ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins

The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins will be published by Doubleday on 10th October 2024 in hardcover, eBook and audiobook. My thanks to the publishers for the gorgeous hardback proof with blue sprayed edges.

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 . . .

The Blue Hour is Paula Hawkins’ much anticipated fourth novel. Having read two of her previous three, in my opinion The Blue Hour absolutely blows them all out of the water.

Eris Island is now home to Grace and was once home to Vanessa Chapman, a celebrated artist. When Vanessa died she left her collection to be housed at Fairburn House, a country estate and home to other great artworks and sculptures. James Becker is the curator of the collection and a Chapman aficionado, and when an alarming discovery linked to Vanessa is made, he must travel to Eris and seek clarity from Grace, a woman who knew her well.

There’s so much more to this book than first appears. There is such depth to the writing, the emotions and the unfolding of events, and the plot is complex and twisty. It has an almost indefinable something that I love in books: a melting pot of a touch of mystery, a bohemian feel, and an undercurrent of simmering menace and tension. Add in not only a remote Scottish island but a country house too and it makes this book pretty much perfect.

Eris is an incredibly atmospheric setting. Grace has a lonely existence there, looking across to the houses in the bay, cut off from the mainland for half of every day when the tide rolls in. Becker proves to be both a welcome and unwelcome visitor, with the discovery opening up old wounds. Much of the story is told from the point of view of either Grace or Becker, interspersed with Vanessa’s letters and diary entries, and Hawkins brings all the strands together expertly to create an edgy, thrilling and absorbing read.

I soaked up every bit of this book, savoured every word. I didn’t want it to end but when it did, it did so in chilling style. Brilliant!

PAULA HAWKINS worked as a journalist for fifteen years before writing her first book. Paula was born and brought up in Zimbabwe. She moved to London in 1989 and has lived there ever since. Her first thriller, The Girl on the Train, has sold 23 million copies worldwide. Published in over fifty languages, it has been a Number 1 bestseller around the world and was a box office hit film starring Emily Blunt.

Paula’s second thriller, Into the Water, and her latest book, A Slow Fire Burning, were also instant Number 1 bestsellers.