A Kiss After Dying is not what I expected.
The blurb had my attention and I expected it to be a thriller, enemies to lovers, plot twist shocks throughout and while some of that is true. This is not a love story!

I found the read addictive, while I didn't always love the style of writing I found the story well paced and I enjoyed the twists that kept going. There was always enough going on that kept me invested.

I enjoyed the main characters, a strong WOC who is out for revenge and will stop at nothing to succeed. I don't want to go into to much detail because there is so much that can be spoilt, but I would definitely recommended this if your looking for a thriller with a bit of a different take.

I feel like this would make an excellent book to movie adaption.

Thank you to NetGalley and Michael Joseph for an E-arc copy of this, I really enjoyed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this title, and when I thought I had it figured out came the twist and turns to throw doubt into the equation.
Well written and good character development along the way helped to integrate with the main protaganist.
Well worth the buy.

Wow. What a book! I thought from the blurb that I would like this. I already think it’s going to be one of my favourites this year!

I love thrillers and I love espionage. This feels like both. It’s a story about revenge. And boy is it served cold. A strong female WOC protagonist who is hell bent on revenge. I would not mess with this woman! I loved everything about this book. It drew me right in and there were things I didn’t see coming. I can’t say because it would spoil things but I just couldn’t put this down.

This would also make a good film. It is fast paced, unpredictable and is full of twists and turns. Read it. You won’t regret it.

Revenge is a dish best served cold and this book is written with this in mind. Lots of twists and turns. A real page turner. Highly recommended

Revenge Served Very Cold…
Fluid and well paced suspense in this gripping tale of revenge served very cold. The premise is well played out, twists and turns abound and characters are well drawn and credible. Hannah is a dangerous and feisty protagonist and is well portrayed here with a slickly constructed plot. A gripping, pacy read.

A can’t-put-down book!… I read late into to the night because I just had to know what the ending was going to be. Phenomenal... I could not put it down... took my breath away and I gasped out loud. OMG… My goosebumps had goosebumps

I really wanted to love this book, it had everything it needed to be an amazing story but it just missed the mark for me.
I gave up numerous times and then had to force myself to keep on reading. The majority of the time it just felt like the story wasn’t going anywhere and then suddenly the scene would end with plot twist that just seemed totally off script.
I would recommend that people give the book a go if they like the style of writing then the book will be a winner because the storyline is amazing.

A Kiss After Dying is a slow burner about female assassins with a secret. From the onset, this book was full of promise of a tale of daring deeds and shocking insights into the world of a killer but in reality, it went into too much detail of the relationships they had with the targets. It just didn’t hit the mark for me I’m afraid.. The cover is attractive and enticing and the blurb exciting but the content left me dwindling as to whether I could finish it or not, as my mind kept wandering. I did finish however and actually I quite liked the ending.

Thank you to Michael Joseph for this ARC. A twisty, pacy thriller with a WOC as protagonist. A story of revenge which, as the saying goes, is best served cold. It’s honestly hard to say much more without giving something away. It was great to see a WOC hell bent on revenge, thus subverting the usual obedient stereotypes. In fact, Banker does this deliberately with the character of Hannah and her interactions with Ricky. The author has a distinctive voice, that very occasionally slips into the male gaze (he writes mainly from a female POV) and the references are very millennial, which I found a bit alienating as a Gen X reader. I could have done with a bit more connection to Hannah’s family; the reason for the revenge plot, so that the reader can feel what she feels simmering beneath her need for vengeance. But overall, the narrative zipped along and kept me turning the pages to see what happened, and that’s exactly what you need in a thriller like this. It’s definitely worth a read.

A super smart and slick revenge thriller that is brilliantly plotted and with an incredible kick-ass female protagonist. I loved this!

I thought this was going to be something different to what it was, and at first was quite excited about it. But unfortunately i didn't feel like it quite led up to the beginning and at times I found it quite hard to be believable and some of the scenarios didn't seem to be possible. It was still an enjoyable read, but a little too much in places.

I was so disappointed with this book, it had all the ingredients to be amazing but somehow I just didn’t click with it. The revenge plot was excellent from start to finish but I think I just didn’t gel with the style of writing. Numerous occasions in the first half I found myself wanting to give up. It felt too descriptive and went off on a tangent that felt unnecessary to the storyline.
Overall I am glad I finished because the final 20% was actually really good, the pace picked up and it was all thrilling action. I often find thrillers have disappointing endings which this certainly didn’t for which I would give a 5 star rating but I have to rate the entire book which unfortunately would have to be a 3 as it was painful getting to that exciting end. Such a shame as a really good storyline.
#AKissAfterDying #NetGalley

A Kiss After Dying is one of those hugely addictive page turner's, the kind of book you start then can't bear to stop until you've devoured every word.

This is a revenge thriller that happens to also have well rounded, deeply intriguing characters. It is pacy and clever, with a big dose of unpredictability, you are never quite sure what is going to happen and its full of moral ambiguity in its portrayal of a determination to get the protagonists version of justice.

Its a bit Game Of Thrones in a way. Clever and in a lot of ways thought provoking. I really loved it. Highly Recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an unbiased review of the publication.
First publication I've read by this author and certainly wasn't disappointed.A cracking read with some minor twists along the way and one very big twist that I have to confess I didn't see coming.
Don't feel that there is much I can say about the storyline without giving too much away but if you start this book, then make sure you have a few spare hours as it is going to hook you in.

This was a good pacy thriller with some jaw dropping twists! I liked the variety of locations and drama.

However I felt some of the plot points were too far fetched and I found the head hopping quite confusing.

An interesting read but one that I think could do with another edit.

Having read this book, I am left feeling like I've indulged in a guilty pleasure. There was so many elements in this book that interested me and kept me reading to the end, A simple central plot, good pace and a rich world nicely described to engage you. However there are also elements that felt a bit cheap, in the sense of striking an odd balance between realism and far-fetched fantasy. In addition the simple central plot, I felt got a bit bloated by underdeveloped sub-plots which I don't feel really added to the story for depth or breadth. Without giving away any plot, you will get to a point in the book and think 'what?, where did that come from' I think the author could have done more leading up to that point to set the scene.

Overall, it was a fun book to read and I did enjoy reading it, despite the moments of dissatisfaction, which I didn't like and where I would normally stop reading but I didn't. So this is one good read, especially to read when you're on holiday and want a bit of escapism.

There was so much about this book that really drew me in; the title, the cover, the blurb. But sadly, the actual story couldn't keep me gripped.

The structure was intriguing, it was as though there were several vignettes showcasing each murder, which was enjoyable but became quite repetitive.

I also felt the writing style was quite forced and stilted, which made sense for Hannah's character - to an extent - but the lack of emotional depth or substance to the story was incredibly difficult to connect to.

Overall this was quite a hard read, and I felt the pace dropped quite massively in the middle of the manuscript, once we moved past Ricky's section. Monty's didn't really add much new information and became too repetitive.

Sadly this one only gets three stars from me, it was a great concept but personally it wasn't quite the right thriller for me.

After reading the description for this I felt I had to read it and found out more, I was very intrigued. A love story but not in the conventional way. Although there is a girl meets boy scenario to start with this is a story involving the love of family and just how far you are prepared to go for them.
Hannah is introduced as a shy character, not wanting to stand out in any way, head down, no friends but as we start to get to know her better then we begin to understand the reasons why. I can’t say too much because there is a twist in there that I never saw coming and I don’t want to spoil it. The interactions between the characters were very interesting, we got to know the backgrounds of all the main ones making them much more relatable.
However, I did have some issues with the general storyline, there were some silly errors in there such as when talking about movies they said they were projected at ’24 frames a minute’ when it’s actually per second which actually made me doubt a lot of the other facts that are scattered about quite frequently. Also, some of the descriptions of the female characters both their personalities and physical attributes, I did wince as, you could tell they were written by a male.
It took me a while to actually get into this book, I almost gave up as it seemed very wordy, there were sentences where very little happened and gave nothing to the storyline but I am glad I kept going.
This isn’t a quick easy read and there is a lot in there that doesn’t need to be, the concept of the plot was interesting. I gave it a 3 out of 5 because of how slow it is getting to certain events.

Love me a good thriller! This one was a total surprise because of the tricky relationship between Ricky and Hannah and the fact that neither one of them was particularly sympathetic, to say the least. A good and twisty ending too!

A Kiss After Dying is a re-inspired take on Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying. This book by Ashok Banker features a protagonist who is a WOC, and is a pulpy thriller. Expect action, fast plot and quick snappy dialogue that is full of wit and a wallop of exposition.
This is narrated from the POV of Hannah (although that’s not her real name), who is studying in Zurich so she can stalk Ricky, the son of the man who murdered her father and stole his business ideas. She starts a relationship with him, so she can kill him...
Honestly, this was an average read. I loved the voice of the character, how psychotic and yet on the mark her commentary is about the world, but I had certain issues. Firstly the author felt he had to constantly remind the reader that his protagonist is female by referring to her breasts every other page or so, as if that’s our main centre of existence. Secondly the plotting didn’t grab me. The set-up of the scenes were questionable. I wasn’t sure what the purpose of Hannah’s relationship with Ricky was, when the ‘event’ at the end of Act One could’ve worked even if they didn’t have a relationship. It didn’t feel consequential. Overall I wasn’t surprised by the twists and there wasn’t much tension and suspense to sustain my attention. I think if redrafted this could make a good movie though.