The project
Final Draft, a psychological horror, being filmed at a house deep in a forest, miles from anywhere in the wintry wilds of West Cork.
The lead
Former soap star Adele Rafferty has stepped in to replace the original actress at the very last minute. She can't help but hope that this opportunity will be her big break and she knows she was lucky to get it, after what happened the last time she was on a set.
The problem
Something isn't quite right about Final Draft. When the strange goings on in the script start to happen on set too, Adele begins to fear that the real horror lies off the page.
Read in one sitting totally gripping and really enjoyed this book totally recommend
I just reviewed Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard. #RunTime #NetGalley

This started ok but progressively got worse and then the ending sunk it for me. It was far too complex…about a book and then a film about a woman reading the book and ending up essential playing out the book. Too much going on and it just felt like a really bad cheesy horror film only with less people dying.

Loved the authors previous books but this for me was just ok,I found it a bit confusing in parts and wasn’t keen on the inserts that were in the book

At first I wasn't sure but about a quarter of the way in it all started to come together and became really addictive. I wanted to know why this was happening was it in her mind or someone else. Great read.

Good explanations of film and TV industry as well.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own

A book about a film about a book…
Adele is a actress currently working in a motel in LA. She gets a call about a movie job being filmed in her home country and is really excited to be involved in this independent horror film.

When she arrives there is a skeleton crew working this part of the shoot, which feels sensible given the parts they are filming. Little does she know, nothing here is normal or even safe,

This was an interesting read, a strong psychological thriller with horror elements. The amount of twists and turns is vast. The main theme of this book is gaslighting.

Interesting and I would recommend to anyone wanting a different take on the creepy house trope.

Run Time is a typical Catherine Ryan Howard novel in her signature untypical style. She puts a fresh twist on the  big house, deep in country, what on earth is happening novel and writes a book which is unexpected and gripping. The characters are real people with believable emotions and actions and you have fun reading even while you are worrying about what's happening next. I love that this author imagines very different scenarios and characters for every book she writes, there are certainly no formulaic plots with CRH, the only certainty is that it will be a clever story and a pacey read. You are in for a treat. Thank you to Netgalley and Corvus for a free ARC in return for an honest review.

What a really clever piece of writing this is. Totally different to the usual thrillers I read.

Adele is an out of work actor from Ireland working as a receptionist in L.A. She had a well publicised breakdown on set at her last acting job and feared she would never act again. Out of the blue she receives a phone call offering her the lead role in a movie back in Ireland immediately.

After quitting her job, Adele is excited to be on the plane back to her homeland.  What awaits her however, is maybe not what she was expecting! A budget horror movie set in a remote wood with limited phone coverage. A skeleton crew of all males. Anonymous texts warning her she is in danger.

It's a movie about a book and when the script of the movie / book starts happening in real life, Adele tries everything she can to escape from the woods. With the loss of power, no phone signal and all the film crew suddenly missing, she really fears for her safety.

Written in chapters from Adele's point of view and also dialogue from the book/movie extracts. This format made it easy to read and follow.

If you want something a bit different, this creepy mystery thriller could be for you. A real page turner.

Many thanks to Netgalley, the publishers and author for an ARC.

I really enjoyed most of the book and absolutely loved the concept. I loved that the same things were happening to the characters in different formats in a way and that the circumstances were all so similar, it was written in a clever way. It was such an eerie atmosphere aswell which I loved. It was a slow burner but yet I was gripped straight away. I think for me, the way the book was written with parts being the script, it sort of balanced out that it was a slow burn because it kept me engaged through the slower parts of the book.

I liked Adele’s character and I really felt for her through most of it, towards the end she started to come across as naive and indecisive but then it made her character seem more real because she was just so confused with what was happening. I liked that you felt like there was no trustworthy character and it was a complete mystery all the way through with what could be happening.

Once the story really got going, I was completely gripped, the creepy atmosphere was brilliant and I was picturing everything that was happening in my head and I just couldn’t put it down.. It then just started to become a slower towards the end again

Overall I enjoyed It, I thought the storyline was so original and I really liked that you were reading about the two stories side by side. I also really enjoyed the insight into the film business, I found that quite interesting. It was just a little bit slow and repetitive in places

I don’t read many thrillers but I really enjoyed this. A really unique premise and it kept me awake at night with all the creepy goings on. I guessed the reveal about half way through but it was still very satisfying and had one or two surprises despite that.

Adele Rafferty gave up her well-paid job as an soap actress to be the star in a 'real' movie. Something happened on the set, though, and after that Adele's chances of ever being asked for a role are next to nothing. Working in a seedy hotel in LA, she gets a telephone call - in fact, the gets several she doesn't answer - with what sounds as the second chance she so desperately needs. She should have answered the first calls too, because then she wouldn't have embarked on this 'big adventure' in rural Cork, but then we wouldn't have had this story.
Or actually, three stories. There's Adele's story, the story of the filming, and the story in the book that plays a big role in the movie.
And although I applaud Catherine Ryan Howard for coming up with the idea behind Run Time, and writing some very, very interesting scenes, I wish I would have skipped one of the parts of the book. Seldom ever have I read such a stupid story and seen such stupid characters. What a waste of time. The thing is that this stupid story is the most important part of what's happening with Adele so it's necessary to read it.

So why the four stars then? Because! Because it was very hard to put the book down once I started. Because I was intrigued by the character of Adele and wanted to know how things would work out for her. And of course, because I think it must have been very hard for such an accomplished author as Catherine Ryan Howard to write such drivel.

Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone for this review copy.

I have read the authors previous novels and enjoyed them but I found this mystery set in the dark Irish countryside difficult and confusing. The main character I thought had no emotional depth and the narrative was slowed by the screenplay inserts. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard
🎬
What you read to read this book:
* a large cup of tea
* chocolate bar of choice
* fully charged phone
* power bank for phone
* a torch
* a spare torch
* torch batteries
* a cushion to clutch / hide behind
🎬
Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard is a book about a movie about a book… bear with me.
🎬
Adele has moved to LA to find a new role and a new life, after 14 years starring in “Ireland’s second-worst soap opera”, when she gets a call to return to Ireland to star in a new psychological horror being directed by Steve Dade. From the moment she arrives on set strange things start to happen, and the coincidences between real life and the movie are hard to ignore. Or is she imagining things, after everything that happened the last time, it’s hard to tell.
🎬
Meanwhile, in the movie, Kate has escaped to the West Cork countryside with her boyfriend. In the cottage they’re staying in Kate finds multiple copies of a book and the owner tells her that the author wrote the book while staying there. She picks up a copy and starts to read; the coincidences between real life and the book are hard to ignore, or is she imagining things.
🎬
Described as a “cleverly plotted high-concept thriller” - they’re not wrong. It’s clever, it’s creepy - I’ll never look at a forest the same way and there were times I wondered if I would have to sleep with the light on - and there are also some cheeky nods to Catherine Ryan Howard’s other books and interests.
🎬
Run Time is very Catherine Ryan Howard. The concept reminded me of The Nothing Man, which featured a book within a book, but Run Time takes the term ‘meta’ to a whole new level. You get two stories in one ands you’re equally invested in both, and the movie scenes are in script format so it’s very easy to follow but keeps you guessing!
🎬
Run Time is published on 11th August in Ireland / UK. Highly recommend for fans of crime fiction / psychological thrillers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎬
*Thanks to the publishers @atlanticbooks / @corvusbooks for the digital copy of Run Time via @netgalley*
🎬
#RunTime #56Days #TheNothingMan #NetGalley #NetGalleyShelfDestruction #CrimeFiction #PsychologicalThriller #CatherineRyanHoward

I love this author and so was very excited to read this book. The premise is complex and multi -layered, the plot follows an actress (Adele) trying to salvage her career by appearing last minute in a film where in the script the main character reads s book which mirrors what happens to them…just when I felt it was complex for complexity’s sake the reality starts to come through!

It is hard to review without giving much away but the story is fast paced, it flits between the film script and the filming which adds an interesting dimension. The characters (all of them in the book, script and film!!) are varied and flawed.

There was a hint to the real culprit which I picked up on but then forgot about for a while as other red herrings were thrown about.

A real page turning thriller that will have you wondering which way is up!

Additional note - I spotted a couple of errors, especially in the screenplay dialogue, but as this was marked as an early uncorrected draft I've not taken those into account. I'm sure you'll pick it all up in the edit.

CATHERINE RYAN HOWARD - RUN TIME

Layered like the shattered striations of the lithosphere, strap yourselves in for a multi-meta celebration of crime from Catherine Ryan Howard. ‘Run Time’ follows the story of Adele Rafferty, a soap star who is struggling to reignite her career and the movie that seems to be her last-ditch effort to stay in the business.

When she arrives on location, a lodge set in dense woodland in the middle of the Irish countryside, there are signs that things aren’t quite right. As the signs of trouble become clearer, it seems like Adele might have left it too late to get away.

The scheme of this book is that there’s a novel, from which a script has been written, and the events start happening in real life on the movie set. This trick is maximised by Catherine Ryan Howard’s witty edge, which is definitely what kept me reading this story. The book is by no means comedy, but the humour is used excellently to disarm the potential complexity of the novel/script/reality plot, where reality actually refers to the novel proper. With the fourth wall being smashed on multiple levels, that wit keeps you excited about what’s coming next.

CHARACTERS AND BACKGROUND

There are several interesting characters to hand in this story. Adele Rafferty is a truism – the childhood soap star who left to do bigger things and then struggled. It’s not a stereotype as much as it’s a regular real story. There is the added complication for Rafferty caused by getting fired from a movie under strange circumstances and from being a feminist stuck on set with a crew entirely staffed by men. Most of the story is from her perspective.

We then have a rich tapestry of characters in orbit, friends, former colleagues, agents, and the film crew. The crew are varied examples of masculinity, ranging from toxic to creepy.

We also have the additional layer of characters from the inner-novel. These characters are less defined because we don’t read that whole core-novel but get a taste through excepts of the screenplay. These are supplied in a timely fashion for us to get the gist of the events that unfold in and around the lodge.

SUMMARY

In the process of writing the review, it becomes pretty obvious how difficult it is to explain this metaplot, which makes it all the more brilliant that Catherine Ryan Howard made such an entertaining and captivating job of it.

This is a really fun crime scenario, told with skill, and with that winning humour baked in to elevate it. I love book.

One wonders if a book that pretty much enters on just one individual can hold its pace. However, if that book is from the hands of Catherine Ryan Howard — who wrote the most mesmerising 56 Days, on two individuals, in lockdown — it's a different matter altogether. Run Time is fast paced, thrilling and send shivers down your spine ever so often. You think you know where it's going but trust me you don't. While the story set within a story set within a story (it's about an actor playing the role of a woman reading a novel, each theme reflecting the other like a hall of mirrors) is a bit confusing at first but once you grasp the threads, it's impossible to put down!

This was a very compelling read, with an atmospheric setting contributing to the unsettling feel of the book. Adele is an actress with a mysterious incident behind her who is cast in an independent horror film set and filmed in a remote location. This was very cleverly written encompassing a book within a film within a book, a device which worked very effectively. The book was fast paced and kept me guessing with plenty of intrigue as Adele tried to work out what was going on. Overall a well-plotted, tense and entertaining read. Thanks to netgalley and Atlantic books for the opportunity to read.

While I did enjoy this and got through it rather quickly. I do feel I guessed the two major twists pretty early. Which in turn lowered how intrigued I was going forward.
The first major twist became obvious to me around the halfway mark. Partly because of the screenplay parts but also just how it was set up with how the cast was.
Mentioning the screenplay parts. While I understand why they were used. I just was taken out of the story a little because each time I felt I was given a bit too much information that in turn gave away the story.
I also found that the dark intense feeling kept dipping. One moment I'm on the edge of my seat the next I'm taken out of the moment with a flashback.

In the middle of the Irish countryside a small film crew are making a horror film called Final Draft. The premise is that a young couple in a creepy cottage find a novel and everything that happens in it happens to them. There is something not quite right about the crew, however. Everyone has been hastily assembled and everyone is really desperate for the job so they aren’t asking any questions about the rather strange set up. The most desperate of them all is their leading actress, flown in as a last minute replacement. Adele’s last acting job ended in disaster and she urgently needs a hit film. As soon as she arrives strange things start happening, it’s like real life is echoing the film echoing the book….
Run Time is a clever premise and Catherine Ryan Howard keeps up a relentless, page turning pace. It’s a rather far fetched plot though and I found the ending to be a bit neat and rather rushed.
I really enjoyed her other books and didn’t love this quite so much but it will keep you hooked. Thank you to #netgalley and #atlantic books for allowing me to review this ARC

Love the concept of this one! I really enjoyed the way it was written with part script like format too. This was my first book by this author but I am keen to read her previous works now too as I loved the writing!

FROM THE COVER📖

Movie-making can be murder . . . 
The project
Final Draft, a psychological horror, being filmed at a house deep in a forest, miles from anywhere in the wintry wilds of West Cork.
The lead
Former soap-star Adele Rafferty has stepped in to replace the original actress at the very last minute. She can't help but hope that this opportunity will be her big break - and she knows she was lucky to get it, after what happened the last time she was on a set.
The problem
Something isn't quite right about Final Draft. When the strange goings-on in the script start to happen on set too, Adele begins to fear that the real horror lies off the page...

REVIEW 🔪🎬😱😬🌚📝
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Atlantic Books for the ARC. This is my fair and honest review

Catherine Ryan Howard is one of the most inventive writers around there is doubt of this after reading her latest novel none of her novels are the same in terms of plot lines that is for sure.

With this novel I enjoyed the unique concept more than the actual experience of reading it as it was all too frantic, unbelievable to the extreme, lacked any real thrill or tension and it seemed quite daft all round. it was a clever concept but it just did not work.

The setting along the with initial concept captured my imagination.

Things like the secluded tree lined wood and floor to celling windows looking out the dark woods gave an instant atmosphere of unease and creepiness, that along with elements like a skeleton crew, creepy crew members, strange messages and no Wi-Fi/Phone reception made the perfect recipe to create a thrilling scary read however the way the plot develops and the annoying lead character meant this brilliant setting was wasted.

The plot loses the momentum about 30% in for me. I felt enough time was not spent actually setting up for the big finial reveal a lot of it was merely a lot of Adele running around in the woods by herself, I felt the pace slowed greatly at this point without the benefit of other characters and their dialogue to bounce off, furthermore I don’t think this actually had the authors intended purpose it would have worked better with slow build up, it happened all too quick. No tension or a sense of eeriness was created at all. It was just a girl running about a damp forrest after nothing happening or with not much it appeared to be fearful from.

When the first reveal happened, I honestly was a bit disappointed. I thought, surely this isn’t the whole storyline being revealed after such little real build up, it wasn’t but what followed made the book completely different from what I suspect most readers were expecting after reading the synopsis, and it become almost a farce.

There was far too much going on and none of it in anyway believable ,even in the world of fiction, the actual full reveal was unexpected but not surprising. It was the same old story of jealously, delusion and lazy portrayal of mental health, particularly of woman’s mental health. I thought better of the writer tbh.

The ending isn’t great, it’s very underwhelming and just sort of fizzles out before any pop.

However the last page which is a newspaper cutting did make me laugh as it was keeping with the character of Adele both in terms of how she portrays herself in the first POV over the novel(which is strangely set as three acts this doesn’t work at all even with the novel being set within a film set,act two is by far the most disappointing, I get the first act shows the before the second the event and the third the after but the way the story is written does not work with in this lay out) and how she appears to be seen in the surrounding world of characters that are featured. She is very much the pretty, slightly boring, poor me, classic self deluded ,self involved ,stereotypical actor type.

The novel is laid over three acts all of which is of is told from the first POV of Adele, with a prologue told in first POV of one of the film crew and intermixed with pages of the script of the Final Draft the film that Adele is shooting as the lead.

I did quite the movie script being included I think that was meant to add to the tension as we were reading along side Adele but if anything it highlights how poor the tension was created in the main story, it was like the author wanted to leave a gap in between to keep you reading and to develop a slow simmering feel but it really didn’t, the insertion of the film script interrupts the flow and it inevitably leads to some repetition.

However I did like the ending of the film script it was quite amusing and in true horror slasher film style was cheesy and left room for a not needed squeal. The film script for me added a sense of a parody of a slasher movie set in the late 90’s which after some quite dull so called mystery in the main body of the Nobel made me chuckle if anything else. Footnote I preferred Kate to Adele. Adele as a character wasn’t for me.

What makes this three stars instead of two was the fact the concept was brilliant, unique in terms of initial plot and had a great setting , presented in a different way this could have easily been five stars, I think there needs to be some serious editing and rewriting of parts before publishing to make it as good as the authors previous work.