Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

this was wayyyyyyy too slow for me and the pacing was off. I only made it half way before I did not finish. I really want this to be good.

The premise of the book was so intriguing but found the writing far too slow paced for me.
The characters never felt alive...they never jumped off the page and gripped me unfortunately.
Even the setting I struggled with and I think the clinic needed to be a character in itself but it never felt real or fully formed.
It did get more interesting towards the end but as a whole struggled to maintain my interest.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have to agree with what some other reviewers have said, about The Double by Ann Gosslin, the pacing was too slow for me and the story really didn't hold my attention like I hoped that it would. Although the last part of this story gets slightly better and a little more interesting, there were no big revelations that surprised me.

Thanks to Legend Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

This book starts out strong, but then gets a bit slow as it continues. It is still a good story, which I enjoyed reading, but keep in mind this isn’t going to be a quick thriller that keeps you turning the pages as fast as you can to find out the twist, but rather a slower burn suspense novel that takes time to get where it ultimately goes.

A famous scientist, Vidor Kiraly, is receiving a major award, and while giving his acceptance speech, sees someone in the crowd who he seems to recognize, rushes out into the audience, and attacks this person. Dr. Anton Gessen, a psychiatrist who has a financially failing, remote clinic (asylum) in the Alps, offers to help him, and so Kiraly is shipped off to see if he can be treated or if he should be held criminally responsible for his actions.

There is some suspense, some romance, some mystery in this book, but ultimately, it is a book about our history, paths not taken, how close we all are (or potentially could be) to madness. It took me a couple of tries to start this book and then finally finish it, but I did enjoy it once I got into it. If literary suspense was its own separate genre, this would fit cleanly into it, but it’s not quite as tight a fit with thriller/suspense. The overlap of the histories and personalities of the two main characters was well done and while the ending might not have been completely satisfying, it fit the style and story.

Thank you to Legend Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.

The information in The Double by Ann Goslin is well researched and accurate regarding the topics; however, the style of writing feels lackluster and banal. This is definitely a slow-paced novel, and is not dramatic or immediate storytelling. Overall, this was not a bad book, yet, it is not exactly an immersive reading pleasure.

A clinic high in the Alps. A famed scientist on the edge of a breakdown. Missing patients and winter rolling in. Surely more could not be asked for? I was incredibly intrigued by the premise of Ann Gosslin's The Double but found myself struggling with the book itself. Join me below as I try to untangle my thoughts. Thanks to Legend Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes a book is not served by its own marketing. This happens when a blurb or the praise tries to link a book to other books, or cast the author as the new Margaret Atwood/Hilary Mantell/Ian Fleming/random author who is famous. In the case of The Double it is actually something else. Its cover and blurb strike many of the same tones as many of the countless thrillers being produced every year. The Double is not actually much of a thriller. It is not about the plot twists, the high-stakes chase, the solving of a disappearance. Instead this is a psychological novel, one which attempts to investigate the minds of two smart men as they posture, hide, reveal, and play. Sure, Gosslin introduces potential scares and tries to put the reader on the wrong foot occasionally, but in the end, I think, she wants you to think about them, think about yourself. So it's a shame that this aspect of The Double didn't entirely work for me either.

Vidor Kiraly has reached the peak of his career as he is awarded a major academic prize. But at the ceremony he attacks a man violently, which raises a number of questions. Desperate to keep his mountaintop-clinic open, Dr. Anton Gessen invites Vidor to stay there in the hope to find out how this kindly man switched into an aggressive one. From there they begin a cat-and-mouse game as neither is entirely truthful with the other or, for that fact, with the reader. Small interludes show us the youth of an unknown boy, decades earlier, as he roams Paris for a home. The Double is a novel about inherited trauma, about searching for a home, about origins and about the mind. While much of The Double is promising, it felt to me that some corners were cut. Neither Gessen or Kiraly are sympathetic to me, which may be on purpose, but I also felt like the former was majorly unprofessional and the latter weirdly empty. They are also both given dreadful home lives which are hinted at so often that when the reveal happened it almost felt a little cheap to me. The link between Gessen and Kiraly, their respective traumas and the obviousness of the title; they all led to me feeling slightly underwhelmed once I finished The Double.

While the above maybe doesn't sound too positive, I did keep reading. I occasionally considered DNF'ing The Double but Gosslin did have my attention. I wanted to see what she would do with the story, where she would take it. In the end it became more of a curiosity for me, rather than a storyline I was majorly intrigued by. The clinic in the Alps was worked out very well, I felt like I could picture it, yet so much around it was a mystery that it all felt a little unsettled. While I believe this was in part Gosslin's intention for the chapters narrated by Kiraly, it continued into Gessen's chapters. As the latter chased across Europe in order to find out more about his patient, nothing quite seemed to stick. Some reviewers have complained about the pace of The Double and admittedly the plot picks up significantly in the last third. Gosslin takes her time to make the reader feel comfortable in the world she is creating, before pulling one rug after the other out from under them. Admittedly plenty of hints have been dropped throughout the preceding 2/3 of the novel and I wasn't surprised, per se, at the end. By the time we get to this at the end of The Double, however, some of the reveals or moves didn't feel sensical. Both Gessen and Kiraly make major mental leaps, suddenly gaining certain kinds of self-awareness and becoming active when they haven't before. So yes, still conflicted about The Double but not about Gosslin. I'd be very intrigued to read her other books.

In the end I struggled a lot with The Double. The story and characters itself didn't motivate me to keep going, but my interest in Gosslin's intentions with this story did.

This book got off to a really good start. I really enjoyed the awards ceremony at the beginning, which I though was really well written. I was curious. I wanted to know more. Who was it that Vidor had seen in the audience, and why was there so much anger? The opening scenes at Les Hirondelles were also good. I warmed to Gessen as a character. Finally, the build up of tension was well done. However, unfortunately, for me, the eventual 'twist' didn't come as a big surprise.

I was excited about the premise of this book considering its setting and the shocking start to it but I am sad to say I am pretty disappointed.

This book follows Vidor an award-winning professor who out of the blue attacks a random man but has no memories of the attack or much of the time following it. Gessen is his psychologist, tasked with diagnosing Vidor who closes up, on his mysterious history making it difficult to get anywhere. After another patient goes missing Gessen has reasons to doubt Vidor's story.

The premise and setting seemed so interesting going into this but the setting ended up not being a large part of the story at all. I feel like the isolated area could have done lenders for the tense feel and isolation of the place but I don't think it was utilised effectively.

The characters were not particularly memorable or likeable. Aside from Vidor and mysteries, they seemed bland.

I also had an issue with the pacing. I felt like a lot of the book nothing happened and it got to a point where most twists became pretty predictable. It picked up around 80% in but the rest of the book, I didn't feel added very much to the story as a whole.

Overall I I do feel like this was not for me. It was a hit or miss but it missed on my part.

The Double was an extremely apt title for Ann Gosslin’s novel as she explored what/who we are, questioned if somewhere out there or within us another person lurked just below the surface.

In particular she honed in on eminent scientist, and award winner Vidor, a man clearly troubled, yet with no self awareness of his attack on an audience member and his subsequent incarceration in a high end psychiatric retreat in the mountains of Switzerland.

Gessen was the man deemed good enough to unlock Vidor’s brain and psyche and Gosslin did a pretty good job at taking us along on the journey. She delved into the dark recesses of Vidor’s mind, of his ability to block what he wanted to forget, to make us question his actions, and presumed lack of guilt. He appeared cold, remote, emotionless, a deep dark character who you didn’t know wether you wanted to like or not.

And what of his psychiatrist, Gessen? I have to say I quite liked Gessen as Gosslin made us feel his frustration as he encountered Vidor’s stubborn inability to look beyond his own perceptions. His determination to discover who this man was was utterly fascinating as he travelled backwards and forwards to the streets of Paris slowly unlocking Vidor’s mysterious past.

The past seemed at odds with his present but Gosslin didn’t make us feel sorry or pity him, instead a ruthless almost desperate individual who wanted to succeed emerged, a man who I would not have wanted to get on the wrong side of.

The other characters at the treatment centre circled around Vidor, all with their own mysterious conditions, their interactions used skillfully by Gosslin to unlock little snippets of Vidor’s character. You could sense a simmering tension as the facts became more apparent, as Vidor himself sensed truths that threatened his very being. It was interesting to read how Gosslin steered the novel, what the actions of Vidor would be and ultmateley the outcome.

When it came the narrative sped up as it took on the more traditional feel of a crime/psychological thriller, as Vidor’s story tumbled out, reactions and actions brilliantly told.

If your looking for a pacey story The Double was not it, instead it was slow, and meandering as Gosslin built layer upon layer of intrigue and discovery. I felt as if she had stepped back in time, to a Victorian era of stern men in stiff suits, of austere buildings, emotions kept closely in check, and mistrust in men of science rather than more modern day 2008.

I felt The Double was deep, dark, incisive and compelling from start to finish.

Enjoyed this one. I felt like there was something missing though, something I needed to love it. Well thought out plot and easy to read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one! A slow atmospherical and suspenseful psychological thriller that had me hooked from the start. The writing was phenomenal. The story takes you across several countries and time periods. I thought the clinic setting was both desolate and beautiful. And who doesn't love Paris? The plot isn't actioned filled, more akin to slowly peeling the layers from an onion. A little more about these characters and what is happening revealed as the book unfolds. My only minor complaint, the ending. I just wanted a bit more closure.

Keeps you guessing! A thrilling puzzle with the ultimate question in crime tackled are they bad? Or are they mad? This mystery not only tackles this question but explores the psychology behind the diagnosis of people. Is it physical, is it mental is it trauma or is it nature? This book keeps you guessing all the way to the end which I loved. If you love a crime thriller with psychology at its heart this is a book for you.

a hit and miss for me. I liked the idea of it what with the asylum and the remote mountain setting. It was just a strange story and one that dragged a bit.

Someone interested in psychology would like this I think as there's lots of information and themes on this. I got a bit lost however and felt it was more of an information dump than part of the plot.

Aah I hate writing negative reviews but this just wasn't for me.

I’m so sad to say I was not a fan of this book not enough action or suspense, I just wasn’t interested in at all.

So this book wasn't what I was expecting like at all! It was very slow. There were no characters that hit the spot for me. Didn't connect with them at all!
Overall the story was interesting..... Slow but interesting. I just couldn't get into in this book.

If someone says about this book it has a slow pace, it's highly exaggerated. I will be completely honest, there is nothing happening in this book up till 3/4 of the book. I can't even count how many times I wanted to DNF this book or I fell asleep while reading it. In the last 1/4 of this novel the story gets a bit better and interesting, although no big surprises.

This book is supposed to be a psychological thriller which is set in the psychiatric facility (can't call th chalets, saunas, etc. a hospital) high in the mountains in Switzerland. Where doctor Gessen is treating his patients, one of which is doctor Vidor Kiraly. Who won just recently a price for his discoveries in neuro-biology. During the ceremony he attacked the man, without any known reason.
The web of this mystery is slooooooowly untangling to tell us what is wrong with Vidor and how twisted his mind really is. No huge surprises, blood. As well the name of the book is very much revealing what actually is wrong with the main character (very badly chosen title, cause I guessed the mystery since after few pages in the beginning).

I didn't like any characters in this book, maybe even the author didn't. I also didn't have the feeling "I want to know more". There are some bright places in the story more to the ending, but even the mysterious atmosphere was not enough for me. I often felt lost in the story, it's like the author had so much on mind so she's jumping from one thought to another and I really, really don't like that in the book. So thank you Netgalley for the book, but this really wasn't my cup of tea. I will give this 2,5* but now I need to round it down since I was really struggling with more than half of this book.

Following a violent outburst at an awards ceremony, Vidor Kiraly, a prize-winning neuroscientist and Cambridge don, is sent to an isolated psychiatric clinic in the Swiss Alps. When the clinic’s director, Anton Gessen, tries in vain to unearth the missing pieces of Vidor’s life, he suspects his reluctant patient is not who he appears to be. After one of the patients at the clinic goes missing, Gessen has reason to doubt Vidor’s self-proclaimed innocence. But what is he hiding, and who might be next?

Firstly, thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy of this book
I read the shadow bird, the first in this book series, and enjoyed it, so I was happy to be involved with the second book tour
The book was very slow and took a while to get going. I wouldn’t recommend this book for anyone who is look for a fast paced read.
I did really enjoy the premise and the storyline of the book. But I felt that too much time was spent on filling in information that wasn’t needed. It was a short book and I feel that enough of the writing was not dedicated to the storyline. The author has obviously undertaken extensive research into psychology and this comes across in the writing

I was really interested in this book’s premise - I mean, what’s not to like about an isolated psychiatric clinic when you have a morbid fascination with asylums? However, it wasn’t what I was expecting from the blurb and I was so disappointed. First, the pace was incredibly slow, to the point I nearly abandoned reading it a few times, but because of the intriguing premise I carried on, but unfortunately it didn’t seem to pick up for me. 

One thing I did like was the knowledge the author had of psychology. It was interesting to learn more and the author clearly has a passion for it. 

Unfortunately, I just don’t think this book was for me, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be for someone else. So if you don’t mind slower paced books and are interested in psychology, this book could be for you.

Gripping, intense and isolating.

Ann Gosslin writes a psychological thriller that will bind you to it’s pages until it is done with you.

The characters are fascinating and you will be left wanting more.

This is a must read and I’m definitely going to be buying it for friends.

This book is also quite short which is a blessing and a curse but it leaves you wanting more and that’s a perfect way to write