Throughout the read of this book it was referred to as the "Halloween town cat book" among friends, but it goes so much deeper than that. The problem with secrets is that they don't stay buried forever, and in this story they come back to haunt you. Struggles of power, rich men, and entitled boys who have no limit to what they'll do.

A fast paced and bingeable read! Highly
recommend.

Also, major bonus points for the cat cover.

Excellent book! I could not put down no Rest for the Wicked. Intelligent, twisty, emotional. I loved the characters and how the story drew me in. Very well.done.

This was a thrilling murder mystery! Dolores has come home and found that her father is missing. Not wanting to accept the truth, she struggles to find out what's going on before it's too late!

This was such a fun, fast paced, thrilling mystery! Loved the vibes and this would be such a great Halloween read! Definitely recommend this for all fans of a spooky mystery!

No Rest For The Wicked is Rachel Louise Adams’s debut novel. One I highly enjoyed! It’s a slow burn thriller that I couldn’t put down.

First, can we just take a moment for that cover!!!! I freaking love it!!! I think this book will be flying off the shelves come this Halloween! 😻

It’s been almost twenty years since Dolores Hawthorne left home. She’s a successful pathologist out of LA. One day she gets a call saying her father is missing. The very father that she has been estranged from.

Some bad things happened back then, causing Dolores to flee her hometown in the first place. Your job is to figure out what and just who was responsible. And, where the heck is her father?

I finished this in two days and ate it right up! Can’t wait to see what she has coming out next!!! If you’re looking for a creepy read this coming spooky season, add No Rest For The Wicked to your TBR!!!

Thank you to Rachel Louise Adams, Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the opportunity.
Pub Date - 9/16/25
4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Almost 20 years ago, Dolores left her small town in Wisconsin for college and never looked back; until the FBI calls to tell her that her father is missing. Now she’s back in her hometown during Halloween-time and nothing is quite as it seems. Can she help figure out where her father is before it’s too late or will she suffer the same fate in the end?

The fact that this is Rachel Louise Adams’s first book is absolutely bonkers. I cannot wait to see what else she has in store for the future. Between the character development & the story progression, I felt that everything was flawlessly executed. I was kept guessing for the whole book and the twist at the end literally left me speechless. I would without a doubt recommend this book to anyone and everyone, it was that good in my opinion.

***Thank you NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for providing me with an ARC for my honest review***

This was a fast paced read with great character development, a dark secret, and lots of twists. The first chapter sucked me in and I couldn't put it down! Definitely put this book at the top of your TBR for spooky season!

No Rest for the Wicked has most of the ingredients for an excellent thriller. For a debut novel, the writing is strong, the plot is interesting, and there are several intriguing twists and turns. However, for me, the book needed a better pace and more atmosphere.
Adams does a good job creating characters that are complex, and then slowly pulling them apart so readers really get to know them, and care about what happens to them. The plot was messy, but believable, and the conclusion was stunning. Overall, the book is enjoyable.
The book alternates between points of views and past an present, and while it is a great way to slowly dole out pertinent clues, it really slows down the pace. And while I appreciate the author giving us some closure by continuing the story after the big reveal, it did take away from the intensity of the book.
I was also a little disappointed. The synopsis talks about how the town is obsessed with Halloween, which should have given the book the perfect atmosphere for a spooky, edge of your seat thriller, but instead it's barely mentioned. A big miss for me in setting the tone of the book.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Okay, so this book is super good, but everyone should know that the cover is extremely misleading. You're probably thinking that this is a cozy mystery involving a nice pleasant woman who owns a lot of black cats or something, right?? And the cats are all quirky and cute and wander around doing endearing cat things, right?? Right?? Wrong. The cats in this book are feral cats who are being rounded up and murdered. And also one gets hit by a car. They're not a major plot point and there's nothing graphic, but holy shit I was so not prepared for the direction that the cat subplot took in this book.

Anyway, other than the cat-related awfulness, I really enjoyed this one. When I first requested it from NetGalley, I was under the impression that it was a supernatural mystery, probably because of the cover and the repeated mentions of Halloween. It turns out that there's actually nothing otherworldly about the events in this book, which I probably would have realized if I hadn't skimmed the blurb and loudly squealed “Ooh! Cats! Ooh! Halloween!” and immediately requested it. It's more of the ever-popular “estranged daughter returns home” trope meets a police procedural type deal, which is absolutely not a bad thing. It's dark and suspenseful and well-written and I definitely did not see the identity of the Big Bad coming. Some of it is a tad predictable – I daresay that most readers will figure out the twist regarding the 2003 Halloween party before any of the characters do – but I certainly didn't expect the present-day plotline to play out the way it did.

Also, this is not a cozy, no matter what the cute kitties on the cover tell you. Trigger warnings include: murder, sexual assault, cat death, kidnapping (of adults), and parental estrangement. There are also a few slightly gruesome scenes, and no one is running a food truck or a chocolate shop while rekindling feelings for their old high school boyfriend … or whatever it is that the kids these days are doing in cozy mysteries, I dunno. Pretty much all of the characters are broken people having broken people thoughts and doing broken people things, but in a not-overly-depressing sort of way.

It kind of feels like No Rest for the Wicked could be start of a new series, and if so I will happily read the next installment as soon as I can get my hands on it. I'm totally not going to be fooled if it has adorable puppies on the cover, though, because fool-me-once and all of that.

My overall rating: 4.35 stars, rounded down.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is September 16, 2025.

The cover of the book immedatily caught my eye and made me want to read the book. Halloween is my favorite holiday, so another plus to this book. A father goes missing so the daughter, who left 20 years prior, returned home to find out what happened. this is the perfect read for Halloween season and it held my attention.

I’m honestly still recovering from this book—No Rest for the Wicked completely wrecked me in the best possible way. It’s dark, atmospheric, and wildly addictive, with twists that genuinely shocked me and characters that burrowed into my heart.

Dolores is a forensic pathologist who returns to her Halloween-obsessed hometown when her father goes missing. As bodies start piling up and secrets from the past claw their way to the surface, she is forced to confront a mystery that’s deeper—and darker—than she ever imagined. Between the small-town feuds, a legacy of unresolved trauma, and a decades-old disappearance that refuses to stay buried, this book had me hooked.

Dolores is such a brilliantly drawn character—sharp, vulnerable, emotionally raw—and watching her navigate both her complicated family and the creeping dread of what’s happening in Little Horton was just so compelling. The eerie small-town setting, obsessed with Halloween and shadowed by something darker beneath the surface, creates the perfect backdrop for a thriller like this.

The writing is sharp and emotional, the plot is masterfully paced, and the twists are so well-earned. There were several moments I thought I knew where the story was going and I was wrong. If you’re a fan of thrillers with strong emotional depth, unpredictable mysteries, and moody small-town settings, No Rest for the Wicked belongs on your TBR immediately.

Out September 16th, 2025—mark your calendars, because this is one you don’t want to miss. 🎃💀

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press | Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the complimentary eARC. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Dolores suddenly leaves California; a place she has called home for 20 years. She received a call from an FBI agent. Her father, Alexander is missing. Dolores swore she would never return to Little Horton, Wisconsin. Yet she is on the first plane… Why? Why hasn’t she been home in 20 years? Why is she willing to go now? All will be revealed…
There really were several mysteries in this book. What happened to Dolores to make her leave the father she loved and the town where everyone knew her name. Was her father kidnapped or killed and are those two things related?
This story has everything. More than one mystery and who doesn’t love a town that is known for Halloween. There was one aspect that I hoped with lead to a different resolution. I can’t say I was surprised, though when it didn’t what happened that made Dolores leave was tragic, and the decisions her father made, broke my heart.

You had me at Halloween and cats, but this was so much more than that! This book had some dark secrets, a missing person, and a daughter returning home after being gone for 20 years. This was fast paced, fun, and I maybe had one glistening tear at the end. I think I just read the perfect Halloween book! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

I was invited by the publisher to review this book. A town in Wisconsin has a reputation: its love of Halloween, and the violent deaths linked to that day. Dolores left there years ago due to many bad things, but as a forensic pathologist, is called to the town by the FBI to investigate the disappearance of a senator, who is also her father. But she doesn't get a warm welcome from her family, and her dad's advice, to trust no one, has her worrying. With Halloween approaching, she enters into a race against time to solve the mystery surrounding her father.

While this is not a genre or type of book I would normally seek out on my own, I actually really enjoyed this book. This was a very intriguing plotline, with enough twists that the ending certainly could not have been predicted. The writing was also very well-done, and this book read as though a seasoned author wrote it. Also, the atmosphere in this book was just phenomenal.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minatour Books for the ARC.

Good read, twists and turns. Fast paced, figured it out midway through but still interesting enough to be ok with it.

No rest for the Wicked by Rachel Louise Adams is a thrilling mystery about a dark secret about to be exposed. Dolores finds out that her estranged father has gone missing, forcing her to return to her home town to face her family and the secrets she has tried to forget. Little does she know that the secrets are about to be pushed into the limelight when bodies turn up.
This is a fast paced twisty thriller that will leave you guessing. It is a quick read because you don't want to put it down because you have to know who is behind the murders and why.
Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Minotaur Books for the advanced copy.

This book was intriguing to me. It kept my attention, the characters were well developed, the story was great, emotions were raw, it was really good. I felt myself wanting more as I felt like I became an outsider looking in. I was really impressed. Definitely a good choice for someone who wants a good book with a good story and great characters. Not to mention, cats lol!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Excellent murder mystery. Did not see the ending coming out the way it did. Would highly recommend this book to my friends.

What a phenomenal debut novel for Rachel Louise Adams! No Rest for the Wicked sucked me in from the first chapter. The setting in a sleepy town of Little H, known for its Halloween celebrations and the folklore of a curse that’s been around for centuries was the perfect place for this mystery to take place. I was thoroughly surprised to find out who was behind the murders in this story and ate up every bit of info along the way. With this novel debuting September 15th I highly suggest anyone that enjoys a good spooky mystery to add this to their Fall/October reading lists!

Thank you NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for the eARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

New author for me and a fun first book to be introduced by. I loved the unraveling of the secrets between the Hawthornes and Winslow. I was actually even a little surprised. I would definitely read another book by this author.