#benjamin stevenson

[readingoals]

Going into this I was a little worried I wouldn't like it, that it'd feel too much like trying to copy or cash in on the success of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. But it didn't! It kept the tone and voice of the first book but was a separate story with new characters so I never felt like it was an unnecessary sequel. It will be interesting to see if he writes more though. I think he could get away with a few more but the way these mysteries are presented I think makes them hard to keep doing indefinitely.

Anyway, The characters were fun, the mystery was interesting, and I really love Ernest as a narrator. Also, another Aussie author, we love to see it! I had a blast with this one and ended up giving it 5 stars.

#booklr #everyone on this train is a suspect #benjamin stevenson #brigid speaks #read in 2024 #book update

[peppermintplush]

Happy World Book Day!!!!!! 📔📚

#art #my art #happy world book day #you can like harry potter but not jk rowling #everyone on this train is a suspect #benjamin stevenson #fahrenheit 451 #ray bradbury #harry potter and the philosopher's stone #harry potter

[razreads]

Owe, owe, owe. You use that word so much. A family is not a credit card.

Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

#razreads #book quote #everyone in my family has killed someone #benjamin stevenson #family #gratitude #debt #love #queue have a good day now

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

Here's sample of Don't Hang Up by Benjamin Stevenson, narrated by Luke Arnold and Sibylla Budd.

Description:

‘You and I are going to have a chat. If you hang up, this girl dies.’ Adam Turner works the mid-dawn shift at his local radio station. From 12am to 6am, it’s his job to fill the airtime with old songs, inane chatter, and the occasional talkback caller. It’s a long way from his prime-time slot from over a decade ago, when he was a star in the making. Now there’s no producers, no billboards, no stakes, and, crucially, not many listeners. His frequent callers are drunk college students headed home from a night out, or long-range truck drivers. He is completely alone in the studio from midnight until dawn every night. And then one night at 12:45am, he gets a different kind of call, with higher stakes than he could ever have wanted. The caller’s rules are simple – stay on the line, live on air, until dawn, or the woman they are holding captive will die. The night wears on and Adam is tormented by his caller, forced to answer increasingly personal questions, exposing his fall from grace for all to hear. He must try to figure out just who is calling him, what they really want, and how he can stop them. All while staying live on air, and keeping the psycho talking. But as the conversation gets deeper, is Adam willing to broadcast his darkest secrets to the world in order to keep a stranger safe?

You can buy full version of Don't Hang Up by Benjamin Stevenson on Audible here

#black sails #luke arnold #john silver #audiobook #don't hang up #benjamin stevenson #sibylla budd #audible #audible australia #SoundCloud

[princessofbookaholics]

🄲🅄🅁🅁🄴🄽🅃🄻🅈 🅁🄴🄰🄳🄸🄽🄶

#books #booklr #book #reading #read #bookworm #reads #bookaholic #bookaddict #2023 reads #currently reading #everyone in my family has killed someone #benjamin stevenson #thriller books #thriller #thrillers

[libertyreads]

March Wrap Up 2024--

What a month that was. Did I read more than what I was supposed to? Yes. Am I mad about it? No. My goal for the year is to stay between 52 and 104 books read which means I need to read roughly 8 books per month (technically 8.6 or something like that) at the maximum. All this basically means is that I have to stick to reading 8 books next month. I blame the fact that my library hold came in 2 weeks early and I really didn't want to get back in line for it since it took so long to come in. Let's get to what I read and what I rated what I read.

Comics/Graphic Novels-- 1. Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo--3.75 stars (original rating).

Novellas-- 1. Must Love Hockey by Sarina Bowen (Kindle)--3.75 stars.

2. The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark (NetGalley)--4 stars.

Novels-- 1. No Coincidence by Rafat Kosik--1.75 stars.

2. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu--3 stars.

3. The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah--3.75 stars.

4. Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson (Library)--4 stars.

5. Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes (NetGalley)--3.25 stars.

6. The Foxglove King by Hannah F. Whitten--4.25 stars (original rating).

The average star rating for the month ended up being 3.5 stars which was such a surprise given that this is the month with my worst rated book of the year so far. Not too shabby though.

#wrap up #monthly wrap up #march wrap up #books read in 2024 #2024 reading challenge #goodreads challenge #goodreads #bookish #booklr #bookblr #bookstagram #teen titans: raven #teen titans #must love hockey #Sarina bowen #the dead cat tail assassins #p. djeli clark #no coincidence #Rafat Kosik #the three-body problem #cixin liu #the three body problem #the stardust thief #Chelsea abdullah #everyone on this train is a suspect #Benjamin stevenson #ghost station #s.a. barnes #the foxglove king #Hannah f. whitten

[bookswordsworlds]

Dad always came out at night; it came with the territory. I have affectionate memories of him, I truly do, but what I think of most when I think about him is the spaces he left. It was easier to tell where my dad had been than to see where he was. The empty armchair in the living room. The plate in the oven. Stubble in the bathroom sink. Three empty holsters in a six-pack in the fridge. My father was footprints, residue.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

#Quote #Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone #Benjamin Stevenson #Fathers #Dad #Detail & Description #Character Introductions #Reversals #Good Writing

[spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub]

SO's Bookclub : Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

Title: Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone Author: Benjamin Stevenson Genre: Mystery

Goodreads Summary:

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate.

I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Review:

Here's what hooked me on this one -- it's got a catchy title and appealing cover, the author starts out the novel by giving you the rules of Golden Age detective novels, and then lays out the page number of ever murder. Why yes - I am in.

This is a good book. It's a fun book. It's a way too overly complicated book. But man, it's nice to read a really good mystery not written by Agatha Christie.

Intentionally, I'm sure -- a lot like how Agatha Christie does excels at writing mysteries based around family, Stevenson takes the shell of the idea (and let's be honest - some of the twists), updates it, and then metatextualizes it. And it's a relatively functional, albeit silly when you pull it a part a little, mystery.

The crux of it is about a dysfunctional family that gets snowed in at a remote lodge. There's the hook of revealing that everyone in the family is responsible for a death. And the intrigue that a serial killer is in the mix.

The book starts out really solidly. The narrator, of course, breaks the fourth wall all the way through (and while I see it might be tiring for some, I really didn't get sick of it, but I like these gimmicky things -- it tied it into the 'rules' rather well). The cast of his characters (his family) is relatively well drawn is really the right amount of people for this closed-circle mystery.

About half way through - I think the plot gets a little too twisty, and there were times in the second half that I don't think I completely followed what had happened in the past to get all the pieces of the puzzle in motion. The family dynamics were great - but the mystery itself maybe needed to be trimmed just a little because even through the ending explanation I don't think I followed it 100%.

The major twist of the novel I kind of saw coming -- only in that this does play like a Golden Age detective novel at heart, and well, of course it was going to go that way. The crazy twist at the end left me feeling a little confused because... wha--why?? I think the answer is -- because the author could and there's always one thread left open a little.

Overall, though, it's a fun read. I love the fun the author's having with the audience. I enjoyed all the call backs to the Golden Age of detective fiction. I liked that it was a solid mystery that unfolded nicely as it went along. I think the author did well with the title of the book and made it creative enough to make it variations on a theme. And while I think there were some clunkier parts (again the plot is just a little too twisty to follow at times) it's over all an engaging and worthwhile mystery.

I liked it. It was a good book.

Rating : 4.5 Stars

#books #book review #sbc bookclub #everyone in my family has killed someone #benjamin stevenson

[caribeandthebooks]

Caribe's Mystery/Thriller/Horror Fiction TBR - Part 2

#the dinner #herman koch #a taste of darkness #strange sally diamond #liz nugent #everyone in my family has killed someone #benjamin stevenson #angels and demons #dan brown #the fifth doll #charlie n holmberg #book tumblr #booklr #bookblr #tbr jar #tbr list #mystery #thriller #horror

[blogmollylane]

Finished reading: Supper for Six by Fiona Sherlock

Started reading: Everyone on this Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

#fiction #reading #books #currently reading #supper for six #Fiona Sherlock #mystery #crime fiction #suspense #everyone on this train is a suspect #benjamin stevenson #thriller #dark comedy #humour #australia #Ernest Cunningham

[ars-solitudine]

Si intuisce molto del carattere delle persone dalla loro reazione a un silenzio imbarazzante: c’è chi ha la forza di lasciarlo proseguire indisturbato e chi invece cede all’impulso di infrangerlo.

Benjamin Stevenson

#benjamin stevenson #lasciarlo proseguire o infrangerlo #ars

[razreads]

Family is not whose blood runs in your veins, it's who you'd spill it for.

Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

#razreads #book quote #everyone in my family has killed someone #benjamin stevenson #family #found family #queue have a good day now

[ijustkindalikebooks]

Review: Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson.

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

As Ernest himself knows, sequels can be tricky, however Benjamin Stevenson really does know what he's doing when it comes to the next book in this excellent series (must be the pamphlets!)

Just as full of intrigue, tension and comedic timing as the first, Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect certainly continues in the steps of the first book brilliantly. This time set on a train, we are taken on a ride of a lifetime (for some quite literally) and pulled in with a fantastic narrator that builds this story out to perfection.

Plot-wise this moves so quickly and makes for such fantastic plotting as we follow Ernest on his amateur investigating but also see him make little notes for the story in his notes that make for such a great story that really rounds this book out so well.

A fantastic return, I would definitely get all aboard for this one and I'm gonna mind the gap until the next book in this series!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

#booklr #books #bookblr #fiction #book #book review #book reviews #mystery #everybody on this train is a suspect #benjamin stevenson

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

Luke Arnold shared news on his new work on audiobook on his instastory!

Click here to listen the sample on his work!

#black sails #luke arnold #john silver #instagram #don't hang up #benjamin stevenson #audiobook

[bookishpixiereads]

Ernest Cunningham is our main character as well as our narrator and the writer of this book (not really of course, but he does for the plot)! Ern “wrote” this book to tell the story of what happened to him and his family at a winter resort on a mountain top in Australia.

It all started as an awkward family reunion of sorts to reunite with his brother who has just been released from jail and Ern testified against him! Talk about family drama.

And then people start dying.

And the police can’t get to the resort because of a snowstorm. So Ern is going to try and solve the case. Because he writes books about how to write mystery novels. That counts as experience right?

“Everyone in my…” is very meta because of this set up. Ern talks to the reader as if he’s breaking the fourth wall like Jim in “The Office.” He explains tropes and things to the reader. At one point a new character is introduced, and he tells the reader straight away that this isn’t the murderer because it wouldn’t be fair to introduce him so late in the story. He’s very big on “fair play mysteries.” There is nothing that you don’t know that he doesn’t know. He doesn’t believe in unreliable narrators (which on a personal level, I can appreciate).

On a VERY subjective level, my ONLY problem with this book was with the so-called chattiness. I’ve had this problem with other books as well that use this device. It’s funny, and it works as levity in otherwise a very dark story, but sometimes I personally found it distracting. At times, I thought it was screwing with the pace of the book.

But otherwise, I thought this to be very good and very enjoyable. I haven’t seen such an interesting way of murdering someone in a very long time. The characters aren’t all meant to be likable, but I still cared about them. When I finished the book, I remember thinking, “Wow, that was good!” So even though I found the chattiness a bit off-putting, I still loved this.

#book blog #bookaholic #booknerd #books #books and reading #booksbooksbooks #booksofinstagram #bookstagram #booktok #bookworm #fiction #mystery #Everyone in my family has killed someone #benjamin stevenson #murder mystery

[libertyreads]

Book Review #20 of 2024--

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson. Rating: 4 stars.

Read from March 16th to 17th.

This is what I've been longing for all month long. I had zero intentions of finishing this book in less than 36 hours, but the heart wants what the heart wants. It's an especially surprising feat given I spent half of that time either working or commuting. My brain found a hyperfixation to override my depression and said "All Aboard!" (Train reference. Ha.) I was surprised to see that I also gave the first book in this series a 4 star rating since I thought this one was actually a bit better than the first. But I also remember feeling the need to bump it up last time based on the writing style and structure.

In this one we follow author Ernest Cunningham who managed to survive a serial killer on the mountains in his last book and who somehow has to survive a train full of murderous authors. He's invited to an author convention aboard a famous train in Australia and things roll along from there (is this stretching the metaphor a little too far? Probably.). I really like the way this series is written and the whole structure of the story. Ernest as a narrator is just so fun. I agree, though, with what Gavin from GavinReadsItAll who said that continuing the series from here might be difficult just because they'll have to try to keep it fresh and new which is hard to do in this format. Based on the way the story ends, I can see a few ways the author can achieve it. I just think it's going to take thinking outside of the box a little bit. I always enjoy a reliable narrator and when the clues are on the page for anyone to pick up and solve the case. There were a couple of things I figured out well before Ernest gave his big reveal at the end, but a few surprises that didn't feel unbelievable.

I think this one had to find its footing a little bit in the actual mystery. How do you follow up the success of the first book? How do you give more twists without being an unreliable narrator? And how do you have subplots that are worth the page time? I think some were more successful than others but can I really fault this book too much when I read it in a day and a half? I don't think I can. I hope there are more in this series in the future and that it manages to keep the structure and writing style fresh and fun.

#book review #book reviews #everyone on this train is a suspect #Benjamin stevenson #books read in 2024 #2024 reading challenge #goodreads challenge #goodreads #booklr #bookblr #bookstagram #bookish #books #new release #kind of #it came out less than a year ago #that counts