WOW! Is it possible to be in love with a book? It is, and I am. All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whittaker is going to be your book of the summer. It is certainly mine - maybe of the year.
It is reassuringly long and detailed, and I soaked up every word. Another review called it 'equal parts harrowing and triumphant' and I couldn't agree more. I was on the edge of my seat and genuinely terrified, but it also had me laughing out loud (thank you Charlotte) and proper ugly sobbing. Not many books do this to me.
I have no idea how a man can write women so well, but Chris Whittaker does. He is also a Brit and writes books set in the US like a proper local.
Five stars really isn't enough. I LOVED IT and I don't think I will ever forget Patch and Saint.

Chris Whitaker's new novel is absolutely gripping from start to finish, with an intricate plot and lyrical prose. It's much more than just your average crime novel. Set in 1970s America, the setting is lushly realised with characters who feel real and authentic in every action they take. One of the best books I've read in years - I'll be buying this for everyone I know.

Hard to know where to start with this one, there are so many things to say, but most important of all has to be the way it made me feel - this is one of those books that holds you tight and doesn’t let go, I really loved it. It’s wise, astute, heartbreaking and heart mending, with a cast of characters who even now, several days after finishing the book, are still with me. The author is extremely deft at hiding things he doesn’t want the reader to see until he is absolutely ready to reveal them and so the ending really delivered. I felt the middle section was a little slow but by then I was so invested that I was happy to journey at a slightly slower pace, and what a journey! Very happy to heartily recommend this, so many thanks to the author and publisher for the chance to read an early copy.

This was such a delight to read and I thought quite an unlikely book to become my best read of 2024. Loved it, read it in one sitting.

Heartbreak and fierce friendship, abject poverty, kidnap, murder, complex characters, lifelong obsession and a bit of a road movie, too.
All this and more is packed into this novel told in very clever concentric overlapping plot lines. A slight sag in the middle, but utterly forgivable with Patch, the leading flawed genius, and his friend Saint putting on this vast show.
My favourite side characters were Sammy, the drunken, sweary womanising art dealer and Patch’s sassy daughter Charlotte.
This book will soar and deservedly so.

Wowsers - this book covers all sorts of topics, from kidnapping, murder, abortion, domestic violence and the strongest theme throughout, friendship. It is a great story and I very much enjoyed the two main characters, there was scope for their relationship to become cliched but the harder, more realistic path was taken by the author which gave a richly, satisfying turn to the book.

It is a hefty tome and it would have benefited from some tightening up un the mid-section. There was an awful lot of fruitless searching, and then suddenly in the last quarter things come together at such a pace that I thought I may have missed something in a previous chapter. It may be that because I read an electronic proof copy that I found the formatting confusing. There a regular changes of narrator and place, sometimes every paragraph switches, in my copy there was no visual cue that this had happened so I had to double back when I realised I was reading about someone else's point of view.

If I could give this book 10 stars, I would. This is the best book I've read in a long long time. It's gripping, intoxicating, achingly heartbreaking and so clever. I struggled to put it down and now don't want to pick anything else up whilst the characters are still roaming fresh round my head.

Beginning in 1970s in small town America, two outcast children, one-eyed, poverty stricken Joseph "Patch" McCauley and whip-smart, amateur bee-keeper Saint Brown become unlikely best friends. When Patch saves local teen beauty Misty Myers from being attacked and is himself abducted, Saint is distraught and sets about searching for her missing friend. What unfolds from this point is a story of loss, grief, hope, loyalty, betrayal and longing as Patch and Saint weave in and out of each others' lives over the next thirty years - each buffeted by fate and desperately searching for something they seem unable to grasp.

Ostensibly billed as a crime/thriller, this doesn't do the depth of this book justice. I would almost bill it as a bildungsroman with an engrossing mystery plot woven throughout. Told in short chapters from Patch and Saint's alternating perspectives, it's intricately plotted, the prose sparce and lyrical with the sense that every word is weighted to produce the maximum emotional charge. The world building is incredible, at once intimate and epic. There is also just so much plot and the book really cracks along at pace, so much happens in such a short space of time yet you never feel like it rushes over anything or the characters are short-changed.

The themes are dark, so it might not be to everyone's tastes, but this book really worked for me and has gone straight into my list of all-time best reading experiences. I will be recommending to everyone.

My absolute favourite type of book, containing all of my most beloved feelings along with a bit of horror, some tragedy and a thick layer of wholesome old love. Beautiful writing, beautiful story, beautiful everything. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Sidebar: How Chris Whitaker lives in HERTFORDSHIRE is beyond me

A brilliantly unique story that turns the tropes on their heads. Impressed by the dialogue and plot with this one.

This book made me weep - Patch and Saint will stay with you for years to come and make you think of how kids should be bought up better than we ourselves were.

Chris writes small town America beautifully. I was taken on a journey whilst reading with a bunch of characters that I was really rooting for. I wasn’t sure how things were going to tie up, but they did and it ended in a way I so desperately wanted it to.
This isn’t your normal mystery. It’s a mystery that gets you to take a deeper look at yourself and those around you. Beautiful.

All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker is an intricately plotted story which reminded me of The Goldfinch and Demon Copperhead. It features a great cast of characters whose lives we follow from their childhoods to thirty years later.


After struggling with the formatting about halfway through this book I ended up having to read via the NetGalley app. I struggled to read it simply because of the formatting on my Kindle. Most of the chapter numbers are not included making it very confusing when the action jumps from time/place/person because it is a new chapter. One example being quite a tense moment which then moves to the high school prom on the same line! A shame as it spoiled my reading of the first half of this novel.

A genre defying, decades spanning ode to love, loss and friendship you won't read a more gripping book this year. Peopled with unforgettable and heartbreaking characters, All the Colours of the Dark examines the long lasting reverberations of an abduction on a small American town and the lives of everyone involved.
The storyline - a boy abducted, a quest for a missing girl who may not exist at all, a determined best friend who never gives up hope - only skims the surface of this compelling and beautifully written novel. The only way to really discover it is to read it for yourself. Highly recommended.

All the stars. ALL of them.

This has been my most anticipated book this year, maybe even last year too.
Yet its sat on my kindle for two weeks doing nothing.
The reason? I kept it until I had HOURS to dedicate myself to the story.
Today was that day, and I'm glad I waited.
I read the first third in one chunk (then really did have to do some boring domestic stuff).
Then read the rest.
This is no small book.
Whitaker has you caring about his characters in a way no other author does I find, he especially nails the teenagers. Saint and Patch will be remembered here for a long time.
I can't count on my hands the amount of sentences that left me with tears in my eyes.
By the end I was a MESS.
Beautifully written and a plot that has you guessing the whole way through..
With each of his books he gets better.
This one puts him at the top of my list of favourite authors....
Just superb.

5 full stars.

Wow, just absolute wowzers. What an incredible book, one of the finest I’ve read in a long while. It had me hooked within its opening pages, reading far too late into the night until I could no longer force my heavy lids to stay open. I simply could not put this down and this did not wane once, through the entire epic story. This is going to be a HUGE hit.

Never before have I fallen so hard for characters so immediately - they are so exquisitely drawn, with such endearing quirks and characteristics that you cannot help but fall in love with them - despite the darkness we are in introduced to from the offset. Patch and Saint will stay with me for a very long time.

I’m not going to divulge the bones of the story as there will be many reviews I’m sure, which will so this for me - but, know that this is no ordinary crime drama- it’s a crime saga spanning many decades, which is so incredibly character driven, it reads like a classic. The writing is sublime, confident and whilst at times, the paragraphs snake between subjects (I’m assuming the kindle formatting was intentional!) which I found to be rather unnerving at first - I also came to understand that this structural feature helped to seamlessly bind the subject matters.

This is the first book I’ve read by Chris Whitaker, but before I was half way through I had already ordered two of his earlier books; I just knew I would feel bereft when it ended. Order your copy - I can personally guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC.

4.5* All the Colours of the Dark - Chris Whitaker. Wow. Just Wow. This book has utterly grabbed me and I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

The story of Patch and Saint told over many decades. From their relatively poor up-bringings in a pretty and moneyed small town, to Patch performing a heroic deed which will change both of their lives forever.

This is a beautifully written book. It took me a little bit to get into the swing of the prose and the rhythm of the characters and the plot but once I was in, I was in hard. It's difficult to say too much without giving things away and this is one where surprise is the reader's friend. It is possibly literary crime fiction, it is a coming of age story, it is sometimes thrilling and other times meandering. However, it is always compelling. Each of the wider cast of characters brings a huge amount to the story, along with a sense of place and a struggle for belonging.

My one word of caution, this is a book for when you have the time to read it. I suspect it wouldn't have the same impact if you try to read a couple of pages a night ... it has a need for an immersive experience.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC. Hugely recommended.

This is my first book by Chris Wihitaker but reading the reveiws on it very much drew me to it and it sounded just up my street.
I found it to be more of a love story and a missing person story than a thriller but it is very beautifully written even though I did find it a bit of a slow burn in some parts , it is very dark in parts too but also very emotional and you actually feel Patch’s pain and absolute drive and determination throughout the book. I felt so much for Saint too, her devotion is relentless. It is very character based and I like this in a book, where you get very invested in them.
I will definitely be looking to read more of Chris’s novels in future and highly recommend this one. Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for this early copy.

All The Colour’s of the Dark is a wonderful at times heartbreaking story that spans 30 years.
When Patch a young boy is abducted and injured he is kept in complete darkness, after days of this he is joined by Grace who tends his wound and keeps him alive. With stories of her life, places she has seen, visited and read about she brings light and colour to the dark incarceration. After almost a year and with Patch’s best friend Saint never giving up hope he is found but Grace has disappeared.
From that moment Patch has drastically changed and the next 30 years cover his quest to find Grace, with Saint determined to help the friend she loves she becomes an FBI agent.
With a cast of characters ranging from the mainly good to the downright diabolical you are kept continually questioning motives and actions.
Beautifully told, a sad tale though also uplifting. The reveals at the end are a surprising and shocking as you expect after taking this journey with them.
My thanks to net galley and publisher for the opportunity to review this book honestly.

This is a heart breaking story with well written characters but it is spoilt by the profuse use of very bad language.

We Begin At The End has been my favourite book for several years now, not much has come close, so I was very excited to be approved for this.

I knew that it was going to be beautifully written, I knew there were going to be characters that would get under my skin, but the more I read, the more I couldn't put it down. A slow-burn in the best possible way spanning years with these wonderful characters, (If any author was going to create characters to rival Duchess and Walk in my heart, it was going to be this one, and it was going to be Patch and Saint ❤️) encompassing several genres and weaving the most intricate tale that came together so beautifully I am not sure I breathed during the final 10-15%.

I am so happy I got this early copy and I am so happy that I get to recommend it to people, then read it again with them. Can't recommend this book enough 🥰