Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

This book ended very well. I truly didn’t expect this ending and who was eventually the killer. Seven women, all with a motive and desire to kill this awful man. It was anyone’s guess as to who the killer was. I loved that this was set in the 90’s and the murder takes place on New Year’s Eve 1999. There was a lot of time jumping but it was crucial to the storyline and really told the stories of these main women and their grudge against the beheaded man. Wow, I can’t overstate how despicable he was. I also liked the inclusivity weaved throughout.

I did take me about halfway through to really get interested. I did think there was maybe one too many main characters and it did get a bit muddled for me in the first half. I was a little bit lost but still very interested to find out what happens.

The narration was great and I will always love listening to a British accent.

Overall I would recommend this book.

I Loved this. Witches,murder and revenge against bad men. If there's a man in your life or who was in your life that betrayed you or made you suffer. This book will be therapeutic.While following these women and learning their story I found myself hoping that they were the one who murdered him. The book is told in different perspectives and all of the women involved have incredible motives for wanting the victim dead.

This is a book that feels like overthrowing the patriarchy. I will be reading this one again.

Seven women, one dead man...who's to blame?

This book starts off with seven women in a room surrounding the decapitated head of a man. We initially don't know much, but as the story goes on we get the perspective of each of these women and what brought them to that room that night.

I was initially concerned that with so many characters, things would become confusing, but the author did a great job of developing these characters so wildly different that there was no way that they could be confused for each other.

This is definitely a slow burn but done so well, that I was still on the edge of my seat as this all unfolded. I definitely enjoyed this murder mystery.

As far as the audio, this was perfectly done! I loved the variation on the voices from the different perspectives.

And let me just say...Jamie had it coming.

Speak of the Devil was an unexpected gem for me, a dark thriller that keeps looping around the different perspectives of women who were all linked to a murdered man whose head has the police chasing all the leads ... there's his wife of course, but also a colleague, the aunt who raised him, the journalist he raped many years ago, the religious woman who believed to have discovered love again after loosing her husband and there are two mothers of his children one born one unborn and there is the female police officer investigating his murder ... they each have the proverbial axe to grind but who actually wielded it ?
This book has all the voices - dark, intricate, and entangling - sort of like a spider web being built, there are intersections were perspectives merge!
All seven women fell victims to this man and his manipulations at one time or another even if they are in different stages of denial they all have a motive for murder.
This book quickly builds in intensity and suspense as it unravels all the personalities, relationships, and the deception suffered.
This book definitely kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish.
Both the audio and the ebook were fantastic - the narration by @colleenrose_p added to the story and the atmosphere!

"He's dead because he was an evil prick."

The opening to Speak Of The Devil by remarkable debut author Rose Wilding is wild, clever and a definite attention grabber for this immersive dark psychological thriller.

Seven women are directed to a seedy hotel room. They sit around the decapitated head of the misogynistic, abusive, rapist Jamie Spellman. One is his wife, his colleague, his ex, his friend, a teenager caught in his manipulation, a journalist wanting the truth, and the woman who raised him. They all know him...and one of them killed him.

The writer says she wrote this intense revenge story because she was always feeling furious. At first I laughed but as Jamie's cruelty, male entitlement, and toxic masculinity toward each woman becomes his daily routine I felt my own anger. I remembered all the times I was dismissed, or worse, embarrassed, abused, made smaller. There's an infuriating scene where a woman tells the police Jamie raped and drugged her,

"Didn't your mother ever teach you never to leave your drink unattended?"

"No, she was too busy teaching my brother not to put drugs into a girl's drink "

Yes! It shouldn't be our responsibility to feel safe from men. Men should make themselves safe. Some made excuses for Jamie because his gaslighting skills were honed from years of practice and society making us feel less; we are the "little lady," "ball and chain," and always when angry, "that bitch!"

I read and listened to narrator Colleen Prendergast be perfection as seven distinct personalities. It's only a drop in the number of women who are physically, emotionally and mentally abused by men who claim to love them. Speak of the Devil is what we need to do so he never has power.

I received a free copy of this book/audiobook from the publishers via #netgalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Violent and at times outright gruesome, this is a dark and powerful #metoo mystery that opens with a group of seven women faced with a man's severed head. Each of the seven women has good reason to have committed the crime, but each swears she didn't. Alternating between flashbacks from each woman and the present-tense investigation by an inspector who has ties to several of the women and her own personal feelings about the way the law treats women, there is quite a lot of social commentary in this book not only of men like Jamie, but about the way women are treated in society. I would classify this more as a mystery than a thriller, which may help you better decide whether or not this book is for you. There were some parts that were predictable, including the ending, but didn't detract from my engrossment in the story. Colleen Prendergast's narration certainly helped with that.

Thank you to St. Martin's, the author, and NetGalley for the chance to read this book in advance in exchange for a fair review.

This mystery was as much a character study as it was a whodunnit. Rose Wilding is taking a classic literary premise for a thriller - the scorned woman/women who are chasing after a bad man - but giving them important context, culture, and community to inform their actions. The leaning into queer themes and experiences gives a thoughtful layer to the overall story. For me, the balance between "character study" and "engaging mystery" is a bit off, as we spend the vast majority of the book learning the backstory with quite a tidy ending at the end. I can see this being great for mystery/thriller book clubs, and it 's a great genre fiction choice for Pride!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🎧Song Pairing: Devil - Shinedown

💭What I thought would happen:

I thought this was going to be more cult-y or perhaps the literal devil in a Chuck Palahniuk kind of way 😂

📖What actually happens:

Jamie is dead. His head being stripped of his body indicates he can’t talk his way out of it…7 women are in the presence of the head and are all shocked and told to keep quiet. Nova is the cop on the case and must find out what happened and how these women are related to one another and the victim.

🗯Thoughts:

This book starts with a severed head and 7 women surrounding it…spank my ass and call me Dolly. That is quite the way to start the book. Daaaannng

I see where some of the less positive reviews come from. The story starts out strong and peters off but I found the built and backstory intriguing. I didn’t even care who did it as I was content that Jamie the massive asshole (being kind) was dead in a most delicious and malicious way 😈

It took me a quality 40-50% of the book to get the women sorted, perhaps even 80% but I still liked the pace. I blew through this one! Loved the creative way it was laid out.

A well-done story about seven women who were all treated badly by the same man. As the story begins, they have gathered together and are staring at his decapitated head. Each woman suspects someone else in the group of committing the murder but no one is admitting it.

Over the course of the book, we are given the back story of each woman and their relationship/interaction with Jamie. He was truly a complete jerk with no conscience and I instantly believed that whoever had done the deed and murdered him had a good reason. It was easy to see how he would pull people in and then turn on them when he had used them up.

The character study of each of these women was quite interesting and sometimes a bit heartbreaking. Jamie targeted women with weakness and then seemed to know how to capitalize on it. As much as you know revenge isn't a proper answer, it still felt awfully satisfying in this book when he got what was coming to him.

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: I also listened to the audiobook and the narration was top notch. It made the story even more enjoyable for me because I felt like I was truly listening to a "production" of some type. Well done! 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for both the early copies of the audiobook and the ebook. I voluntarily chose to listen/read and review them both and the opinions contained within are my own.

Seven angry women are in an empty hotel room with a severed man's head at the center. Each woman has a reason for wanting Jamie Spellman dead, but who is the murderer? When the murder is investigated by a detective who has a connection to one of the women, will her inherent bias help or hurt the investigation?

The problem with this novel is the large cast of characters. Besides the seven women and the man, there are also the detective and the rest of her team. With so many motives for murder, it is really hard to keep everyone straight. Everyone has a story and some are interconnected with others. This makes the novel very disjointed and difficult to follow.

By the end of Speak of the Devil, I no longer cared who the perpetrator was and finished the novel purely to listen to the narrator. Colleen Prendergast did a good job of telling the tale, with an engaging voice and good inflection. However, this was not enough to propel the book forward and I would not recommend it to other readers.

Disclaimer: I was given an Advanced Audio Copy of Speak of the Devil by NetGalley and the publisher. The decision to listen to and review this book was entirely my own.

After reading the synopsis I was really excited to listen to this one, but I got to 20% and I feel lost. I've gone back and relistened a few times but the multi-layers of characters are just too much for me. It's probably a case of right book, wrong time, but this is a DNF for me. Thank you, I won't be sharing this feedback until I can give it a second go.

The premise of this book was intriguing to me, but perhaps some of the story got lost in translation.
Told between the viewpoint if 7 different women all of whom have a relationship with the man who's head they find in a seedy hotel room. It was at times hard to keep track of who was who, what relation they had and where they were.
A quick read, with an intriguing concept, but confusing timelines and a bit of an abrupt ending.

Speak of the Devil is a fantastic debut! I am a giant fan of psychological thrillers and Rose Wilding satisfied my need for a twisty page-turner with this book. I enjoyed the multiple point-of-view tool, however. I did feel the number of characters I had to keep up with was overly ambitious.
The mystery of "whodunit was engaging enough to keep me going even when I struggled with the number of potential culprits. I think Wilding did a fantastic job of providing a reveal did not see coming; my favorite aspect of a good thriller novel. I enjoyed being introduced to unique characters; they were fleshed out enough where I was eventually able to establish why their motivations were important to building the plot. I was pleasantly surprised by this debut thriller and I'm looking forward to Wilding's next one!

Great book!!
The entire book is trying to figure out who hated this guy most. It was very easy to do. The ending was a bit shocking.
I highly recommend.
The narrator was perfect.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan audio for this Audio ARC.

I tried. I tried listening three different times, three different moods (excited, mad, and bored). I could not get into it.

The narrator’s performance was good, the story was not for me.

I knew I was going to like this story from the opening page - when seven women are sitting around in a room with a severed head, knowing unequivocally that one of them was the one to sever it. I mean, come on! What a way to start a book!

As the story unfolds, we learn that the severed head belongs to a man who has wronged each of these women in one way or another. He's raped some, cheated on others, taken babies from still others, etc. He's a pretty bad dude, and it's not hard to dislike him enough that you don't mind reading about his severed head.

The story is told flashback-style, and we learn what exactly the man did to every woman. And the more we learn, the harder it is to figure out who had the MOST reason to want him dead. At first, you think it simply HAS to be Woman A. Then, you hear what he did to Woman B., and you're like, "Oh! Never mind! It has to be her!" The problem is, we keep hearing more and more and more about what he did, and every woman seems like a likely candidate.

It's a great way to tell a story and ensure the reader stays interested. And I definitely stayed interested throughout the entire book. There was never a point at which I wanted to put the book down because I got tired of reading it. To me, that's the mark of a really, really good book.

The book started off with a shocking scene where seven ladies are standing over a man’s severed head right in the center of a floor. You would think this is would lead to a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat but unfortunately, it didn’t get there for me. It was less than 300 pages but it took a bit to finish b/c I didn’t think there was much going on until the last 50 pages. There were way too many characters which I am generally not a fan of anyways but fortunately it wasn’t too hard to keep them apart bc the backstory was so detailed.

Unfortunately I could not keep up with this audiobook. There were so many characters and I kept getting confused. I am going to try to read the ebook which I think will be easier to follow!

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL by Rose Wilding is read by Colleen Pendergast and I really enjoyed it!

I went into this story knowing that there were seven women whose perspectives all would be shared. I expected to be a bit lost, but the way it was structured, I felt like it worked and I was able to keep up with ease.

Seven? Yes, seven, and then the man whose head is found when the women all meet.

They all have motives for hating and killing this man. It also has to be one of them, and they have to figure it out if they want to protect each other, but the killer is not coming forward in this investigation.

I really did enjoy this mystery. I thought it was a clever set up and with each woman having time to share her story, it built a mountain of grievances against this horrible character. This proverbial mountain was extensive and after a while it did feel a tad bit excessive. That said, manipulative people often are as well, but I think one or two atrocities could have been eliminated to keep the pace a bit quicker. It was a deeper dive into manipulating personalities and how far reaching they can be and how they operate.

The ending felt a bit inevitable to me, but this didn't detract from the unraveling. I would say why I thought this, but it would give too much of a clue, so I won't, but it is a compliment!

If you enjoy a puzzling whodunit with a wide cast of characters, and an examination of motives, I definitely recommend this! The audio really was a fantastic way to immerse myself in this story. Again, the number of POV's wasn't too hard to follow, possibly due to distinct voices from the narrator. I was invested in each woman's story, though some I liked more than others.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @macmillan.audio for giving me the chance to listen and share my thoughts! SPEAK OF THE DEVIL is available now, and I will be ready to see what Wilding writes next!

Seven women stand in shock in a seedy hotel room; a man's severed head sits in the centre of the floor. Each of the women - the wife, the teenager, the ex, the journalist, the colleague, the friend, and the woman who raised him - has a very good reason to have done it, yet each swears she did not. In order to protect each other, they must figure out who is responsible, all while staying one step ahead of the police.

Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman's secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer.

This one took me a bit to get into. Diverse characters, but I found with so many characters it was hard to keep track of them all. For me, no one really had a story that kept me interested. Jamie was AWFUL, but it was hard to REALLY hate him when I felt like I didn’t know half the women in the story.