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You should read this twisting, turning, looping tale.
This story opens with a touching and sensual yet brutally violent scene involving a killing. The opening scene is intense and short–great writing to give us a puzzling view into husband’s confounding situation. (Somehow I got over the opening on a dark and stormy night–no kidding.)
By the second chapter, I swear I’m in for less than three hundred words so far, and I’ve looped through the same dang nightmare twice. Both resulting in the husband’s death.
What’s the Star Trek Next Generation episode where the opening scene is a poker game where the officers play a hand and then get called to the bridge where the Enterprise is destroyed (fade to black) and then after the credits the next scene is a poker game where the officers play a hand and then get called to the bridge where the Enterprise is destroyed (fade to black) and then after the commercial break the next scene is a poker game where the officers notice they’re remembering details as they play a hand and then get called to the bridge where the Enterprise is destroyed (fade to black)…
In chapter 5, even the protagonist thinks this might be Groundhog Day.
Starting fairly early in the book, the author layers in backstory in a juxtaposed timeline running from a decade ago moving forward. The reader bounces between current looping time, experiencing the husband’s death over and over, and historical time coming forward year by year. The backstory brings us through a typical first decade of a married couple’s trials, tribulations and joys. I loved the two timelines as a technique for delivering info. The writer gave info in solid doses at just the right time.
Just as I got used to the rules in this supernatural world, the author deftly changed a rule. I feared the mutations might come, and I loved them all the same.
Along the way, you realize the writer is giving you a few clues about the plot, and more importantly, a couple clues about the overall arc of this book. Pay attention. The ground shifts.
One central question Seth struggles with: Is there anything he can do to win back his wife? The big question of the book is: Why? Fabulously, the “Why question” keeps reloading.
I’m not a fan of the ending, but I left my rating at 5-stars simply on the well done the looping idea.
And you should read about this strange couple and decide what you think.
I received an advanced reader copy of this book for free. I am posting this review voluntarily. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.
YOU KILL ME by K. Lucas
- Published by: Shadow Press
- Publication date: October 31, 2022
- Pages: 240
- Genres: (classified by publisher: Thriller & Suspense); (and from me: Psychological Thriller; Psychotic Thriller; Science Fiction)
- POV: First person, present tense, limited to one POV (at a time) and current time; multi-POV as seen through the eyes of the main character of each scene; one special skill–Seth can remember details from one loop into all the future loops; after two-thirds multi-headed omniscience showed up a few times
- Narrator: Truthful (at first); very direct by the end
- Opening setting: Seth & Kendra’s bedroom
- Other significant locations: high school gym
- Number of named, identified or described characters: about 30
Publisher’s Summary:
He wakes up.
She kills him.
It won’t stop happening.
On a dark and stormy night, Seth wakes up—only to be murdered by his own wife. Then he wakes up and she does it again. And again. And again.
He’s stuck in a loop that nobody else knows about. It’s not just a bad dream—and no amount of pleading, reasoning, or fighting with her makes a difference.
It all ends the same way. Every single time.
Seth doesn’t know why she wants him dead, but he’ll have to learn. He’ll have to find out what’s really happening and why—if he wants to figure out how to stop it. And for that, he’ll have to experiment.
To die over and over and over, learn as much as he can each time, and collect the pieces of this terrifying puzzle.
He will not accept defeat. He already knows what happens when he fails, and having it happen for eternity is not an option.