I must confess… I, once again, dove into a book without paying any attention to its place in a series. When TBR and Beyond Tours emailed about the opportunity to be part of the Some Shall Break tour, I recognized the cover of (what I now know to be) the first book, and decided to give it a shot thinking it was just a similar cover style for one author. That happens all the time.

However, that was not the case. Some Shall Break [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] is the follow up to None Shall Sleep [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM], so discussing this book might include some spoilers for the first book. I’m not really sure what those specifically might be since I haven’t gone back to read the first one yet, so consider yourself warned.

Anyways….

Information from the first book I wish I knew going into this:
– Travis and Emma were part of an FBI program to get teens to interview teen serial killers in hopes of learning more about a killer’s mind
– Emma turned down the job.
– Travis and Emma are the same age.

This book picks up three months after the events of the first one. Emma Bell is off at college at Ohio State University (blech. I hated typing that. Go Blue!) when she gets called back to Pittsburgh because there’s a serial killer who appears to be copycatting a case she was involved with before… as a victim. Emma doesn’t work for the FBI, but she’s kinda on the case after realizing that she is who the copycat is looking for. The FBI kinda goes with it because the best way to protect her is to be with her at all times, right?

Emma’s relationships in this are a bit complicated. Travis is her former partner and there are definitely some sparks there in a very slow burn-type of way. He’s questioning where his loyalty should lie, and there’s a lot of depth to what he’s going through as well. On the other hand, there is Kristin. Her twin brother Simon is a teenage serial killer with a dozen bodies to his name, one of them being Travis’ father. They have an extremely weird and creepy connection, which plays out quite dramatically throughout this story, with Kristin and Emma visiting Simon in a mental institution for help in the case.

Overall, this story was compelling and interesting despite a few weak points. I wasn’t crazy about the writing style. I’m not 100% sure what you’d call it, but I think it’s 3rd person singular present tense, and it just feels weird in places. I could ignore it for a while because I was into the story itself, but every so often, a line would remind me that the tense was weird and I didn’t care for it.

My other main issue is the setting. This story takes place in 1982, but it’s really hard to tell. The characters frequently reference a case in ’79 being three years ago, but there are also references to three months ago, so it got a bit fuzzy for me. There wasn’t much else to go on setting-wise to really convince you that it was happening in the 80’s.

If you can look past those issues and focus on the story, you’ll love it. It’s a wild ride with an even crazier ending, so I’ll definitely be looking for book three whenever that comes out!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ellie Marney is a NYT bestselling author of crime fiction. Her most recent book is The Killing Code, and her other titles include the Aurealis-winning None Shall Sleep, the Every series – starting with Every Breath – and the companion novel No Limits, White Night, and the Circus Hearts series, starting with Circus Hearts 1. Ellie’s next book, Some Shall Break, the sequel to None Shall Sleep, will be released June 2023.

Ellie’s books are published in eleven countries and have been optioned for television. She’s spent a lifetime researching in mortuaries, talking to autopsy specialists, and asking former spies how to make explosives from household items, and now she lives quite sedately in south-eastern Australia with her family.

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