When you read a lot of books, variety helps keep you interested. From a philosophical pondering on life to a sapphic romance/cozy mystery, I move on to a fast paced, action packed thriller. The variety in genre helps, but the pacing of each book is different. In What Have We Done by Alex Finlay, readers get a book that grabs their attention and won’t let go. It hits all the right notes for a thriller and a coming of age story at the same time. Though the pace and plotting are different the three books, all three also contain everything that makes good fiction: good characters, a good mystery, and plenty of tension. What Have We Done brings the past alive for three friends, and it explores their lives now and bit in the past. Reading this book was like binge-watching a high quality drama from HBO or Netflix. In fact, it’d do either network well to adapt this into a series. What Have We Done by Alex Finlay is solid entertainment.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
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TL;DR
What Have We Done by Alex Finlay is a fun, fast-paced thriller about the past coming back to haunt three friends. Alex Finlay has created a page turner that will have you staying up late, wanting to read just one more chapter to find out what happens next. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
In this “top-notch mystery thriller” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) from Alex Finlay, What Have We Done is a tale about the lives we leave behind and the secrets we carry with us forever.
One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2023:• BookPage • BookBub • E! News • Go BookMart • Goodreads • PopSugar • The Every Girl • She Reads • Beyond the Bookends
A stay-at-home mom with a past.
A has-been rock star with a habit.
A reality TV producer with a debt.
Three disparate lives.
One deadly secret.
Twenty five years ago, Jenna, Donnie, and Nico were the best of friends, having forged a bond through the abuse and neglect they endured as residents of Savior House, a group home for parentless teens. When the home was shut down—after the disappearance of several kids—the three were split up.
Though the trauma of their childhood has never left them, each went on to live accomplished—if troubled—lives. They haven’t seen one another since they were teens but now are reunited for a single haunting reason: someone is trying to kill them.
To survive, the group will have to revisit the nightmares of their childhoods and confront their shared past—a past that holds the secret to why someone wants them dead.
It’s a reunion none of them asked for . . . or wanted. But it may be the only way to save all their lives.
What Have We Done is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and a gut-wrenching coming-of-age story. And it cements Alex Finlay as one of the new leading voices in thrillers today.
Review: What Have We Done by Alex Finlay
Jenna, Donnie, and Nico were friends as kids who lived in a group home together. Savior House took the three in when their parents died or left. It saved them, but it was also a place of great torment. The headmaster’s son was the biggest bully in the place, and girls disappeared from time-to-time. The administration said they were placed with families, but no one saw the families come get them. They survived the house through friendship. There were five of them, Jenna, Donnie, Nico, Ben, and Artemis. They survived by doing what they needed to. Years later, assassins stalk them. Ben, who grew up to be a federal judge, was murdered. Now, it seems like the rest are being targeted, too. Artemis grew up to be a programmer and billionaire creator of a social media platform. Donnie joined a band, made it big, and faded into the cruise circuit. Except he kept the drinking and drug habits that destroyed his musical career. Nico grew up to produce a hit reality show, The Miners. He even hosted an after show that made him famous in his own way. Yet even that sweet gig couldn’t cover the gambling debts he owes to a Philadelphia crime boss. Jenna opens the book as a stay at home mom and a retired assassin. She used to work for the Corporation. Now, she’s trying to live a quiet life with the love of her life and her two step-daughters. Soon the friends connect the dots that they’re being targeted, and they all know why. No matter how far and wide we travel, no matter how much our lives change, some secrets still follow us.
What Have We Done is a third person point of view (POV) thriller. A different character narrates each chapter, but the three main POVs are Jenna, Donnie, and Nico. This book moved fast; I didn’t want to put it down. It’s 368 pages long, but I finished it in three days. (Would have been two, but I had to be an adult for a while.) This was a fun, entertaining, and engrossing novel. The mystery wasn’t especially mysterious, but I didn’t really care. I knew who was behind the thing, but what I wanted was to see them figure it out for themselves.
Pacing
The more that I read, the more that I understand pacing has to match the genre of the book. Thrillers will read faster than long fantasy novels. (Yes, this is a generalization. I’m sure there’s edge cases that are different.) But pacing also has to vary. A fast, constant high paced book runs the risk of tiring readers. A slow, ponderous book has the risk of readers tuning out. All action all the time sounds like fun, but readers need breaks. So, as I find authors that really understand pacing, I try to pay attention to what they’re doing. Finlay has done an excellent job of keeping a thriller’s pace while allowing pauses for the reader to recover and get ready for the next action sequence. This book moves, and yet the characters find time for reflection and to feel human. They have regrets; they have hopes; they have disappoints. Finlay builds each character while zipping along at race speeds.
Fast paced books don’t have much room to explore and to flesh out characters. Yet, Finlay finds a way to do it without skipping a beat. We see the three in their lives now, and we see them at Savior House being bullied by Derek. We see moments that cement their friendship despite knowing that in the future they drift apart.
Stock Characters Given Depth
Jenna, Donnie, and Nico begin the novel as stock characters. The housewife with a dangerous past, the aging rocker trying to capture one last moment of glory in the bottle or up his nose, the gambling addict in way over his head come straight from central casting. Good fiction comes from the character’s choices, and from their past choices, it’s easy to see where Jenna, Donnie, and Nico ended up. But Finlay doesn’t let them remain stock characters. He fleshes them out into well-rounded people. For Jenna, we don’t see her past as an assassin coming back to play because we see how her past is ruining her present happiness. She’s married to the love of her life, and she’s trying to be a good step-mom to two grieving daughters. For Donnie and Nico, it’s the past that keeps haunting them. Donnie plays the rock star as it suits him off stage. On stage, whether it’s a cruise or stadium, he gives it everything he’s got. The moment in the concert is the high he chases offstage. Nico’s gambling addiction cost him the love of his life. It’s got him mixed up with dangerous people in the criminal underground; yet, he can’t stop himself. Throughout the book, he’s still making bets despite someone trying to kill him. Finlay gives his characters enough depth to move them out of the stock character category.
The Past is Never Past
What Have We Done is very much about the past. It’s right there in the title. For these characters, their past was assumed to be dead and buried, but it never is. Their past comes back to haunt them in many ways. Nico believes that he’s being targeted because of his gambling debts. Donnie lives with one foot in the past, trying to rock out to the glory days. Jennna’s past as an assassin means that she has to prepare her family in the event someone comes looking for her. Their past at Savior House is why they’re being hunted. The fact that they ended up at Savior House set them all on the path to where they ended up. Had they never gone to Savior House, would they have ended up with different lives? For Jenna, the answer is a definitive yes. For Donnie and Nico, I think the answer is maybe. They might have ended up in the same place but maybe in a healthier way, Donnie not drinking or snorting his way through life and Nico not chasing the high of beating the odds. But who can say because the past happened, and it lives with us. It follows us, and it can rear its ugly head at any moment.
Conclusion
Alex Finlay’s What Have We Done was a blast to read. It hit all the right notes that make thrillers so fun, and Finlay went further in giving us likeable characters to root for. Finlay delivered everything I was hoping for and more. What Have We Done convinced me that I need to read more thrillers, especially from Alex Finlay. Highly recommended.
What Have We Done by Alex Finlay is available from Minotaur Books now.
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