I absolutely loved this book. It's dark, creepy and such a wonderful murder mystery. I couldn't put it down and the ending was fab!

Definitely a must read for when it's out!!

This was such a captivating story, straight away i was drawn in and didnt want to put the book down. All the different aspects intertwined beautifully, the story itself is thought provoking and the charachters are really well written. All in all this was one of the most satisfying books i have read this year.

MY review for " The Chalk Man"

it all started on the day of the fair and the terrible accident. When twelve-year-old Eddie first met the person they call The Chalk Man.

it was the Chalk Man who gave Eddie the idea for the drawings: a way to leave secret messages between his group of friends each of his friend's Fat Gav, Metal Mickey ( on account of the braces on his teeth) Hoppo (David Hopkins) and Nicky she didn't have a nickname because shes a Girl even you she tried to pretend she wasn't, each of them had a different colour so they would know who had left the drawing...

it was all fun they enjoyed doing it playing the game until the figures led them to the body of a young girl.

That was thirty years ago and Ed still living in the family home he grew up in but with a lodger Called Chloe he thought he left past was behind him Then he receives a letter containing just two things: a piece of chalk,and a drawing of a stick figure as history starts to repeat itself Ed realises that the game was never over IT WAS JUST THE BEGINNING!!

Everyone has secrets.

Everyone is guilty of something.

And children are not always so innocent

let me start by saying this every time a new author brings out their debut book people go on that a exciting new voice is now here and there the ones to watch but this time its TRUE! C.J. TUDOR'S The Chalk Man is an amazing book the story has everything you could ask for in a good thriller it has plenty of twists and turns it has the shock and creepy factor! i love how the story story goes from 1989 then to 2016 its nice to see what each of the friends was like then and now and how far they have come, i didn't want the book to end if im honest i would of happy happy to keep reading and reading if the story went on its a book that i have been telling my friends about and i can't wait for them to get a copy and start reading this amazing book.. i feel lucky that i got a chance to read this book before it comes out C.J. TUDOR really is a name to look out for because i can see more 5 star books coming our way in the future... thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for my copy of this book i loved it!! 5 stars

I envisage this book being the talked about book of 2018!!!
I absolutely devoured this book! I loved the way it was written, the storyline, everything about it.
I highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys well written, compelling, psychological thrillers.
5 big fat shiny stars *****

What a wonderful and unique book. It is a story that remains with you long after you have finished reading it.
It is a murder mystery story, told over two time-lines intermingled, first from the view point of a twelve-year-old boy over the course of one very eventful summer and then thirty years later when the events are finally fully explained.
It is to a certain extent a dark story. The theme of the fragility of mental health runs through it as many characters are afflicted and we see their minds and personalities gradually crumble away.
The author has written quite an intricate plot and managed to hold all the strands and bring it together with an unexpected conclusion which was really well planned out and quite masterly.
Outstanding for a début novel, I really look forward to reading many more from Ms Tudor.

This book is brilliantly written. The story is dark and haunting and wonderful. It is set in 1986 and the present and goes back and forward between the two. The horrific events of 1986 are explained and the culprits speculated and talked about. This is a really good novel that kept me reading. I was totally gripped by it. This book is about growing up and the strength of childhood friendships. The story is brilliantly put together and I will probably read it again to see what Clues I missed the first time,

Brilliantly written, intricate story. Very clever use of first-person narration, both as a 12 year old boy, and then the same person today as a man. This allows us to see things more clearly, and recognise ambiguities.
There are many twists and turns, but all are credible and realistic. Even the supernatural ones have an explanation - well, almost!
Highly recommended

The world of adolescent boys is captured in this story with a murder mystery to unravel. Ed is not very good at detection but after some wrong turns it all becomes so obvious. Unintended consequences to actions make for guilty secrets.

This book is one of the best that I have read this year. I loved that it went back 30 years every other chapter or so to give you the back story of how the characters got to where they were. Great job CJ Tudor! I will definitely read more of your books in the future.

Ed has lived in the same town all his life. As a youngster he had a "gang" of friends which included Fat Gav, Hoppo, Metal Micky & Nicky. Things happened in their teenage years which now return to haunt them as adults.
This is actually quite a complicated book and you do need to keep your wits about you. With hindsight I wonder if a cast list might have been useful to refer to. The book has different chapters in different time periods in the past & present. They are clearly labelled which I did appreciate as the cast in the past & present are mostly the same.
Ed is that lad who never really moved on from his childhood. He has become a teacher but teaches in his old school and lives in the house he grew up in. He sees reminders of his past every day. Hoppo and Fat Gav don't seem to have been able to pull themselves away either. I did feel for Ed. He is a strange lad and an even stranger adult. He isn't able to move on so his life just stagnates. I am sure many people know an Ed and he was very believable. The supporting cast are also well written - it is interesting that no one has actually managed to move on from their childhood no matter what it seems on the surface.
This is a thriller though it is certainly not fast paced. I think Ed breaks into a run at one point near the end but that is it. The whole story is a slow amble which won't suit some people.
The characters are complex and three dimensional. When we look back at the past we see things from a child's perspective, Ed, but as an adult reader you have the advantage over him. When Ed revisits these things in his mind as an adult you can see him looking at things differently.
I enjoyed this book. It is a slow stroll and quite complex but I was happy with that. I loved the complexity of the characters. It was tough for everyone involved in so many different ways. However, I felt that it did reflect life quite well. I was quite pleased with the ending and felt that it did fit the book.
So sit back and enjoy this book. Don't rush it but absorb it.
I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

Loved this book, so many twists and turns and an intricate plot, would definitely read this authors books in the future.

The Chalk Man is a very rare thing. A "thriller" that didn't make me anxious!

In this age of psychological suspence and unreliable female narrators I have to confess I was expecting similar. But it is nothing like anything I've read in years. It reminded me of very good early Stephen King (particularly IT), and like King, while keeping you on your toes, the brilliant character arcs and beautifully told story shone through and, for me, this made the book.

I'm not sure this even is a thriller, I'm not sure what it is other than sheer brilliance. I was late for work and didn't sleep enough because I couldn't put it down.

I remember the first time I read IT in 1987. It's been a long time since I sat staring into space after finishing a book like I did after that one, but The Chalk Man came close. That ending.....my God.

A wonderful original storyline that will keep you guessing until the very end. Utterly twisted and unsettling but very compelling. This is going to be THE debut of the year. I can feel it in me bones!

Many thanks to Netgalley who provided me with this ARC. I chose to read it and give a voluntary and unbiased review.

I loved the retro snippets in this book, a great story of friendship, murder and loss. What an ending, fantastic.

Slightly reminiscent of Stand By Me (one of my favourite films, and short stories), I really enjoyed this book. I found the way it jumped from 1986 to present exciting and although I worked out the ending quite early on (the first page, combined with the constant mention of Alzheimer's gave it away early) it was still worth the wild ride. I'm not sure that I liked the many of the characters but for some reason that made me enjoy the book more. I think it says something great about the author when the reader can become invested in the lives of characters they hate.

I think this book covered a lot of basis; the purity of childhood, along with the complexities of friendship, loss and misplaced trust. This isn't an author I've read before but would certainly read more of their writing.

I enjoyed this story and remained enthralled right up to the end.

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone



I know it's unusual to start a review by talking about the end of a book, but oh boy what an excellent ending that was!

12 year old Eddie Adams and his friends are like any other group of twelve year olds, carefree summer days messing about as kids do, until the day the fair visits the village of Anderbury. A Waltzer carriage breaks away at great speed and careens into the crowd, causing life changing injuries to one teenage girl in particular. That was bad enough, but it was also the day that Eddie met 'The Chalk Man'

Eddie and his mates devise a secret code made up of chalk messages in different colours - each colour being assigned to one of the gang, so they know exactly which one of them wrote each message. They leave messages at each other's homes, and it provides weeks of fun until the day they discover chalk figures leading them to a dead body, but none of the gang had left these messages!

The storyline flits between 1986 and 2016, but how the events of 30 years earlier affect these friends in the present I'm not telling! But rest assured it's a completely riveting journey. There was a great mystery at the heart of it, with some chilling, heart stopping moments, and many twists and turns. The characters were perfect and the whole thing kept me on tenterhooks right the way through. C.J.Tudor has a talent for sure, and it's hard to believe this is her debut novel. Spooky, gripping, compelling!

If a movie director doesn't pick up on this one I'll be very surprised!

*Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin UK, Michael Joseph for my ARC in exchange for an honest review*

As a child, Eddie Munster found most of a body. He and his friends followed mysterious chalk markings to the corpse of a girl, dismembered in the woods. No one ever found her head. 

As an adult, Ed still lives in the same town. He teaches now, and drinks a lot. He tries not to think too much about the past, about the murdered girl or the man who was blamed.

But old memories keep resurfacing, and new chalk marks start to appear. Maybe what happened all those years ago isn't really over, and the accepted story isn't the whole truth. 
It's quite hard to sum up this book, and it's equally hard to classify. There are crimes in it, but it's not really a crime novel or a thriller. There are elements of horror as well, but that doesn't quite fit. It's probably closest to a bildungsroman - a novel concerned with growing up. Perhaps more helpfully, it's a bit like Stand By Me - a story told through flashbacks about a childhood and finding a body. The blurb implies that it's quite like It instead, but that's not accurate.

Adult Ed is the narrator, with the tense shifting from present to past as the time does. That doesn't mean that the voice remains the same between the two; there's a noticeable difference between the childhood and adulthood passages. It rings true, and that's a hard thing to do - most adults have forgotten how children speak. Eddie sounds like, and acts like, a convincing child. 

The prose is consistently strong, not just in the voice but in the effective creation of tension and drama. Because of the nature of the book, there's often an abrupt switch between low- and high- stakes moments, and the writing is good enough to make that have an impact. In the space of a paragraph, the tone can change from light to shocking very fast. 

The book is at its best when dealing with the little details and practicalities of childhood. The crime/murder plotline takes something of a back seat here, and is unwelcome when it intrudes. The heart of this story is a twelve-year-old boy coming to terms with an adult world. 

There's not really a clear thread running through the entire book. Because of the time-shifting nature of the narration, and the generally rambling and discursive nature of the story, it's hard to pin down exactly what is going on at a given point, and why it's significant. That's not really a problem, because, as above, the little details and anecdotes are the main draw of The Chalk Man.

However, the plot itself - what is meant to be the main concept - is weak. The motivation and identity of the murderer aren't things that you end up really curious about, and the passages where people are investigating are some of the slower ones. This isn't really a novel focused on the crime, but it's one that thinks it should be. What you want is more background detail on lives, more character traits to be picked apart, but the last section of the novel ends up being a hunt for the killer. 

Added to that, the plot is overly-complicated and occasionally obstructionist. It doesn't always feel like the reader is being treated fairly. The resolution in particular is somewhat contrived, which weakened my overall view of the book. That's a shame, because I thought that, in many ways, it was very well-written.

What I like about  The Chalk Man is the language, the detail, the childhood characters. I'm less sold on the story as a story.  That's another similarity with Stand By Me. Don't read this for a satisfying narrative, or for a compelling mystery. Read it for the exploration of growing up and getting to grips with the messiness of reality.

I loved The Chalk Man. I started it and finished it within 24 hours as I just could not put it down. It was so different and fresh in comparison to a lot of the books that are out there now and this really made a difference. Taking the genre and upending it just a touch made The Chalk Man a great book. The dual timelines complemented each other perfectly, and the characters were really well developed. More than once I thought I knew where the book was going, and then I'd read a bit more, and see just how wrong I was. The author has done a fantastic job creating a creepy, twisty and totally gripping novel. Highly recommended!