56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard @catherineryanhoward @AlanaKCollins @BlackstoneAudio

the setup…
56 days ago, Oliver Kennedy and Ciara Murphy bumped into each other in a Dublin grocery line and struck up a conversation that led to coffee and a date. It also happened to be when the first news of the start of Covid 19 preparations was released on Irish shores. Three weeks later as the country prepares for lockdown, Oliver asks Ciara to move in with him to shelter in place together. Now it’s present day and the police are called to Oliver’s apartment because of the foul odor inside. Of course there’s a dead body.

the heart of the story…
From the start, it felt like there was something Ciara was hiding and Oliver’s behavior was a bit…off. I was uneasy about both of them but more so about her. The story transitions between past and present but with an interesting angle. Sometimes the transition back to the past wasn’t linear because of the additional shifts in points of view. It was tricky at first but then it developed a rhythm that made sense. All of this was unfolding with the emergence of the pandemic in the background, making it more challenging to get a bead on both Oliver and Ciara as the circumstances weren’t normal.

the narration…
This story might be more complicated to digest without the skillful performance of this narrator. She’s a wonderful storyteller and captured Oliver and Ciara perfectly, adjusting tone and tempo at all the right moments.

the bottom line…
The first half of the story is a slow burn, a combination of what felt like two unreliable narrators and a complex transition structure. Then the story takes off and I couldn’t let go. It was also interesting to relive the the emotional aspect of when the pandemic was first becoming a reality, how we all were ill equipped to understand what was to come. But that was in the background, never becoming another equal character. Then there are the stunning twists that left me flat footed, making me rethink everything I’d believed about the situation. An added bonus are the two detectives investigating what happened, both interesting, entertaining and leaving me with hope I see them again. Very clever story.

Book Info

• Release Date: August 17, 2021
• Narrator: Alana Kerr Collins
• Audio Length: 10 hours, 39 minutes
• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

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