her husband's friend for companionship. (This hit me wrong, first myself being a widow...just no.) When they fall in love and get married his brother contacts them about their elderly parents and the campground they own that needs help. They pack up, along with his son and venture out to the wilderness to help take care of the parents and make repairs on the camp. Once they get there, nothing is as it seems and knives start to disappear, Nora feels threatened, her new husband is having an affair with his sister-in-law, and Nora is stranded because she cannot drive the truck they drove to the camp. Twists and turns and slow moving plot wind its way through to a demented ending.

Thanks #netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest read. I listened to this book and enjoyed the narrator. Suspenseful and kept my attention. Highly recommend.

I received an audiobook review copy in exchange for an honest review

Definitely more Ghosty than I expected, but still twisty and a lot of fun. Good Halloween time audiobook with some old-fashioned 80s horror movie vibes. I honestly had no idea what was gonna happen at the end of the book definitely wanted to watch!

This book gave me the same vibes as Mexican Gothic where the back story is very detailed and the current spooky, sinister, ghostly tale almost takes a second seat. Nora is a grieving widow who finds love again, but is waylaid to building their lives when family obligations take over. Renovations on a family owned summer camp reveals a past with a lot of secrets and not a lot of answers. This was a good read for October, but it left me unsettled with unanswered questions and heartbreaking relationships.

Book of Knives is a dreamlike novel filled with family mysteries, loss, and deception. I never quite knew what was real or imagined. The pieces are in place for a great novel, a remote location, and a family nearing its breaking point. But the novel didn’t deliver. Nora’s marriage to Paul and ever present grief for her first husband made her primed for a breakdown. The setting is great and the secrets are plenty. Most characters are unlikeable and something felt unresolved in the ending.

Honestly, this is probably my least favorite book of 2022. The only reason why I stuck with it was because it gave me bonus points for a challenge I'm in currently. I'm not sure if it was the book itself, or the narrator, but the entire thing felt so choppy. The characters weren't likable, the storyline was weird, and the ending wasn't good. They led you to believe it was a ghost all along and then it ended without a real explanation. I was so excited for this one because it was compared to Knives Out, which I love, and this completely fell flat. I know there are people who will enjoy this one, but it isn't one I will be recommending. Thank you, NetGalley, Dreamscape Media, and Lise Haines for the opportunity to read this one in exchange for an honest review.