Emma Maree Reviews: Blackbirds

Book: Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

Series: Miriam Black, Book 1

Genre: Fiction/Adult/Urban Fantasy

Miriam Black knows when you will die. She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides.

But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim.

No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

I absolutely adored this book, and here are a few reasons why:

• A likeable, vivid lady protagonist with a foul mouth and a brutally honest tongue. If anyone’s a fan of Chuck Wendig’s brilliant TerribleMinds blog and his ‘dubious writing advice’, you’ll feel right at home: they’re different people, but they hold a lot of common ground when it comes to creative swearing.
• Really well-done present tense and timelines. The story moves between two timelines with short, snappy scenes without getting confusing, and the present tense keeps us right there for every moment of the action.
• I haven’t read adult fiction in a while, since my main reading focus is YA, and there was something refreshing about the gritty no-holds-barred violence and sex in this story. But it’s not for everyone, of course: I know some of you aren’t a fan of (very gratuitous) gore or profanity, so this might not be the book for you.
• Balanced, likeable characters. Everyone has a strong visual design (Louis looks like Frankenstein’s monster, and Miriam describes herself as “like something blown in off a dusty highway”) and glimpses of backstory that make even the cruel villain’s sympathetic.
• That cover! You have to admit, that if some fiiiine, eye-catching artwork.

I’ve embedded the first few pages of the story below, which should give you a good feel for the story:

A review copy of the novel was provided by NetGalley/Angry Robot.