Today I’m joining the blog tour for The Blue Hour. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

WELCOME TO ERIS – A SCOTTISH TIDAL ISLAND WITH ONLY ONE HOUSE, ONE INHABITANT,
ONE WAY OUT. . .

A place that is unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day. Once the hideaway of Vanessa, a famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace. A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, Grace receives an unexpected visitor.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge . . .

Review:

I was so excited to have the opportunity to read and review The Blue Hour, and the excitement was definitely not misplaced. I found it quite different in style to her other novels, in that it felt much more descriptive and the tension in the plot mostly bubbled under the surface rather than being more overt. I wondered if this difference in style was intended to reflect the artistic themes in the novel. It works really well, and despite the plot being more slow burning than I expected, I was completely compelled to keep reading the whole way through.

There are many scenes in the novel set on the island of Eris. It’s a beautiful, but very isolated setting and I loved how it provided a lot of the atmosphere in the story. Paula Hawkins descriptions are incredibly vivid and I loved being transported to the island and lost in it’s secrets.

The characters in The Blue Hour are undoubtedly its strength. From the beginning, I was really intrigued by Vanessa and her lifestyle, and I loved how the author gave us the opportunity to learn more about her, despite her untimely death, through both her diaries and some flashback scenes. 

Grace is also a brilliant character who is really well constructed, and I love her different aspects of her character emerge over the course of the novel. There were times when she really got under my skin, and times when I actually felt quite a bit of sympathy for her and I love the author’s skill in making me change my mind so many times!

There are a few twists and turns as the novel reaches its conclusion and I will definitely be thinking about this story for a long time to come.

The Blue Hour is available from Amazon.

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