This had a slow start, and to be honest I almost DNF’d just because it wasn’t quite what I was expecting it to be. But I’m glad I stuck it out because the end was great! Thank you NetGalley for this ARC. This was a great book to start spooky season off with.

🐈‍⬛ARC REVIEW🐈‍⬛

Get Spooky September 16th

What a perfect little spooky read. Set in a fictional Salem-esque small town, the Halloween vibes were vibing! Congrats to the author on this slow burn, thriller debut!

Thank you @netgalley @stmartinspress @minotaur_books

#netgalley #norestforthewicked #thrillerbooks #thrillerbooksaddict #thrillerreads #bookstagram #fyp

Dolores left home 18 years ago; she left behind all she knew to start over. She vowed to never go back to her hometown until she got a phone call from the FBI informing her father is missing under suspicious circumstances. She leaves her home in LA to head back to her hometown in Little Horton, Wisconsin. When she arrives, the FBI questions the last time she spoke with her father, and she tells them she hasn't spoken to him since she left home. They found a note that he was writing to Dolores before he disappeared filled with a cryptic message including not to trust anyone. Things start to unravel, and memories Dolores blocked out start to return. What is happening in this small quiet Halloween town?

Thank you Netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC!

This book was not at all what I expected, in a good way! It was a bit slow going to begin with, but the last 25% was wild. When Dolores goes back home after 18 years because her father is missing, she surely didn't expect past secrets to unravel so spectacularly. I love it.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this eARC for review. All opinions are my own.

This started as a 3 star for me, but ending up making for a really good intro to spooky season! There is a substory line about feral cats throughout the town, but other than that this is not a cozy! Someone is getting revenge! Dolores returns home decades after she left when her father goes missing. The reactions of those around the family and town are odd, but then other things start happening. Her dreams/visions were more confusing and distracting than foreshadowing or providing suspense. But, as the story grew, the fact that they existed made sense even though I didn't feel like they fit in with the story as cohesively as they could have. And then the twists. And then Halloween where everything comes together! Yep, it was all wound up in a tight twisty suspenseful ball making for a really good fall read!

Dolores left Little Horton, Wisconsin close to twenty years ago. Little Horton is famous for its Halloween celebrations, but also its violent history associated with this holiday. When Dolores receives a call from the FBI telling her that her father is missing, she’s forced to return to the place she left all the bad memories behind.

NO REST FOR THE WICKED is an excellent read for the fall and for spooky season in particular. It’s set in October in the small town of Little Horton. Little Horton is a town that’s famous for its Halloween scene and it’s associated violent history. The setting is atmospheric, eerie, and just a touch unsettling. The novel is told in the third person, mostly by Dolores, but there are several POVs from other key characters: Wyatt, Kate, and Paul, with some shorter scenes in other characters’ POVs as well. It’s not confusing in the least though, each snapshot in a different character’s view adds key information to the plot.

NO REST FOR THE WICKED also features dual timelines, the present, and Halloween 2003 where something occurred that forced Dolores to flee the town. I enjoyed both timelines, though I was definitely more interested in the present timeline. The past timeline is crucial to giving context to what’s happening in the present. I pieced together the present timeline before the characters did, but the past one took me a little longer to figure out, only coming crystal clear as it was revealed. The author executed both timelines well, interweaving them together seamlessly to up the ante as the novel progressed.

A last note is that the cover of this novel is possibly misleading as the cats on the cover aren’t really all that relevant to the plot. There are cats in the novel, but their presence is more of a plot device or sub-theme than anything else. As a nod to Halloween – I think it works nicely.

A strong debut!

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher, Minotaur Books, for the opportunity to read this advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review! All opinions expressed are my own.

"No Rest for the Wicked” by Rachel Louise Adams is an entertaining 5-star read! Forensic pathologist Dolores Hawthorne receives a call from the FBI asking her to return to her hometown of Little Horton, Wisconsin, which she left nearly two decades earlier. Little Horton is famous for its Halloween festivities, which are about to begin. Can the FBI and Dolores get to the bottom of a kidnapping before there are more victims?

The story is mainly told through Dolores’s perspective, but there are also chapters from Kate Butcher, a local police officer, and FBI Agent Wyatt Holt, one of the agents assigned to her father’s investigation. The pace is intense and the tension high. I was on the edge of my seat and had to know what would happen next. We also get a great look at Dolores and what drove her to cut ties with her hometown before moving to Los Angeles. I hope the author turns this into a series, but even if she doesn’t, I look forward to seeing what Rachel Louise Adams writes next!

Thanks to St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books, Rachel Louise Adams, and NetGalley for providing me with the opportunity to read this ARC and share my honest review.

This is the perfect book for spooky season, a thriller set in a Halloween obsessed town on Halloween! I cannot wrap my head around the fact that this is a debut! The tension, twists, character building.. all of it was so well done! I keep texting my friends to start it asap, and I will not rest until they do! The audio was perfection, but once I started, I didn’t want to stop, so I did read some physical when I couldn’t listen! I loved all the Halloween traditions in the small town, it reminded me of my hometown and made me connect with the story and characters even more! Filled with morally grey characters and some well placed twists, this will have you guessing until the end! I’m so excited to see how Rachel follows this one up!

I loved this novel! One of my favorite tropes is a story about a person leaving their small town due to a mysterious tragedy, then being drawn back later in life as the mystery begins to unravel. This was that type of book, but with the added benefit of being set in a town that loves Halloween - a perfect combination! Rachel Louise Adams does a great job of grounding her story in the familiarity of the trope, while still leaving space for surprises.

I appreciated how Adams laid out the mystery - it felt like the audience was given all the clues to solve the mystery, but at just the right time. I did guess the twists, but only a little before they were revealed. I could see this becoming a series, especially if Dolores does end up (SPOILER!) taking the job offer.

The writing was great and kept me engaged throughout. I appreciated the multiple POVs, which helped balance the story. I am impressed that this is Adams' debut and cannot wait to read her subsequent books.

A situation with Delores’ father led to her leaving home almost 20 years earlier, dropping all connections with her family. She became a forensic pathologist in California, never expecting to return to Wisconsin. Until the FBI called about her father going missing and encouraging her to return, which she does. Her hometown is noted for Halloween celebrations and deaths. It’s a strange, unwelcoming town and the longer Delores stays there, the darker it becomes. The farther I got into the story, the more intriguing it became until I couldn’t put it down. Strange relationships and an unexpected ending, well worth it.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an eARC of No Rest for the Wicked. This is my honest opinion.

This is a slow burn, yet thrilling story. Full of twist, turns and unexpected surprises. Dolores goes home after 18yrs because her father is missing. The author does a fantastic job in unraveling the plot and subplots. The author also does a fantastic job in character building. I immediately connected with the characters in the story.

This is a perfect book for Halloween season. It is a true thriller with lots of gore to go with it. If you aren't offended by the gore then you will like this book. I found it a bit to much at times.

Thank you to NetGalley and to St. Martin's Press for the early read.

The bones of this mystery are there, but the prose needs some work. This reminds me of bread dough-it starts out as a shaggy mess, but with kneading and shaping, can become something greater than the sum of its parts. We’re still in the shaggy mess phase here though. This story is pretty light on character development and description. I found it hard to get a good sense of the people ostensibly driving the plot. I also found the scene transitions to be confusing-one minute a character was in one place having a conversation, and in the next sentence the action had completely changed venue and cast. My biggest challenge, however, were the constant descriptive incongruities. Lungs “smelled” butter and burnt tires; teeth “tasted” anger. The most jarring example, however, was someone drinking from a “polyester” cup. Such an item may exist, but I have never heard of it and it took me right out of the story. The dialogue also never rung true-many characters spoke like they were extras from a Humphrey Bogart movie even though they were relatively young. There is potential here, but it’s not there yet.

Rachel Louise Adams’s No Rest for the Wicked is a chilling debut that perfectly captures the suspense and dread of a classic horror movie, while grounding it in a richly atmospheric Midwestern town steeped in Halloween lore. Following forensic pathologist Dolores Hawthorne’s reluctant return home after her senator father goes missing, the novel weaves together small-town secrets, family tensions, and a creeping sense of menace that kept me hooked from start to finish. Adams balances character-driven depth with pulse-pounding suspense, making the story both emotionally gripping and terrifyingly immersive. I read along with the audiobook, which heightened the eerie tension and brought Dolores’s voice and inner fears vividly to life, an experience I highly recommend for anyone looking to be fully transported into this dark and unsettling world.

Do yourself a favor and on September 16th pick up a copy of No Rest For The Wicked by Rachel Louise Adams!! I finished at about 2:00 AM this morning and have not been able to stop thinking about it. This is a perfect book to read this fall due to it taking place at Halloween time. I loved everything about this book!! The characters, the town, the setting, the dual timelines, the suspense, the gruesome deaths, the secrets, the relationships, literally everything! I felt immersed in the small town of Little Horton and felt like I was there watching everything play out. I was creeped out and nervous and then shed a few tears. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC and after finishing it this morning I had to preorder a hard cover copy. I look forward to whatever Rachel Louise Adams writes next! Definitely hoping for more in the world of these characters! Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press - Minotaur Books for the ARC!!!

3.5 ⭐️ This was not what I expected based off the cover, but it wasn’t bad overall. Don’t go into this expecting a cozy mystery. It’s a semi-dark thriller with some animal violence so tread lightly if that’s a trigger for you. I’d definitely read something else by this author.

A good book to read during the Halloween season. Dolores left town and has returned after many years because her father has disappeared. She has to come to terms with what made her leave and get to know her half brother and sister. She begins working with the FBI to solve the case. There are many twists in this story. Part of the story is about reuniting with family and coming to terms with the past. The other part is the mystery/thriller. When there are more dead bodies, Dolores wonders if it has to do with what happened all those years ago.

I really enjoyed this story. It has everything that would make a great Halloween movie. Can your past really haunt you? If you are looking for something seasonal then this is a book for you.

Thank you to #NetGalley, #RachelLouiseAdams, and #MinotaurBooks for a copy of this book.
#NoRestfortheWicked

No Rest for the Wicked pulled me in right away and never let go. For a horror novel, it surprised me with how much heart it carried—especially through Dolores and the deep, fierce love she has for her siblings. Rachel Adams wrote that bond so vividly that you can’t help but love Dolores yourself, flaws and all.
The story delivers on its horror, of course—dark, unsettling, and deliciously eerie—but what really made it stand out for me was the balance between fear and tenderness. The unraveling of the plot kept me hooked, and the ending was both satisfying and powerful, tying everything together in a way that felt earned.
It’s not often that a horror book leaves me both creeped out and moved, but this one did. A fantastic read—I can’t wait to see what Rachel Adams writes next.

Was so stoked to be able to read an early physical copy along with the audiobook …. And both are chefs kiss! Such an amazing debut I look forward to reading many more books by this author! This is such a HIT!!!!!!!!!!!!

A pathologist who counts bones in her head for comfort returns to her hometown in this suspense debut. Dolores is forced to return to the Halloween obsessed town of Little Horton when her father disappears under mysterious circumstances. Once there, the bodies start piling up and the only way to find the killer is to confront the event that drove Dolores away 20 years before. This read brings the thrills and an almost slasher-like feel painted in dark, creepy colors. Great reading for dark, autumnal nights!