The Traitors - C. A. Lynch

 

Six people find a thick cream envelope on their doorstep. Inside is an invitation to spend 24 hours in a crumbling manor house and be in with the chance to win a portion of one million dollars. The Beechwood Castle was the site of one of the most horrific murders in modern history.

The smell of blood, decay and death still hangs heavy in the air.

Six people walk into the house. One of them is an imposter, all of them are traitors, which of them will survive the night?

Blurb taken from Goodreads.

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I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

When I saw the blurb for The Traitors, I was excited by the potential it appeared to hold. It sounded like it was inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None - incidentally, one of my favourite books of all time - and I was so ready to read a modern spin on it. Okay, and the title appealed to me because the TV show has such a chokehold on me.

I really hate to have to say this, but I did not enjoy this book. The ideas were there, but they were not fully formed, and the writing was very juvenile, which consistently put me off. It's a shame, because the bare bones of the book are okay and held some promise, but the execution was disappointing.

Rating: ✫.5

My Thoughts

Let's break this down, starting with the idea. 

The idea for the book is great! It gave me And Then There Were None crossed with It, crossed with some more modern thriller tropes. It's a recipe for success, right?

But, when you look past the idea, there are a lot of problems. The characters are, collectively, fundamentally unlikeable, which isn't too unusual in a story like this. Yet if your characters aren't going to hold the reader's interest, there has to be enough intrigue in the plot to do so. I didn't find this to be the case, and so reading about the characters just put me off. I felt totally indifferent to them and to their story, which is the last thing you want your reader to feel.

However, the main issue I had with this book was the writing. It felt juvenile and this was very difficult to get past. There were multiple occasions where I found myself formulating more sophisticated sentence structures and language that would have made the reading experience more enjoyable.

All in all, this is not one that I would recommend, despite some initial promise.