Shaw Connolly is obsessed with her sister, Thea, who disappeared 16 years ago. It doesn’t help that Anders, who claims to have taken her, calls her repeatedly to taunt Shaw. Her work is stagnant because she needs to be near where her Thea disappeared, she has separated from her husband and her kids are slowly inching away - all because of her obsession. I found it difficult to relate to the characters, didn’t find them very deep. The plot could have used a little help, in terms of keeping it exciting and drawing me in.

DNF @35%. This book was just too slow for me. I am interested in knowing how it ends because it does feel like it’s been building a good amount of tension and I do want to know if her sister is found. I did not like the third person POV. I may return to this in the future but I’m gonna give it some time for now.

The last couple of days have been a blur of books and page flips, and yeah, I’ve been on a bit of a three-star streak lately. But hey—three stars isn’t a bad thing in my book. Not everything has to blow the doors off to be worth reading.

Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell by Gillian French sits firmly in that three-star zone for me: solid, engaging, but not a knockout. It’s got strong bones, a good premise, and some great atmosphere—but I just wanted a little more punch.

Shaw Connolly is a fingerprint analyst in a quiet Maine town, pulled into a string of arsons while still haunted by the disappearance of her sister Thea sixteen years ago. The loss has carved a hole in her life, and her relentless pursuit of answers is starting to take a toll on her relationships. Then she gets a call—from a man named Anders Jansen, who claims he knows what happened to Thea. He confesses, taunts, stalks, but never quite gives her the truth. Shaw has to decide just how far she’s willing to go to drag that truth into the light.

It’s a slow burn, no doubt. The mystery is solid, the setting—icy, rural Maine in winter—is moody and immersive, and Shaw has potential as a character. But the dialogue didn’t always land for me, and the pacing dragged in places. I never fully clicked in—but I didn’t regret the read either. And I have to say, the ending worked. It stuck the landing.

Would I read more from Gillian French? Definitely. Honestly, if this turned into a series, I think these characters have enough depth to grow into something bigger. The forensic angle alone has serious potential.

So yes, another three stars. But not in a “meh” way—in a “this had something, and I’m glad I gave it a shot” way.

Unfortunately, this book just wasn’t for me. I had trouble connecting with the story and the characters, and it didn’t hold my interest the way I’d hoped. While I’m sure others may enjoy it, it simply didn’t work for me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I love a good stalker, serial killer tale. And this one intrigued me a lot. It's a story about a medical examiner, that is hung up on her sister's disappearance. She is sure that the person who keeps calling her in the middle of the night, to tease, to torment, to talk, to stalk is the one responsible for her sister. As well as other murders in the area. Noone is taking her idea seriously, as the stalker hasn't done anything to Shaw herself.

This was part domestic suspense - as there are a lot of family dynamics involved. A husband who is tired of Shaw's obsession, a father who is just as obsessed but also ailing and now moving in. Dating. Kids. Everything just kept adding to the character of Shaw. But mainly this was a mystery to solve for Shaw.

I loved the serial killer part of this story. The escalating anger. The weird phone calls. The police search throwing off him and making it harder for him to keep on bugging Shaw. It brought on this suspense the story really needed.

But overall, I wasn't sold on Shaw's character herself. She was hard headed, but felt lost. Not sure which way to pull or push. And it didn't feel realistic for her involvement in the whole ordeal until of course the final reveal. It was just too late for me to care about the stalker's obsession. He felt like he was just doing everything "just because". That AHA moment came too late.

This was a lot of rambling to say that this was an ok Mystery. It won't be one I'll think about a lot. Having it read via audiobook I think helped me with the rating. Thank you to the publisher for my review copy.

🕵️‍♀️ARC Review ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5 Stars)
"Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell" by Gillian French

If you enjoy slow burns with an undercurrent of dread, this could be a good fit for you. But if you’re wired for adrenaline and twists galore like me, you may find yourself watching the clock. "Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell" takes its sweet, spooky time getting to the finish.

The story revolves around Shaw, whose sister vanished sixteen years ago. When a mysterious voice on the phone begins to drop sinister hints, the book promises an intriguing mystery that I couldn’t resist!

As a fingerprint analyst, Shaw brings an exciting forensic edge to the slow unraveling of her sister's disappearance. And the small-town setting adds an eerie tension that simmers beneath the surface, but never quite boils over.

The premise was great, but I craved a faster pace.

Thanks to Minotaur Books/St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio for the gifted ARCs. All opinions are my own and left voluntarily.

Thank you to @stmartinspress , @minitourbooks and Netgalley for my #gifted copy


Shaw’s older sister disappeared when Shaw was young. This disappearance has rocked her and the families world with year after year of no answers. Emotionally tense and complicated, the love of family and obsession that makes everything complicated. I really liked Shaws character and her deep love for her sister and the way she didn’t ever want to give up on her. It was a little bit of a slow burn while the killer played phone games with Shaw. It kept that pace through the middle. The end was so fast paced it had me sucked in to see how these decisions would turn out! 3.5✨

This is one of those slow burn, chilling thrillers you think about days after finishing.
I will admit, at first I struggled with the pace of this book. I also found some of the police procedure scenes to drag too long, but when it came to action French brought it at the end.
Shaw is a fingerprint analyst, and while she seems to love it, she also seems to want to play detective. She is especially involved in trying to solve the case of her missing sister. Between the cold case of her sister’s disappearance, a man stalking and calling her for years, and the scenes of the crime she visits for prints, this books basically makes up everything you want in a thriller.
This eerie and scenic mystery is not one to miss.
Thank you Netgalley and Minotaur books for the arc!

How far would you go to find a family member that disappeared 16 years ago? Shaw Connolly tries to move past the disappearance of her sister, but just can't quite get there. Is the person calling her really involved in the disappearance or is he after something more sinister? Really good thriller, with a little humor thrown in from time to time. Will Shaw finally found out what happened to her sister? You'll have to read the book to find out. Highly recommend.

Thank you to Minotaur Books for the gifted ARC!

First of all, I just have to say that the cover is perfection and totally set the mood here!

I was so excited for this one as the synopsis sounds like my ideal book. While it was a fun read, it did seem to drag on a little too much for me.

The ending was worth the slower parts, but I wish we had more of that action up front. I still feel like I'm left with more questions than answers even after finishing.

Overall, I think this will be a hit for some and a miss for others- I'm somewhere in between!

Thanks to Minotaur books and Netgalley for this eARC.

Gillian French’s Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell is a haunting, frostbitten plunge into the psyche of a woman who’s spent sixteen years chasing the ghost of her sister—and is finally ready to confront the monster behind the mask.

Set against the stark, isolating backdrop of rural Maine, the novel introduces Shaw Connolly, a fingerprint analyst whose professional precision is at odds with the emotional chaos of her personal life. Her marriage is unraveling, her sons are slipping through her fingers, and the disappearance of her sister Thea still pulses like an open wound. When a man named Anders Jansen begins calling—taunting her with cryptic clues and veiled threats—Shaw is pulled into a psychological cat-and-mouse game that threatens to consume what little she has left.

French’s prose is sharp and unsentimental, yet laced with a quiet lyricism that captures the ache of unresolved grief. Shaw is not your typical thriller heroine—she’s abrasive, foul-mouthed, and emotionally raw—but that’s precisely what makes her so compelling. She’s not chasing justice for closure; she’s chasing it because it’s the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

What elevates this novel beyond standard suspense is its layered structure. French weaves together past and present with forensic precision, allowing the reader to piece together the mystery alongside Shaw. The tension builds not just from the threat of violence, but from the slow, suffocating realization that the truth may be worse than the not-knowing.

Anders Jansen, the antagonist, is chilling in his restraint—a predator who weaponizes knowledge and patience. His presence looms like a shadow over every page, and French wisely keeps him just out of reach until the final, breathless confrontation.

Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell is less about solving a mystery and more about surviving it. It’s a story of obsession, resilience, and the high cost of truth. French’s adult debut is a triumph of atmosphere and character, and Shaw Connolly is a name you won’t soon forget.

So incredibly slow moving. I disliked Shaw and her alternately angry temper and folksy joking demeanor. There are some decent moments, and the audiobook did help me to get all the way through it.

Shaw Connolly is a fingerprint analyst who is haunted by the disappearance of her sister Thea 16 years ago. Both she and her father have never given up the search to find out what happened to Thea. Shaw has been getting phone calls from a man she knows as Anders Jansen who basically admits to killing Thea, but taunts Shaw with tiny bits of information.

Although this book had potential, the mystery was so slow. The phone caller angle was over-dramatic and I just could not believe that even with recordings, the police didn't investigate his involvement further. I wanted the book to be more creepy, maybe with a twist to reveal that the villain wasn't who we thought it was. But no, we know his identity from the beginning, so it was really anti-climactic when it all came together.

Shaw's obsession with finding answers totally takes over her life. Even with that, I found her character very bland and wishy washy. The audiobook narration of her character has a very odd Boston accent. I generally like Saskia Maarleveld's narration, but I didn't care for the way she voiced Shaw in this book.

This is one of the harder reviews for me to write. There were so many things I liked about this book but there were also things that made it hard to get through. The hardest thing for me was the extremely slow burn. I really wanted to DNF this book for the first 70% of it because it was so hard to get through. Police procedurals are usually mixed for me and this one just didn't engage me. I was surprised at how much I loved the end of the book considering it was such a difficult beginning for me. I just don't think the ending was enough to outdo my feelings about the beginning.

Shaw's character was relentless but so was the repetitive chapters about fingerprinting. I just felt very bored with the whole book.

Underwhelmed. It dragged on and on, and the dialogue between Shaw and the killer was boring. I struggled to get through the book, and wasn’t impressed with the ending. A huge miss for me.

My review is voluntary and all comments and opinions are my own

If the purpose of this story was to make you feel uncomfortable, it succeeded, but I didn't finish reading it for that same reason,

Shaw's sister was murdered, possibly or probably by a man she identifies as Anders. Over the years, he will call her and torment her with details, but she doesn't know where her sister is buried, so she takes the calls to try to determine where the remains can be found. She goes into law enforcement in the forensics field and refuses to move up or move on as finding her sister is her mission in life. Admirable, yes.

It was the calls from Anders that I didn't like. A twisted person for sure, he seemed delighted to keep her on edge, but I didn't like the feeling so I stopped reading rather early on. Maybe it's a good story, but I won't be finishing it for that reason.

Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy. Honest opinions expressed here are my own and are freely given.

Living in Suspense

Gillian French spins a gripping suspense story in this fast paced thriller. shaw's sister disappeared sixteen years ago, and she still seeks closure. French's story of Shaw's continued grief and the obsession to locate the body of her missing sister brings a depth to the character and pathos to the story. There is a balance between the physical action and the inner dialogue that explores the character's psychological trauma. I couldn't put this novel down. This is my first time reading this author , but it won't be my last.

Her sister disappeared 16 years ago. Since then, everything Shaw Connolly does is tinged with her search for her sister. As a fingerprint technician, Shaw sees the worst that one person can do to another; she's seen so many horrific scenes, yet still hopes to find her sister alive. As her search intensifies, Shaw's personal life begins to crumble. But now she has a stalker, a man who says he knows what happened 16 years ago.
Gillian French does an excellent job of building tension; you can feel Shaw's desperate hope and the pressure cooker her job causes her each time the victim is a young woman. When the ultimate villain inserts himself into her life, you'll feel her horror. This is definitely a thriller, I was up long after everyone else went to bed. BUT, it was worth it!!

Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell is an intense, action-packed thriller that grabs you from the opening scene and doesn’t let go. Shaw Connolly is a compelling protagonist — tough, resourceful, and deeply human. The plot moves at a breakneck pace, with high stakes and unexpected twists that keep the tension high throughout.

The author does an excellent job weaving in sharp dialogue, vivid settings, and just enough emotional depth to make you care about the characters. Whether you’re a longtime thriller fan or new to the genre, Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell delivers a gripping read that’s hard to put down.

This book is definitely a slow burn and it took me a bit to get into it. It doesn't help that really don't like the main character very much. You know who the perpetrator is from the beginning of the book so the main mystery is what happened to Shaw's sister. However I'm really happy that I stuck in there and completed the book. Once I got into the second half I became much more invested in the story and read straight through to the end. Don't give up on this book. It gets there in the end!

Thank you Netgalley and Minotaur Books. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc. I really enjoyed the story and it kept me intrigued and wanting to continue on. I just didn’t love the ending. Felt like it was missing something. Still would recommend as I enjoyed it.