Blog Tour: The Truants by Kate Weinberg

The book to read this summer is here! The Truants by Kate Weinberg is the mystery book to take to the beach and get lost while laying on the sand. My many thanks to Anne Cater, the publisher, and Kate Weinberg for allowing me to be part of this tour.

Author: Kate Weinberg Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Pages: 352 Genre: Mistery, Contemporary Publication: 1st June 2020

Synopsis:

Jess Walker, the middle child of a middle-class family, has perfected the art of vanishing in plain sight. But when she arrives at a concrete university campus under flat, grey, East Anglian skies, her world flares with colour.

Drawn into a tightly-knit group of rule-breakers – led by their maverick teacher, Lorna Clay – Jess begins to experiment with a new version of herself. But the dynamic between the friends begins to darken as they share secrets, lovers and finally a tragedy. Soon Jess is thrown up against the question she fears most: what is the true cost of an extraordinary life?

Review:

A group of friends comes together because of a handsome and mysterious man that can hock anyone with his stories. Although he is far from being a good company. From alcohol to drug abuse, manipulation, sex, and lies, this group is everything except true friends.

Since the very first page, I was hypnotized by the writing. The story is character-driven, so it has a slower narrative, instead of an edge-of-your-sit thriller. Although the writing is so enjoyable that I never wanted to stop reading. And the more I read, the more I wanted to know about these characters, uncover their secrets, discover their lies, and their past. I wanted to know everything. This characters have some questionable moral values and are highly flawed. There are no heroes or villains. Each one of them is good and bad people at some point, and it was very interesting to read.

In a way, I see this book as a cosy mystery in a dark setting. Not the type of light and laughable kind of mystery, but one that dives into some hard topics. It has hints scattered everywhere that paints the full picture in the end, very much like Agatha Christie’ stories. She has a heavy presence in the story from references to her work and personal life to also the ideas and plots she used in her books. I’m not familiar with all Christie’s work, but I believe that there is a lot that I might have missed that wasn’t written out to be a reference to her. And that’s where I find The Truants to be well crafted. The references aren’t just there as a theme for the characters, it is intertwined with the plot that I could only realize when I finished reading.

It is a charming book to read, to discover the lies upon lies, the secrets, the crimes, the manipulation, the treason, everything that is packed in a group of friend that might as well never have met.

Content Warning: Abortion, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse

About the author:

Kate Weinberg was born and lives in London. She studied English at Oxford and creative writing in East Anglia. She has worked as a slush pile reader, a bookshop assistant, a journalist and a ghostwriter. The Truants is her first novel.

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The tour is just starting so don’t forget to check out all the other bloggers on this tour for more reviews.