Luca Veste is definately one of those authors with a flair for weaving the supernatural into crime fiction seamlessly. After reading The Bone Keeper I was really anticipating The Six and was definately not disappointed.
Veste takes us back to the six friends' childhood in a narrative punctuated by a soundtrack from the 90s which brought the flashbacks to light. Through various scenes we see how the friendships develop between the six and how irretrivably broken they became after the tragic event at the 90s music festival, when someone dies. The eerie brooding presence of an other worldy serial killer lurking in the woods that night, combined with the slow revelation of how events actually unfolded kept me on the edge of my seat.
Then, with another pivotal event - the death of one of the six friends - shows the after effects of that tragic night on each of them and the state of their friendships. It explores how people cope with extreme trauma and how a single traumatic event can irrevocably change your life and expectations for ever.
The lurking presence of The Candleman gave the novel a creepy edge which I found thrilling. Larger than life and constantly on the periphery of the friends' awareness I have to admit my spine was tingled on more than one occasion.
A great supenseful book which shows an awareness of human nature, trauma and how our imagination and worse fears can haunt us. Loved it.

In retrospect I enjoyed reading The Six, though at times reading it I felt so frustrated with the characters and their choices, I wanted to shake some sense into them!
I loved the 90s soundtrack thread running through this, and the flashbacks of how the bond between these friends was made and grew. There’s a brewing darkness in these stories giving some foreshadowing, that the key events of the book may not have gone exactly the way the main narrator seems to be recalling them. The story of that night, and how the Candle Man comes to loom large in their narrative moving on from that night, hooked me in. Nothing goes right, from then on, and their friendships falter and fall away as each character travels into their own guilt ridden hell.
I followed the author down every blind alley he led me in to...suspicious of everyone in turn! Eventually the plot leads us back to one of my early suspects and another night of terror for the narrator, Matt. I wasn’t completely sold on how that night worked out, but it’s a niggle. The ultimate ending wasn’t surprising to me by that point, but the journey there was full of intriguing twists. Would definitely recommend!
My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Six is my favourite Luca Veste novel to date, it is unbelievably good, and yes I know it's early days, but it's already a contender for my favourite novel of 2020.

Some have said they were nervous of reading a standalone novel (away from the Rossi/Murphy series), but that was never an issue for me, as Veste is such a brilliant story teller.

Six friends are on an unremarkable weekend at a music festival when something terrible happens.

They witness a strangers murder, and it is clear that life will never be the same for any of them ever again.

Each of the Six agrees that they should never talk about that night again, and never tell anyone what happened. For some, this is an easier promise to keep than others, but a year passes without too much trouble.

Then someone else dies, and the past is bought back to haunt all Six.

Luca Veste is a master in creating a sense of nervousness and there is an always an edge to his novels, but the final parts of the Six are something else. Dark and atmospheric until the final pages, we go on a full journey with the Six from joyous music festival to murky murderous warehouses.

Definitely an edge of your seat novel, that will have you gripped and left wanting more.

This is a stand alone novel from Luca Veste and one I was very much looking forward to reading. I felt it started off well, and I got into the story and was thoroughly enjoying it but then it seemed to go off the boil a bit in the middle and then picked up for the ending. I enjoyed the ending, which I hadn't anticipated. Overall, this book was a bit of a disappointment and I prefer the Detective novels the author has written

A Fast Paced, Packed With Shocks, Plot.......
Dark and disturbing murder mystery. Six long term friends, one night that changes everything ...forever. Well written and compelling with a fast paced, packed with shocks, plot. A definite, edge of seat page turner.

A group of six friends, away for a final hurrah at a music festival before settling down as respectable grownups. But on the final night the unthinkable happened and someone died. They all agreed not to tell anyone what happened, but nearly a year has passed and people are dying again, someone knows what happened that night...
I thought this storyline was good, and well told, and definitely had a good mix of suspense and darkness to it.
I liked the different mix of personality types in the main characters and how they all dealt with what happened differently, this felt authentic and how it would be in reality.
There were definitely some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming, so the story kept me gripped until the end. I think the only reason I am giving this 4 stars rather than 5 stars is that I felt there were a few parts that just didn’t quite feel realistic and were a bit too far fetched. But otherwise it’s a great read that I really enjoyed.
My thanks to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster UK and Luca Veste for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review.

Title: The Six
Author: Luca Veste
Genre: Thriller
Pages:400
Rating: 4.5
Six friends trapped by one dark secret.

It was supposed to be our last weekend away as friends, before marriage and respectability beckoned. But what happened that Saturday changed everything.

In the middle of the night, someone died. The six of us promised each other we would not tell anyone about the body we buried. But now the pact has been broken. And the killing has started again …

Who knows what we did? And what price will we pay?

My thoughts
Would I recommend it ? Yes
Would I read more by this author? yes
If you love the movie or even watch it or know of the movie called I Know What You Did Last Summer then you might have to check out this book. Because that's what it remind me of as soon as I started reading, a group of friends go out together to have fun and something happens that changes their lives forever just like I Know What You Did Last Summer. Its creepy and a bit dark and I went into it not knowing what to except, what can I say some times something about a book cover gets me and in this case it was We do everything together. Even murder ,that's all I needed to know. And man di it surpass my expectations it delivered why better then I was hoping it would. It had me hooked form the start and wouldn't let go until the very last page. With that said I want to say thank you to NetGalley for letting me read and review this .

This is exactly the kind of book I can see working perfectly as a TV series. One of those three part serials that you catch on the BBC (other channels are available). It just had that kind of vibe and from the moment I started reading I could see it all playing out in front of my eyes so clearly. The tension building, the sense of unease that starts from the very first page. That short run of less than twenty lines being so ominous, so perfectly pitched that you cannot avoid being sucked in. Knowing that, when we meet this small group of friends, things are too perfect, too happy, to last

Setting off to a nineties music festival friends Matt, Alexandra, Chris, Nicola, Stuart and Michelle, none of them have any cares, other than the usual concerns of what state the portaloos might be in, and whether they can get a decent camping pitch. They're (relatively) young, happy and (mostly) in love. Funny how you already know that feeling is not going to last. That this festival will be the last time they are together as a group. The last time they all laugh, dance and sing (badly) together. It would be a very short and dull thriller otherwise, wouldn't it? The trip goes south, and I'm not just referring to its near to Bristol setting verses their proud to be in Liverpool homes. What happens changes them all. One moment of madness. One decision. One act that means no going back.

And that's just the start. From here the tension builds, the sense of unease along with it and when we catch up with the main narrator, Matt, a year later, he is a very different guy. Luca Veste has captured this change in his character, the isolation, the almost agoraphobic nature that he has developed, perfectly, making you almost feel his palpitations and tremors as you read. He is a man on the edge, reliving their choices every single day, choices that have cost him nearly everything he holds dear. Despite all he had done, I really did like the character of Matt and felt for him, but only a little as a larger part of me thought he was a bit of a tit for making the decision he and the group made. Read the book, you'll know what I mean.

From that point, about a third of the way through the book, it takes on a distinctly different tone, once full of fun and laugher, now full of threat and menace, a kind of conspiracy theory type tale in which the group find themselves becoming the target of a serial killer of near mythical status. Or are they? There is so much misdirection, so many possible suspects, that as a reader you are kept on the hook, wanting to know the answers to the many, many questions you will have. Those of a more nervous disposition might also find themselves checking their doors and windows a little more carefully at night, and binning any scarlet coloured Yankee candles they have lying around the home. Just in case.

Luca Veste really does instill that kind of edginess or fear in you as you read with the creeping nature of what is happening. Dark and atmospheric in mood and, with Matt's own fears and neuroses infecting you as you read, totally heart pounding stuff. The sense that anything can happen, that the friends are being stalked, being picked off, is compounded with each page turn, and what once looked like a conspiracy theory starts to become more like a game of cat and mouse, one where the cat eats the mouse leaving no evidence that it was ever there ...

I really enjoyed this book if only because, for once, this wasn't the kind of book where the first person narrator/protagonist knows why they are being targeted but only thinks cryptically about the 'incident' until around 85% into the book because otherwise it would ruin the dramatic reveal leading to the inevitable high octane showdown. Here we knew from the start the what. We even had a pretty clear idea of the why, although perhaps not the whole picture. What we didn't know was the who. And in spite of chapters littered throughout the book which start to build a picture of that very person, including the second part of what I suppose you would class as the prologue, the who remains well hidden until just the right moment in time. Until it is spelled out you get the feeling that it could still be literally anyone. And the ending is high action, high stakes and completely tense, the kind of showdown in which you find yourself moving towards the edge of your seat. Perhaps chewing on the odd nail as you wonder just how they will get out of this particular pickle.

And then ... wow. Yep. That ending really is perfect for TV.

If this is what to expect from Luca Veste's other novels, I'll be moving them up my reading list for sure. Top stuff.

It's the first book I read by this author and it was an excellent and gripping read that kept on the edge till the last twist.
The mystery is solid, the plot is well crafted and the cast of characters are well thought even if they're not always likeable.
It was an entertaining read, strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

My thanks to Simon & Schuster U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Six’ by Luce Veste in exchange for an honest review.

Luce Veste has already written a number of police procedurals though this is a stand-alone novel described as a high concept serial killer thriller. Exactly the kind of description that makes me want to read!

The story revolves around six friends who decide to attend a 90s-themed music festival being held on the outskirts of a forest. They have been friends for many years and even have paired up as couples. The narrator, Matt, admits that they are Millennials even “if none of us enjoy avocado toast”.

One of the group tells Matt the story of the ‘Candle Man’, “a serial killer who is supposedly responsible for every missing person in the country.” His signature is the appearance of a red candle.

On the last night of the festival something happens, someone dies, and the six friends make a pact to never speak of the event. However, what kind of thriller would it be if they just then got on with their lives?

I won’t say more as my policy with thrillers is not to say too much about the plot as I feel that they are often best approached ‘cold’ to enjoy fully.

Luce Veste writes with a great deal of confidence in terms of plot as well as creating an interesting group of characters. Matt makes an appealing narrator and I enjoyed the way he interjected pop culture references into the narrative including comparing his group of friends with the characters of ‘Friends’.

This proved to be a riveting read that kept me on the edge of my seat. It certainly ticked all the boxes that I look for in a crime thriller.

This was my first experience of Veste’s work and I immediately purchased a few more of his earlier titles.

4.5 rounded up to 5.

The Six is Luca Veste's latest serial killer thriller and what a cracking page-turner it is. It centres around a group of six thirtysomething friends who decide to attend a 90s revival music festival as a last homage to their youth. However, a terrible incident occurs which is so bad that they swear to each other to keep it quiet. But as with most things that are hushed up at the time, the pact between them was shattered and the truth about to emerge and destroy them. Someone appears to know exactly what happened on that fateful day in the field at the festival and is tormenting the group with veiled threats becoming the targets of intense harassment. Naturally, there is a lot of finger-pointing and lack of trust between the six friends that impacts their friendship detrimentally. Then tragedy strikes with one of the six apparently committing suicide due to the stress and anxiety of keeping the secret. But is it really suicide or is something much more sinister at play here?

This is a superbly crafted thriller that is completely riveting and I didn't really want it to end but raced through it in one sitting. It's very much a character-driven story and the real message it emits is a warning of how everything usually comes out in the wash at some point; either that or it will completely tear you apart in the meantime. Set in Liverpool there were many references to 90s popular culture that had me feeling nostalgic given those were my formative years; it's always nice to reminisce. Moving between the past, through flashbacks, and present was seamless and although I am not usually a fan of this method of storytelling it indeed enriched this tale. It was an intense, deeply unsettling read full of unexpected surprises and it culminates in a shocking climax. If you are a long term Veste fan then this will no doubt satisfy your needs and those new to the author are in for a treat. A very clever and captivating thriller. Many thanks to Simon & Schuster UK for an ARC.

So I’m ashamed to say that this is my first Luca Veste novel. Next year I am definitely going to be picking up some more of his books!

Six friends go to a 90’s music festival as a last hurrah to their youth but something goes wrong and somebody dies. They make a pact to never speak of it again but a year later, the killings start again..
.
This is a well written psychological thriller, with good twists and turns and oodles of suspense. At times it was quite scary too!

The story told from Matt’s first person perspective, which gets you really up close and personal with the events through the novel, it almost feels like you’re there with him yourself. There was also a nice mix of characters, not all that likeable, but entertaining all the same.

I enjoyed the little bits of local Liverpool lingo and humour scattered throughout and the smattering of 90’s music references too.

The Six is a tense and addictive psychological thriller that I just couldn’t get enough of.

The Six by Luca Veste is a page turning, young adult crime thriller. Beginning with the 90’s nostalgia, the mix tape tunes on the way to a retro music festival really enticed me in.

Matt the narrator is one of the six, a group of friends from school /university that are still close and are attending a retro 90’s revival festival together. His girlfriend and the two other couples, one married and one on/off make up the rest of the gang, who in their late 30’s are enjoying reminiscing and reliving their youth. Until the last night of the weekend where an attack takes place and a man is killed. All six agree to bury the body and keep schtum, but it’s not as easy as that. Nearly a year later guilt has struck the six and the unravelling of what actually happened that night and the realisation someone wants revenge fills the heads of the gang and they go on the hunt for the truth.

So the premise starts a little weak, 6 grown adults most with professional jobs agree that the police shouldn’t be called after a man is murderer, you need to ignore this anomaly. The characters are worked on a little, with flash backs to their youth of things that have moulded them, relationships they have made but not enough for you to care about them.

The writing is actually good at delivering the plot, moving forward and holding your attention, it’s the lack of depth in the themes and reasoning that I think makes this more YA than crime thriller. Others have mentioned a twist, I’m not sure that’s what I would call it more of a left field finish that isn’t explained.

Overall, the fast paced plot allows you to be sucked in quickly, however, the characters and themes in the book are a little shallow for my liking. 3*
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK

I’ve read all of Veste’s books so far and his sixth doesn’t disappoint. The tension builds nicely to a crescendo with a clever reveal that I hadn’t guessed whilst reading the book.

A great stand alone page turner that I highly recommend to others.

When an author has an academic background in psychology and criminology it goes without saying that one has an idea of what's to come. In the case of Luca Veste's latest psychological thriller meets crime fiction novel, The Six, your assumption might be correct. While his previous four novels formed a series featuring DI Murphy and DS Rossi, The Six is a standalone which doesn't have a police officer in sight.This time around the responsibility of delivering the suspense rests squarely on the shoulders of the six main characters.

For a full review of The Six, please browse over to Crime Fiction Lover. (link below or on my blog https://wanderingwestswords.wordpress.com

This book was a serious page turner! Once I started it I found it very hard to put down so I ended up reading it in one sitting.
The plot was awesome and kept me guessing the whole way through which I loved. It was suspenseful and the ending was absolutely thrilling!
I enjoyed getting to know the characters and making my own guesses at what was going to happen. I’m not usually a fan of thrillers but this book blew me away completely so I’m glad that I got the chance to read it.
This is the first book I’ve read by this author and I can’t wait to read more of his work in the future.
If you love thrilling page turners that get you thinking then this is defiantly the book for you!

From the get go this book has you hooked and pulled in to the drama that ensues. A psychological thriller that had me covering many different theories about just what was going on, none of them were correct.

The book is written from the perspective of Matt, one of the six main characters, one of the group of lifelong friends. Majority of the book is written in present tense but we do dip back in to the childhood and teenage years of this group, seeing how they became friends and all connected with each other. I think this added a great dynamic to the book.

You never know whether you have an unreliable narrator or whether his perspective is to be trusted. At times I didn't trust any of these characters! Who was everyone scared of? Who was out to get them? I just didn't know!

I did feel the female characters could have been developed a bit more, we didn't know too much about them and this made me not care about them as much as I did the male characters. In part I think this is due to being narrated by one individual both in the past and present timeline, so I felt more attached to him.

This was a well paced page-turner of a book, which I couldn't put down and ended up reading in one sitting. I needed answers, and I got them... with one large twist at the end that surprised me.

I loved the authors writing style and particularly appreciated the 90's references. Taking me back to my younger days, I reminisced along with the characters.

Gripping from the start and compelling reading throughout!
Be prepared to loose sleep to this book as it will have you hooked. My kids might not agree as they had to feed themselves whilst I was trapped inside the book alongside The Six!

First of a big thank you to Dark Room Tours, and Simon Schuster Publishers for sending me a copy of this book and allowing me a place on the blog tour!All reviews and opinions discussed here are my own.

This is a book that from the first pages, the tension never stopped. It is a real psychological thriller and I honestly had so many different theories going on whilst reading this book and not one of them turned out to be right. The author goes back and forth between the characters childhoods and current days; it really adds a good dynamic to the story and makes you question things even further. The book is told solely from the perspective of Matt, one of the 6 main characters, and the whole time i was reading it I never knew if we could trust his perspective or if he was an unreliable narrator. His perspective is so all over the place and that really represents his state of mind at the time but also his own foggy memory. It adds a layer to the book that makes it interesting because you just never know who you can trust. It does make things a bit confusing at times, such as the initial fight where the man dies, and I honestly couldn't get my head around what happened but I definitely think that's reflective of the fact that Matt can't really remember what happened himself and so it is intended to be confusing.

I would say that I didn't overly connect with any of the characters? Aside from Alexandra being Matt's ex-girlfriend and Nicola being Chris's partner we learn very little about them and the same goes for Michelle. The female characters were very limited in their development which did make it hard at times to fully care about their experiences. I do think the group dynamics were interesting and I honestly distrusted every character at one point.

I think this was well paced and it was a real page-turned; I couldn't put it down once i'd started and I couldn't wait to get to the end to find out what was happening. I enjoyed Veste's writing style and also appreciated all of the 90s references.

I do think the book would have benefited in fleshing out the characters a bit more and allowing us to invest in them, so that the later plot aspects had more of a punch. Overall I did enjoy it and it kept me guessing right up until the end; I think the last twist was well done and something I didn't see coming!

This was a very different read for me. If you’d have asked me what my favourite genre was a year ago I would have told you crime thrillers, that was literally all that I read. However since discovering the bookstagram world, I have also discovered other genres and have had a break from thrillers. This, however sounded amazing and not like a thriller I had read before. Six friends who attend a music festival, not knowing that their life will not be the same again.

I feel like the book was tense from the beginning and didn’t stop being tense until the very end. I read it all in one sitting on my day off, I just did not want to put it down. I had so many theories whilst reading this book and I am disappointed in myself to say that not one single one of them was correct. I really enjoyed the mix between chapters regarding the present time as well as then moving to the past in between so that we could get to know the characters more and their back story. I really enjoyed reading from the perspective of Matt, he was very much a cloud of anxiety and confusion, and you could tell that through the writing style. Was he imagining things, was he paranoid or were him and his friends really living through hell.

This book mentions difficulty or inability to have children. This is such a small snippet of the book but it made me sit and think. I don’t think I have ever read a book that discusses anything like this. I love how we have essentially three couples who are trying to live their lives in the relationships that they are. Whilst the author doesn’t focus on the relationships in much detail (thankfullY) I did think that this was such an important topic and really showed the authors attention to detail when it came to character development. This happens guys, this is real life! This should not be ignored even in the book world. In modern society today, three couples who are in a room together it is likely that one is having fertility issues or has experienced them before. This should not be a stigma. Bravo, Luca Veste.

The pacing of this book was really accurate, it was fast paced and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. Everything important is kept unexpected, which leads to the reader feeling unsettled. Many theories fly around with no a lot of clarification. I must admit I was slightly unimpressed with the ending. It was alright, I didn’t guess it, but was it realistic? Okay okay, crime thrillers are not realistic however it just felt a bit forced. It was a solid 4 star read throughout until the ending. Oh and the fact that Luca Veste makes fun of the Birmingham accent being awful, yes I know, I am from Birmingham DON’T MOCK IT! Joke.

Anyway, I did enjoy this book and I would recommend that you pick it up and give it a go. The ending was disappointing to me but may not be to many others, I have heard such brilliant reviews and did really enjoy the majority of it.