Niamh is a sixteen-year-old girl away from home for the first time at a summer theater program in London. She’s excited to make new friends and explore the city, except her new friends keep getting murdered, which is kind of a buzzkill, especially when she realizes they all kind of look like her and that maybe that’s not a coincidence. To distract herself, Niamh throws herself into a flirtation with the handsome Tommy, who she meets volunteering at the Victorian Street Museum, where they dress up like 1800s people and do in-character tours. But her job becomes a different kind of distraction when Niamh sees a portrait of the Victorian girl she’s acting as and realizes they could be twins.

This is marketed as being a retro slasher vibe similar to “Scream”, “Urban Legend”, and “One Of Us is Lying” (all of which I love) but with a supernatural twist. Unfortunately, the twist was extremely obvious even from the blurb. I had assumed that was a decoy and was excited to see the reveal, only to be like “oh.” So I guess that’s on me for reading and watching too many things similar to this, but what a bummer. I had fun reading this but I think having it just be either a traditional slasher or lean more into the supernatural than it did would’ve worked better for me. I had a lot of questions about the logistics and details that didn’t make sense to me still after reading, which took me out of the story some. I think this would make a better movie than book, actually, because I can see the visuals being fun enough to distract from some of the blurrier plot areas.

This is a fun, quick read that could be a good distraction for a flight if you like cheesy horror movies and thrillers, but if you’re an avid reader of the genre you won’t find anything surprising here. Now I’m off to re-watch Urban Legend again. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Niamh is a sixteen-year-old girl away from home for the first time at a summer theater program in London. She’s excited to make new friends and explore the city, except her new friends keep getting murdered, which is kind of a buzzkill, especially when she realizes they all kind of look like her and that maybe that’s not a coincidence. To distract herself, Niamh throws herself into a flirtation with the handsome Tommy, who she meets volunteering at the Victorian Street Museum, where they dress up like 1800s people and do in-character tours. But her job becomes a different kind of distraction when Niamh sees a portrait of the Victorian girl she’s acting as and realizes they could be twins.

This is marketed as being a retro slasher vibe similar to “Scream”, “Urban Legend”, and “One Of Us is Lying” (all of which I love) but with a supernatural twist. Unfortunately, the twist was extremely obvious even from the blurb. I had assumed that was a decoy and was excited to see the reveal, only to be like “oh.” So I guess that’s on me for reading and watching too many things similar to this, but what a bummer. I had fun reading this but I think having it just be either a traditional slasher or lean more into the supernatural than it did would’ve worked better for me. I had a lot of questions about the logistics and details that didn’t make sense to me still after reading, which took me out of the story some. I think this would make a better movie than book, actually, because I can see the visuals being fun enough to distract from some of the blurrier plot areas.

This is a fun, quick read that could be a good distraction for a flight if you like cheesy horror movies and thrillers, but if you’re an avid reader of the genre you won’t find anything surprising here. Now I’m off to re-watch Urban Legend again. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.