<i>The Shape of the Night</i> wasn't at all what I was expecting from a new Tess Gerritsen novel - like many other readers I'm sure, I was expecting more of a forensic thriller/ mystery, in the same vein as her Rizzoli and Isles series, but this is very different (which I'd know if I'd read the synopsis again before starting it). It's a paranormal mystery with gothic elements, and though I am a fan of Gothic novels, I don't tend to reach for paranormal novels much - which is why this was a nice change.

The Shape of the Night is a very readable novel which took me no time to get through. Main character Ava is likable and has a dark past which is hinted at throughout the novel, leading the reader to wonder what exactly happened in her 'previous life' that she's running away from. There's an interesting array of characters in the small coastal town Ava has moved to, and the rustic setting is painted vividly - I could imagine being there, swept up in the windy seaside land.

The storyline's paranormal elements are woven into this novel well, creating a mysterious and tense atmosphere at times. There's also a lot of romance/ sex scenes in this novel, so if that's not your thing then you may not enjoy. It definitely had elements of a bodice-ripper and some parts were a little cheesy - though never too cheesy, just on the edge. It makes for entertaining reading though!

I am a big fan of Tess Geritsen's writing and have been for years, and although this is very different to the work she's most known for, it's still a really enjoyable, well-written read that offers something a little different.

Somewhat creepy, suspenseful, and eerie, but I felt like there was something missing. I much prefer the Rizzoli & Isles series, and The Bone Garden and The Silent Girl gave off more of a scary supernatural vibe than this one. I don’t seem to do as well with Gerritsen’s standalone’s. Playing With Fire wasn’t my favourite either.

Great thriller which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to others! Tess Gerritsen is always a winner!

When I first started reading, I didn't realise there were any supernatural elements and I was taken by surprise but it worked really well. If a little freaky!

What an excellent book featuring Ava who rents Brodie's Watch while she writes her cookery book. This book keeps the reader enthralled as the old house which sits on cliff tops appears to be haunted.

I love love Tess Gerritsen and have been a big fan of her books from the beginning. This latest book had me gripped from the first page to the last. It is a must read and the characters are so alive!!! Absolutely compulsive reading. 5 stars all the way

I very much enjoyed this book. It has a good story and excellent main characters. I would definately recommend this book.

Thank you Random House and Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book.
Not your usual Tess Gerritsen book but a great story, very different to the usual and good characters. Definitely recommend.

Even though I did end up buying myself a physical copy of this book, I would still like to thank Netgalley and the publishers for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Well that's me not sleeping tonight. I really shouldn't of read this book before bed...
What a read though! I don't think my goosebumps, or the chill that I felt, ever went away the whole time I was reading! Such a completely unnerving, heart-stopping terrifying read that definitely had me addicted from the very first page to the very last.
It didn't read like this author's previous books, but it's something different, and I really enjoyed it! Yes the ending wasn't massively satisfying, but this is a story that I'm gonna struggle to forget!
Creepy, intense, dark, with supernatural elements, and with a perfect amount of suspense and intensity in the right places, I definitely recommend this book!

I like Tess Gerritsen. Over the years I have re read her books. This book is no different I have read it twice. I throughly enjoyed this a must read.

Having loved Rizzoli & Isles and Playing With Fire, I jumped at the chance to read her latest book The Shape of Night when Anne Cater of Random Things Tours asked me to be on the blogtour. In fact I didn’t even look at the description or blurb of the book – just said yes and added it to my list of books to read for October.

It was only whilst attending a book festival and chatting to other bloggers that I found out The Shape of Night is quite different to her usual books and I was told to keep “an open mind” which is probably the best advice I can give to any reader.

This books starts off in the normal thriller way – our narrator is Ava. An author of cook books and someone who is trying to escape her life and start again due to something that happened to her several months ago. She is racked with guilt and is relying on alcohol to dull her feelings and emotions and it’s no spoiler to say that her dependence for the bottle is out of control.

To escape her past and concentrate on her future, in particular to finish her next book for her publishers which is a year overdue she decides to rent a house near the sea and that’s where Brodies Watch comes in. A magnificent old, isolated mansion overlooking the sea and currently going through some renovations, Brodies Watch is so well described and atmospheric that you actually begin to see the house as a character in the story.

Once Ava moves into Brodies Watch things take an unexpected turn and I probably should warn you that if you are a prude you might not enjoy or expect what happens next! Ava develops a fascination into the history of the house and especially Captain Jeremiah Brodie, the rugged (and randy) sea captain who built the house and died 150 years ago at sea. Ava’s fascination with Captain Brodie obviously comes from her guilt and the amount of alcohol she consumes every day, but from this point on everything changes.

This book crosses many genres and I don’t want to give anything away – so be prepared for ghosts, murders, small town secrets, a narrator with an alcohol problem and severe feelings of guilt, some very, very steamy sex and quite a few mouth watering recipes! Several other reviewers have compared it to a paranormal 50 Shades and all I can say is that it gives a new meaning to “things that go bump in the night”.

I quite like Tess Gerritsen and I don’t mind a paranormal, these two didn’t feel like an obvious match for me but the book was easy to read and I worked ,y way through fairly quickly.
Ava is the main character who drinks too much, has a tragic past and is escaping to a creepy and spooky house that is beautiful. And then weird things start to happen and the previous tenant turns up dead.
It’s not the typical book I would choose and certainly wouldn’t jump to recommend it especially to specific Gerritsen fans....they’d be a little disappointed I’d expect.

Not the book for me. I enjoy tess gerristen series but this new direction is not one I had enjoyed. It was a shame because she is a very good writer and I was looking forward to this new novel.

I've read several books by Tess Gerritsen, Rizzoli & Isles as well as a medical thriller and a historical (medical) thriller. All were really good. Something I sadly cannot say about "The Shape of Night".

After the first few chapters I was reminded of "Remember Me" by Mary Higgins Clark, a book I enjoyed very much, even though it contains supernatural stuff. But then Gerritsen throws in "Fifty Shades of Grey" as well, and that is so not my cup of tea of all. I couldn't relate to the main character Ava, so I didn't care for her very much. And lastly, the author doesn't make enough out of the turn the story takes towards the ending.

4.5★s
The Shape of the Night is the fifteenth stand-alone novel by award-winning American author, Tess Gerritsen. Desperate to escape Boston and the events of her year so far, and facing an overdue deadline for her book, food writer Ava Collette is grateful to find an old seaside rental in Maine for the summer. It’s cheap because the owner still has renovations going on; it’s available because the last tenant unexpectedly left early; and inside, Brodie’s Watch turns out to be wonderfully welcoming despite the initially forbidding exterior.

The house is perfect for her book on New England Traditional food, and the carpenters make excellent guinea pigs for her recipes. But when they aren’t there, she notices a presence. She’s not afraid; rather she is enthralled (lustfully so) with what she perceives to be the ghost of the strikingly handsome sea captain who built the house over one hundred and fifty years earlier.

Jeremiah Brodie makes her feel safe. He seems to know exactly what Ava feels, her massive guilt and her need for punishment. But could Ava’s copious consumption of alcohol be altering her perception? Or might the infection resulting from scratches from her large, mean, Maine coon cat be affecting her brain function?

Ava contacts a specialist in the paranormal: “I wanted to know that what I saw and felt in Brodie’s Watch was real. No, I’m not afraid of Captain Brodie’s ghost. What terrifies me is the possibility that he doesn’t exist and I’m going insane”. But Maeve Cerridwyn uncovers some disturbing facts about Brodie’s Watch, and is convinced that Ava is in danger. The body pulled from the water not long after Ava arrives is also a mystery, as are some earlier deaths classified as accidental.

Fans of her work will quickly realise that this is not what they are used to from Tess Gerritsen: this murder mystery has strong elements of the paranormal as well as scenes of BDSM erotica. However, it allows an ambiguity that acts somewhat as a red herring, along with a few more conventional distractions to keep the reader guessing. While the back-cover blurb is a little misleading this one is intriguingly different.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK

I really wanted to enjoy this as I've loved Tess Gerritsen's other books but this was not for me. I found it a really slow start that was not even a slow burn opening but a trying to find a match to light this opening. The main character seemed interesting but the writing just did not hold me in the slightest. I would pick up another book by this author though as i feel like this was just a fluke book.

I’ve read quite a lot of Tess Gerritsen. She is famous for her Rizzoli & Isles (R&I) series – a detective and a medical examiner who solve all the crimes. As one came out, it was downloaded to Kindle (by my husband and me) and then devoured at a cracking pace. In between, I went on the hunt, and found her older, romantic suspense novels, which I also enjoyed. And lately, I loved Playing With Fire, which was a standalone, and far better than her recent R&I, Die Again, where I wondered if Tess was not perhaps a teensy bit bored.

Cue The Shape of Night – another standalone. This is not your average “mystery thriller”, as it claims on the blurb. Ava escapes Boston, where some shit went down and heads for the coastal village of Maine – Brodie’s Watch, specifically. This is a rental house – old, haunted, wuthering, creaky and squeaky. But it’s all good – she has her cat Hannibal to help her uncover the legends and the sightings of Captain James Brodie, the captain who built and lived in the house. She’s come because she needs to complete a cook book, and there are some mouth watering descriptions of the food, eerie evenings in the house, some strange stories of past visitors and even stranger appearances of visitors and strangers. Who do you trust? Ava didn’t expect to have to confront all her demons and then some more in sleepy Maine.

All good. The part that requires some suspension of belief is the interaction with the paranormal sojourners. While I wouldn’t describe it as “ghost porn”, as some of my fellow reviewers have, it’s certainly raunchy, and more than a little weird. Not sure about this part, but the book does work. And with Tess, you know you’re in good hands, she sets a great pace, and most of the sexy scenes with “suspicious” characters are forgivable. I still think she was veree bored when she wrote this though.

Not a yawn, but maybe a miss if you’re not into paranormal thrillers.

I love Tess Gerritsen's mysteries so was very pleased to score an ARC from NetGalley. Many thanks to the publisher.

But, I feel really ambivalent about this book. Ava is a cookbook author who decamps to a small town in Maine due to a personal tragedy. She and her, very excellent, cat Hannibal, move into Brodie's Watch, a recently renovated clifftop mansion. And weird stuff happens.

I couldn't quite work out what this book wanted to be. Was it a romance? Mystery? Thriller? 50 Shades knockoff? Not super sure. However, the setting was quite glorious. Gerritsen's description of the house, the beach, and the town was lovely.

Sorry, but this was not what I was expecting having read previous books by Tess Gerritsen. Afraid I didn't finish it. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to read it, however.

As a long time fan of Tess Gerritsen, I have to admit I was a little surprised by this story. It’s not that I’m not happy she’s doing something different but this felt like one of those romantic suspense (with the emphasis on romance) books she wrote way back at the start of her career. I didn’t particularly mind this as I’ve loved pretty much everything she’s written but I suspect fans of her more recent thrillers may be a little disappointed.

It does have the quality of writing regular readers have come to expect from Gerritsen and I can’t deny it made for addictive reading, I read the whole thing in a day, but I’m not sure the combination of ghost story, murder mystery and romance really comes together. It feels like the romance takes centre stage and considering this is a Fifty Shades style relationship it makes for slightly disturbing reading.

I did find Ava to be a very intriguing character and for the most part likeable. She’s in Maine for the summer ostensibly to finish the cookbook she’s writing but in reality she’s running away from something terrible she’s done. She’s plagued by guilty feelings and has developed a bit of a drinking problem which makes you wonder just how reliable she is when she starts to question the disappearance of the previous resident in the house she’s renting and even more so when a ghostly apparition appears to her. I will admit I found it hard to accept how obsessive she became about the captain but I did like how different she was as a character and how she develops over the course of the story.

Where I struggled was the romance, I’m afraid it just stretched the bounds of credibility for me and there were elements that were problematic. I understand why the author went down that route but it feels abusive and unhealthy a lot of the time, and I’m saying this as someone who enjoyed Fifty Shades of Grey. There were a couple of scenes that I found disturbing to read and I suspect I won’t be the only one.

There are however other things to enjoy about this story. I loved the setting of a small town in Maine, the wonderful cast of secondary characters and all of the references to food. It made it very easy to imagine yourself there. I also liked the murder mystery even though I guessed pretty early on who the killer was. I just wish there had been a little more focus on this side of the story and a little less on the “romance”.

Overall therefore, my feelings are decidedly mixed. I did enjoy it for the most part, the speed I read it certainly supports that, I’m just struggling to get past the issues I had with the romance. Don’t let my feelings put you off though, if you’re curious it’s worth a read.