A right old page turner that I read in one sitting.

This author does excellent psychological thrillers that always have a quirky twist - in Run Time, which will satisfy all readers of twisty Mysteries as well as fans of 70s and 80s horror flicks, we have an isolated location, a protagonist who has no idea what is happening, eerie woods and twisted paths and right at the centre of it a strangely prescient manuscript.

I banged through it, wildly entertaining and beautifully plotted a great book to lose an afternoon with.

Adele Rafferty is a struggling actress who is offered the chance to star in a new film when the original choice to play the role is no longer available. Adele previously starred on a soap but since leaving the series has seen her career dwindle considerably. This latest offer could be the opportunity she needs to put her career back on course. Adele is due to star in the psychological thriller ‘Final Draft’, being filmed at a house deep in a forest, miles from anywhere in the wintry wilds of West Cork. It is not long before Adele starts to sense something is not quite right.

I love the writing of this author but this one didn’t quite hold me like many of her other novels. There was still plenty to enjoy with good characters but the plot itself didn’t have the pull for me.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Atlantic Books for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Ive marked this book down as i spent alot of time confused, a book, within a book, within a movie with hard to keep track of for me personally but i still enjoyed aspects of it and felt nervous at times and didnt expect the culprit.
I feel like other people will enjoy this more than me so please dont let the 3 put you off, and give it a try yourself 😊 I loved the nothing man by this author and will definitely read more by her

Run Time
By Catherine Ryan Howard

This was my most anticipated book of the year after a complete binge of Catherine Ryan Howard's previous work in a matter of weeks last year. She is the most inventive creator of plot and structure I have ever read. No two books are ever alike and just when you think you can see the way her mind works, whoosh! Rug out from under you.

What gives me such a thrill is that I know all these locations like the back of my hand. I love that she peppers every book with snarky little Irishism and the narrative is the vernacular I grew up with. It feels like hanging out with a close friend. In this regard, Run Time does not disappoint. The book is full of them. Cedarwood Road, Hah! I lived around the corner, literally.

So here we have a completely new structure again. This time we are looking at a book, within a book, within a movie. It's kind of hard to keep track of the loops. Right from the start you can't help but worry for Adele. Everything you know about her indicates she is poor at decision making. In typical horror/slasher movie style, we are screaming NO at her, at every turn of the road. Eeriness and panic ebb and flow, there are moments of reprieve but then we're off again in another direction. This is one convoluted ride.

This story requires a certain amount of suspension of belief, but it is, after all a horror/ slasher movie. There will be lots of panicked running around in forests, lots of jump frights, you will not know who to trust, your heart will hammer and you will go dizzy from holding your breathe. At least that is what happened to me. But somehow through it all, as in all horror/ slasher movies, there is that all prevailing tongue in cheek sense that the joke is on you. (And me). She did it again, she gave me the creeps and made me laugh at myself. Not as clever as previous works but a fun and very quick read.

At times a fun read, at other a creepy one.
The horror element of the book , and movie, the secluded house and surrounding woods, the lack of outside communication, they definitely give great moments of tension.
The book to movie thing worked well too, and Adele was a likeable enough character.
In fact there were so many things I did like about the book, I'm not sure why it's not rating higher for me.
Moments of boredom perhaps?
An ending that although I didn't predict, certainly wasn't a surprise.
Enjoyable enough.

My thoughts are all over the place with this one. I would say that this felt like a first draft rather than a final draft (see what I did there) Sentences were in the wrong place, names were wrong, chunks were missing. But that should all be ironed out in the final.

All I can say is that I read this in a day and I have been utterly immersed in the setting and the crazy Horror story/Horror Film Inception style plot.

The first 40% is given to setting up Adele as the lead character and getting us into the feel of the set and the filming process.
Once you hit that 40% mark the action ramps up and tbe plot comes into its own.

The atmosphere was intensely creepy, I loved how I felt the wrongness of everything from the very start. There were elements of classic horror films throughout, and that really appealed to me. I even loved how much Adele knew she was in danger of becoming a horror trope and acted much more level-headed than horror film characters.

The tension was so taut in places my heart was going. I think my Fitbit probably thought I was hiking Everest. The contrast of the script and the real life events helped this enormously, with the script acting as a warning of things to come.

The feminist/Me Too elements were great and got me thinking and added more tension. There wasn't just the threat of a killer or whatever but a real threat of a woman being alone in a remote location with some awful men who were used to getting away with shit as part of their industry.
I loved that this was highlighted, but some.of the issues did feel a bit clumsy, especially the first couple of mentions. Almost like they've been shoehorned into the plot. I think they came up fairly naturally, but the dialogue surrounding them was quite wooden. But I loved that they were there. A few times I was like, YES Adele!

There were a couple of elements that felt a bit loose. Like when Adele gets tripped in the woods. How did someone know she would go that way and then get in front of her and get close enough to trip her up. The other mind games, okay I'll bite on the explanations,  but some .parts felt a bit underdevloped.
I think the ending was a bit mundane as Adele herself noted. But only because the tension had been so high throughout that the who and why felt a bit like a school playground fight rather than the motive for everything that had come before.

With some proper polishing I think this wi be a cracker of a read. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Run Time is a extremely intense and atmospheric psychological thriller/horror with a addictive plot that centres around the production of a independent horror film (Final Draft) the script of which was based on a book called First Draft.

This heart pounding story is narrated predominantly from the perspective of Adele Rafferty, an out of work actor (don't you dare call her a actress) who had once been a shining star in the world of Irish reality tv shows until a apparent mental breakdown had forced her to flee her home county of Ireland and relocate to LA. She now worked reception at a two story hotel at Universal but no matter how often she tried to convince herself that it wasn't true,she couldn't turn off the burning hunger and desire for that one call which would change everything, write off the traumatic event from her past and put her face and name back in the spotlight again. This is one of a number of reasons why when she actually receives a call from someone who claims to represent a film production company called Cross Cut offering her the lead female role in a psychological horror which is being filmed in West Cork, Ireland, Adele doesn't think twice about signing on the dotted line. Little does Adele realise that nothing about the production is as it appears to be and that she has unknowingly signed herself up for a terrifying, living nightmare where she will find herself facing danger and betrayal whilst fighting for her life within the dark, isolated woods of rural Ireland.

I thought that Adele was a fantastic character, I loved her witty comments and sense of humour although,I do admit that there was times throughout the story when I had doubts about her abilities to make sensible decisions. I mean, I can understand that there was a possibility that her judgement was clouded by the possible opportunity to reignite her career as an actor. And I can also imagine that the vast majority of us have goals in our lives which we want to achieve and some people are prepared to go to extreme lengths to get what they feel that they deserve out of life as demonstrated by more than one character who features in this book. But, I'm damn sure that there is absolutely no way that I would have stayed in a isolated cabin which had a rather unreliable lock on the door after I had discovered that the only other people in the vicinity was a group of men, all of whom were complete strangers to me before that day. The author had imbued each member of the film crew with their own unique personalities and character traits and I was never certain if Adele could trust any one of them as her nightmare continued to unfold.

Interspersed throughout the book was the script of the film adaptation that was allegedly being recorded by Adele and the production crew. It was the story of Kate (Adele in the film and Karen in the book that Adele was reading) and her boyfriend Joel and how their romantic weekend at isolated Cherry Cottage turned into a terrifying nightmare for poor Kate. When strange things started happening, occurrences which eerily mirrored the fictional events from a book that Kate had discovered in the cottage and started reading, Joel refused to accept anything that Kate was trying to tell him. Then Joel started behaving strangely and leaving Kate all alone in the isolated cottage where unbeknownst to Kate she was being observed by a mysterious shadowy character

I loved the isolated setting for this book, I always feel that setting a story amongst the woods and trees adds so much extra atmosphere to the story especially when some scenes are set at nighttime with the rain lashing down and lightening bolts flashing across the sky (unfortunately there was no lightening in this story) The feelings of tension and fear radiating from Adele as she ran for her life were nerve shredding and intense as unidentifiable shadows and shapes emerged within the trees, Then, just when she thought that she was safe, any sudden silence was filled with the sound of a snapping twig and approaching footsteps.

Heart pounding intense and atmospheric, this is a cleverly plotted, enthralling page turner that had me hooked in and totally captivated from the first page. It's one of those books that one you start reading it, you find yourself so drawn into the story that you find yourself reluctant to put your kindle down and growling with rage at any one who has the tenacity to interrupt you whilst you are reading. I thought that it was very clever how the author incorporated the title, plot and characters from one of her previous books into this latest addition to her catalogue of addictive thrillers. I really really loved this incredible book and if I could, I would award it far more than five stars. Very very highly recommended and definitely one of my favourite reads of this year so far.

Thank you for my copy of this book to review.

I have read all of Catherine Ryan Howard’s previous books and have loved every one of them.

This one did take me a while to grasp as it felt quite complicated to work out what was what at the beginning. But once I’d got my head around it I couldn’t put it down.

An unusual plot and very tense at times. I have already recommended this to friends.

This is a book split into the script for a movie and the movie being filmed itself. The movie section was propulsive. I kept reading faster and faster to work out what was happening.

A really interesting concept that made for a brilliant read. Twisty and unpredictable with well developed characters. I loved it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Atlantic Books for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Adele is a struggling.actress who left Ireland for LA in an effort to reignite her acting career. She gets an offer to be in a horror movie back in Ireland and quickly accepts. But when she arrives everything seems weird and she starts experiencing what happens in the script in real life.

I thought this was a clever concept- real.life follows the movie which followed a book. But after roughly midway I got kind of bored with Adele being in the woods and then I lost interest and my mind wandered and I didn't really care much how it ended which honestly was just ok. I really wasn't shocked or wowed. I have liked some of her other books so I will hope for better luck next time.

Run Time - Catherine Ryan Howard

Firstly I'm a huge fan of Catherine Ryan Howard's novels. 56 Days was my favourite book of last year, then I binged on all of her other brilliant thrillers.

Run Time has been my most anticipated new release for some time.

Queen of the concept thriller, the easiest way to explain this one is 'First Draft' is the name of a psychological horror novel, 'Final Draft' is the name screenplay for the movie adaptation which is about to start filming. The story of First Draft features a couple in a remote cottage, creepy things from the novel start happening to the couple (the boyfriend happens to be the author of the novel).

Adele Rafferty is the out of work actress drafted in at the last minute to star in the movie, and the creepy events of the First Draft novel / Final Draft screenplay start happening on the real life film set.

Run Time takes a little while to lay the ground work, and the structure mixes in chunks of the Final Draft screenplay. It's a different style and it works very well for the most part.

The character writing is up to Catherine Ryan Howard's usual very high standard, Adele's hopes, dreams and fears of past events catching her up are presented brilliantly. I didn't think the plot was as great as usual, and there is a survival thriller section which I felt ran on for too long.

It all comes together extremely well in the end, with enough twists and tension in the later stages to satisfy most thriller fans. A brave attempt to try a very different multi-layered concept.

Thanks to Netgalley and Atlantic Books, Corvus

This is a very quirky thriller about a film about a book where the action in the film script mirrors the actions in the book and then conversely the actor playing the main character in the film finds herself in a bizarrely similar situation. So far so confusing right? To be honest it took me a while to get my head around it all although the layout is fine for helping you understand whether you’re reading text from the book, the film script or the action now. I had to persevere with this more than i expected however it was worth it as I reached a stage where I was gripped and totally lost track of time and ended up staying up longer than anticipated just to finish it!

#RunTime #NetGalley
It was like The Final Cut by S J Watson.
Final Draft, a psychological horror, being filmed at a house deep in a forest, miles from anywhere in the wintry wilds of West Cork. 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.
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...
Thanks to NetGalley and Transworld Publishers for giving me an advance copy.