Thank you Celadon Books and MacMillan Audio for the advanced copies of The Angel Maker.

I am extremely grateful to have received both the audio and a physical copy of this one. Mainly because this is not your typical thriller and is one that requires extra attention to characters and storyline. I went back and forth between reading and listening and referenced back to the book several times as I tried to make my guesses and piece everything together.

Do not read this one when you are in the mood for a mindless popcorn thriller. Read this one when you want a deeper think out of your thriller.

I read The Whisper Man earlier this month, and I just really like Alex North's style. He does dark atmosphere so so well. I need to get to The Shadows and see if he can go 3/3 for me.

I was excited to read The Angel Maker. Even better was getting the audiobook narrated by Rosalie Craig!

What was the novel about? Hmm..I guess first we have to talk about the main characters.

First, there is Katie Show she is a mother, a little overprotective but she knows that bad things can happen when you are not careful. She might be having marital problems because of all her worrying.

Her brother Chris Show has been estranged from her. He was an addict. He had a lot of self-esteem issues growing up. In the year 2000 when he was a young boy, he was attacked by a man, Michael Hyde who was driving a red car. The man doesn't know why he decided to attack him. For Chris, the scars on the inside are much worse than the scars on his face and body.

Third, there is detective, Laurence Page. He will be the cop involved in solving the murder of professor Alan Hobbes. Detective Page has a link to the Shows. He was one of the officers in 2000 who were there after the attack on Christopher.

Alan Hobbes used to be a philosophy professor who wanted his students to decide if things were all predetermined or not. He also had the biggest collection of items owned by the Angel Maker serial killer, Jack Lock. The question is why?

Truly an enjoyable thriller. I was worried about who was going to survive the evil that was lurking and I was hoping for both Chris and Katie to survive.

The novel does make you wonder if you believe in fate or in free will. Maybe a little bit of both?

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Celadon Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever. 

Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more.

Going into this one I was expecting a thriller, but it turned out to be more of a crime read. I read/listened on audio and found several parts of this one to be confusing. The twist was good and had some action, but it never totally had my interest. I never really felt any connection to the characters. It wraps up pretty quickly which was nice.

Alex North has done it again!! We get to know Katie and her brother, who was the victim of a vicious attack in his childhood. It was rumored to be a serial killer that could see the future.

Totally creepy, the reader is kept guessing the entire time. Not jump-scary, but just unsettling. A great read! Excellent narration.
Thank you!

I will say, the start of this book had me confused as heck buttttt very, VERY intrigued.

There was definitely a magic essence to this book as it takes us from one perspective to the next, as multiple lives slowly intertwine together.

This book definitely had me on the edge of my seat ready for everything to come together!! I wanted to know what happened to Katie’s brother & why he was in trouble. Who was this awful man and why did he act the way he did to his two sons. WHY DID HE NEED TO KILL AND MAKE ANGELS.

I very much enjoyed the journey of this thriller & am happy I got to experience an Alex north novel!!

Thank you to celadon for my ARC 🫶🫶🫶

I was very confused about what was going on in this book for the longest time. I feel like reading it instead of listening to it, would have helped me make more sense of the happenings and characters of the book. I do enjoy thrillers and the concept of the book was very interesting. However, it was not until about 75-80% through the book that getting the characters right, clicked for me. I definitely feel like this book had a strong plot, and the narrator was great! But, I can only give this a three stars because I have unanswered questions, the confusion for a majority of the book, and the characters being so similar to each other.

The Angel Maker by Alex North is delightfully dark and enthrallingly thrilling. I enjoyed the ride! Told from multiple POVs, The Angel Maker boasted well-developed characters who were invested in the high stakes of the plot points. I am a full-on fan of Alex North now.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

A dark, suspenseful new thriller about the mysteries of fate, the unbreakable bond of siblings, and a notorious serial killer who was said to know the future.

If your familiar with Alex North's work, this has the same feel as his previous novels The Whisper Man and The Shadows. The main idea in this book is that fate is set and nothing we do can change that. There are quite a few characters and the plot is dark and sinister in this complicated thriller. I felt confused at times on what was happening because of the changing POV's and time periods, but in the end it all ties together.

It starts out with Katie Shaw's story and her idyllic countryside life, when one day she decides not to walk her brother home after school. She decided to go to her boyfriends house. When she returns home, she finds a violent stranger has altered her life forever.

Year later, Katie's brother Chris, has gone missing and Katie goes on a search for him. She has felt guilty all these years for her brother's attack. She also gets the feeling she has been watched. Then her daughter keeps repeating "red car" only to her. The man in the red car was the one who attacked her brother. Her husband is questioning her sanity. Can she find her brother and prove her husband wrong?

Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page is investigating a strange crime. A professor was murdered hours after firing all his staff. He was a professor of Fate and Freewill. The case seems to be linked to and old case of the attack on Christopher Shaw and a former serial killer who could "see the future."

This book was definitely creepy. All the different character's stories were a little confusing at first, but you just have to go with it knowing that North will pull it all together and it will be genius. It was interesting to find out how it all connected. I listened to this one on audio and the accents were heavy so it needed to be slowed down to fully understand it. I enjoy finding out which narrators are reliable and which aren't.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio, Celadon Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.

I recently finished this one and have been trying to collect my thoughts on it. Im still not sure if I understand everything that happened 😂. Even though I am confused I still enjoyed this one! I love Alex North’s writing style and how invested I get into the story and characters. I listened to this and also read it at the same time and the audio was great but I did get a little lost because of the time jumps as well as switching pov’s. This story follows Katie who was a part of a traumatic accident involving her brother. Years later he is missing and Katie is asked by her mother to look for him. At the same time we are also following a pair of detectives investigating a murder. I really enjoyed all the perspectives and was invested in all of them. Highly recommend this creepy thriller! Thank you @celadonbooks and @netgalley for my #gifted copies!

4 stars for a dark and horrific tale~

Overall, this was a great work of horror fiction. It was dark and twisty. It's one of those thrillers that makes you question what you know.

The audio performance: I really enjoyed the narration. I felt it had just the right amount of suspense and vocals for the parts of the book that were most shocking and dramatic

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing an audiobook ARC for review!

A dark, suspenseful new thriller about the mysteries of fate, the unbreakable bond of siblings, and a notorious serial killer who was said to know the future.

I just want to start off by saying that this is the first book by Alex North that I have read and I went in blind so I really didn't know what to expect.

This book has multiple time lines and POV's. At times I had a hard time keeping things straight in my head. At the beginning I felt completely lost as to what was going on but by the midway point I was able to grasp it.

I haven't listening to a lot of audiobooks that aren't nonfiction so I wasn't used to having to pay close attention to the story. My opinion is I probably would have enjoyed the physical copy better rather than the audio.

Thank you @celadonbooks and @netgalley for an ARC and ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
"Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever.
Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more.
Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page is facing a particularly gruesome crime. A distinguished professor of fate and free will has been brutally murdered just hours after firing his staff. All the leads point back to two old cases: the gruesome attack on teenager Christopher Shaw, and the despicable crimes of a notorious serial killer who, legend had it, could see the future."

My Thoughts:
This story is told in one of my favorite formats with multiple POV's and dual timelines. However, this one didn't quite work for me. With each chapter we would get a date to indicate the timeline, since I was listening to the audiobook I struggled to remember the dates from one chapter to the next. As a result I would rely on the chapters content to try to place it within the overall story. This, paired with characters that I just didn't really like pulled me out of the story at times.
With all of that said, I did really enjoy how the story came together in the end. I thought that the overall concept was fantastic, I just struggled with the format.

Katie and her brother Chris have had a strained relationship ever since the brutal attack on Chris that changed their lives forever. Decades later, it might be too late to fix things when Chris goes missing.

In this book, we are introduced to two separate mysteries that inevitably wind together – the disappearance of Chris Shaw, and the murder of Alan Hobbs – and the way that they come together made me exercise my brain and sometimes stretched my incredulity. I would hesitate to call this a mystery, as we are given nearly all the pieces in the first section of the book – it is fitting them all together which takes time.

I enjoyed the clever writing, and the theme of determinism that forms the keystone of the story, the question of if our pasts determine our present, or if we are more than the sum of our parts. I also really liked the sibling relationship between Katie and Chris, which is very complicated but still loving, and empathized with Katie’s need to not give up on her brother.

However, I thought the story moved along rather slowly, and while some reveals were well-done, I felt that others had been so telegraphed so obviously that they were rather robbed of their impact. There was also a supernatural elements to the story which I wasn’t expecting – though they are alluded to in the blurb, I did not realized how thoroughly the author leaned into them – and it seemed that many other readers were taken aback as well. Also, while I liked the character of Detective Page, I felt that his side of the narrative never really rose above being a device to move the plot along.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, which is narrated by Rosalie Craig. I thought she did a good job of differentiating characters, and was especially good at portraying the fear and horror that characters felt during the story.

I've not read an Alex North book yet that I haven't enjoyed. His books are just creepy and twisty enough for my taste. Once again, I really enjoyed the writing and following along with the story. Some of the twists I figured out, or at least partially figured out, before they were revealed and others I did not expect. I had a theory or two that didn't pan out at all, so I'd say overall it was unexpected enough to keep me engaged the whole time.

I was fortunate enough to have a physical copy of this book as well as an audio copy. I enjoyed listening to the audio and the narration was very well done, but I found it difficult to keep track of everyone at first. Two of our main characters have different names at different times in the story and there are a few additional players as well. I was happy to have the physical book to refer to in order to keep every one straight in the beginning. Once the story progressed a bit, it was much easier to remember all the characters, but I would recommend the physical book for this reason.

This one has a bit of a paranormal twist to it. I can't say which bits are real or not, because half the fun is figuring that out as you go. However, I will say that I didn't find it to be overly done.

Once again, I really enjoyed this book and the concepts that it is based on are interesting to think about.

#FirstLine - PROLOGUE : “If you could see the future,” Sam asked her, “would you want to?”

This book was so well plotted. There was something sinister and unsettling underneath the mystery that kept me on my toes. I could not believe how beautifully woven together all the pieces of this story were. The ending was very satisfying as well! A must read.

I read and listened to this story. The audiobook was really well done. The narration was spot on. Either way you enjoy this story it will not soon be forgotten!

I thoroughly enjoyed this twisty thriller with its potluck of reliable/unreliable characters, philosophy gone wrong, and hints of the evil that can lurk inside of tormented souls. I loved the relationship between the two detectives and the touch of humor it brought to the otherwise intense storyline. I especially like a clever thriller that is well-plotted with an ending that leaves me with a little surprise and a smile of satisfaction and this novel does both. The audiobook is fantastic with Rosalie Craig doing the narration and bringing so much life to all of the characters.

I was invested in this book at the beginning but it became confusing and I couldn’t keep the characters straight.

I finished The Angel Maker, but unfortunately I'm not really sure if I completely know what happened. I was unable to focus on the details of the audiobook. At around 80% I switched to the physical copy and had a bit better of an understanding, but I missed too much in the meantime! This is one that I'd like to come back to later, but I'm going to leave it alone for now. I loved Alex North's previous books, so I was sad that this one didn't hook me!

This copy was kindly given to me by Netgalley and the publisher for review. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this book. Alex North really does know how to weave a tense story. The only complaint I have about this book is I didn't feel like it followed the serial killer aspect of the plot enough. It centered more on the MC, her brother and the possibility that a man could see and alter the future. The moments where we are in the father serial killer (who was a nut job) and his son that followed in his footsteps was dark and twisted but we lost the killer aspect of this story which I think would have made it a 5 stars.

Overall I tend to enjoy Alex North's books. My only complaint about the audiobook is that many of the characters we follow has similar names (and sometimes go by more than one) and that was confusing at times while listening.

This was my second Alex North book and I wasn't disappointed. Though I have to say the ending wasn't my favorite, it shocked me a little. It had me on the edge of my seat and I did have to put it down at points to let my mind take a break. The anxiety this book caused was crazy but in a good way. At some points, I wanted to shake Katie by telling her that she is being stupid and the same with her brother Chris. I could also feel the love she had for her brother and that the need to keep him safe was there. I really can't wait to read more from Alex North soon. The Shadows is on my TBR for April.

Thank you Netgalley for gifting this book for an honest review.