This was so intriguing right from the beginning!

Molly is an eccentric character who calculates the risk of everything she does and I will say I didn’t really warm to her, however she was completely fascinating.

It all picks up once she gets to New York. It’s a little slow at first but then about halfway through you are hit with a pretty big twist which I didn’t see coming at all. From then on the story pretty much spirals as Molly goes full detective trying to find out who murdered her sister along with some other odd behaviour / events which I won’t go into but it’s like they came from nowhere.

The story was great, I was gripped and couldn’t put the book down as I was so intrigued as to how everything was going to work out. However, I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the ending and the plot at times. There are a few more twists after the initial shocking one which I rolled my eyes at because it felt a bit cliche.

Overall if you don’t look too deeply into the plot or the reasons why some characters do what they do then this is a gripping read which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was just hoping for a more impactful and better ending.

Despite reading books from Will Dean’s Tuva series this is the first standalone that I have read. It concerns twin sisters, once close but now living in different countries, a distance made greater by a disagreement they struggled to overcome. When the older, more outgoing twin Katie is found dead in her New York apartment Molly has face her fears and travel over to support their parents and accept the loss of her sister.

I have to admit that I found Molly and her obsessions infuriating at times but as she started to adapt to a different way of life in New York she seemed more at ease. But for some reason I still didn’t take to her,or most of the other characters. The only one I really cared for was the smoothie seller Jimmy who seemed more approachable and caring than many of the others.

I read many crime novels but this was the first that I’ve read where a victim was a twin, I liked the way the author showed how the grieving process seemed different, how the loss affected Molly and also the way it made Katie’s friends feel. Knowing that she was dead but still being able to ‘see’ her. It felt a little strange and unnerving.

I loved the description of New York, somewhere I had the pleasure of visiting once and I could clearly see the areas around Central Park and Times Square. I remembered seeing it as Molly and her parents did, overawed by its size and grandeur.

I did see the twists in this novel but knowing didn’t impact on my feelings, I know that this book will just be as successful as the author’s previous novels

Molly is a quiet person. Shy, loner, structured. Living and working in London within her own routine. Her identical twin Katie is her polar opposite. Spontaneous, gregarious, brave and lives and studies in America. A decision and move that did not go down well with Molly at the time.
When we first catch up with Molly it is when she hears the devastating news that Katie is dead. Found dead in her flat. No method disclosed yet. But it was whilst their parents were visiting. Molly takes that call and realises that she must travel to the US to be with her parents and also to find out what happened...
And that's all I can say as anything else would be a bit spoilery... In fact, it's hard for me to say what I usually say in reviews for exactly the same reason. I will try and be careful...
Molly... nope, didn't get on with her. At all. Not in the slightest. And not cos she was quirky. I actually liked that about her. I just didn't like her, couldn't get on with her, didn't believe in her. Not for me, sorry. And the whole personality change on a dime (well it's set in the US) when she was once so meek and mild... Nope. Not convinced, sorry.
The story was good, on the whole. Obviously the area it was set had been well researched. Whether in person or google maps, I'm not sure. But there was sure a lot of travel description going on so I was wondering if the author was trying to convince the reader a bit much...? It was a bit distracting in parts. Especially when Molly previously didn't go anywhere, now she's going everywhere in a scary big place. Nope... not sold on that at all.
Plotting was good-ish. There were a few niggles and a few things that didn't quite gel with me, or sit right. Characters likewise and I didn't connect to the majority. Mostly for obvious reasons in hindsight.
All in all, a decent quick read that will appeal to some more than others. It also helps if you don't guess the twist as it's kinda a big thing...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

As much as it pains me to say it, I have to confess that this book just didn’t work for me. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement. Coming on the heels of the phenomenal The Last Thing to Burn, this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022, but it ended up being one I’d rather forget.

Molly and Katie (known as KT and older by three minutes) are identical twins, but they couldn’t be more different. Molly’s life is governed by extreme paranoia, routine and order. She’s an introvert and a loner, close to no one except her immediate family. KT on the other hand is the life and soul of every party; academically successful and liked by everyone who enters her orbit.

For the past year, Molly has had to get used to living alone in London, while KT takes up a study sponsorship in New York. The twins speak to each other every day, but Molly still feels a sense of abandonment and worry. Her fears are realized when she gets a call from her parents to say that KT has been found dead in her apartment, and Molly has to set aside all her natural instincts and fly across the Atlantic to be at their side.

This was an intriguing start to the story, and I was quickly hooked. But it wasn’t long before the wheels came off. As the murder investigation gets underway and Molly turns into super sleuth come avenger, it becomes increasingly hard to square her character with her actions.

I also struggled hugely with the plot, which evolves into into a crazy jumble of ideas that never form any kind of concrete whole.

The first big twist comes about a third of the way through, and it was here that I already guessed what the final twist would be. I could have lived with that, however, if not for the rest of the plot making absolutely no sense. The motivation is never explained, and even if you suspend disbelief, you’re still left scratching your head and coming up with nothing but splinters.

The whole thing was just plain weird and not at all what I expect from Will Dean. That said, I’m already calling it a blip and looking forward to his next offering.

This book just go to show what a wonderful writer Will Dean is, this book is completely different to his first yet just as engaging. The characters drew me in right from the start and the way Will has set the scene in New York was fab. A twisty thriller that starts slow but then packs a punch, definitely one to be added to your reading list for 2022

I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy of First Born, a stand-alone thriller set mostly in New York.

Molly Raven lives a narrow, constricted life in London, hemmed in by her own fears. Her identical twin sister, Katie, is the opposite, being fun loving and outgoing. When Katie dies suddenly in mysterious circumstances in New York, Molly’s life is upended when she realises she’ll have to go to New York to investigate the death of part of her. It appears that Katie had secrets so nothing is as it seems.

I had a strange reading experience with First Born. I first picked it up two months ago and loathed it as the first few chapters are all about Molly Raven and her weird OCD compulsions, so I put it down at about 15% and didn’t pick it up again till today. This time around I found it absorbing and compulsive and didn’t put it down until I finished it. The moral is that it’s definitely worth sticking with the weirdness to get to the amazing bits.

Once I got going the second time I thoroughly enjoyed First Born. There is definitely more going on with Molly Raven than meets the eye and I found myself desperate to know what she had in mind for her trip to New York. I definitely didn’t expect what I got, tension and loads of twists, so that was a pleasant surprise. I think there are a few holes in the plot, but they hardly matter in the overall scheme of the novel with scheme being the operative word. It is clever and imaginative, just as one would expect from Mr Dean.

First Born, after a rocky start, is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

After a good couple of months of being stuck in a reading slump, I finally felt the urge to pick up a book and wanted something fast-paced and easy to follow.

I remembered I’d been approved to read First Born on Netgalley so selected this as the book of choice and I have no regrets! Although perhaps slightly on the slower side to begin with, it didn’t take long for the story to gain momentum and go off the rails. I kept thinking I knew where the plot was headed but was continually proved wrong and I enjoyed that a lot, I find it much more satisfactory to be kept guessing.

There wasn’t much I didn’t like about this book: the heavily scrutinised twin relationship fascinated me, the characters were written extremely well and I thought the overall chaos of the story was just on the right side of believable.

Thanks to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have mixed feelings about this book! It has such a great premise and I was hooked till about half way though.

I can’t really say too much about why I ended up not liking it, without ruining it for people who haven’t read it but I didn’t like the direction it took after 50%.

I ended up quite detached from the characters and not really being invested at all.

3/5 stars for the stronger start.

First Born is another fantastic book by Will Dean. I've read everything that he published and I felt this one was a bit different, it didn't have the same darkness as the previous ones, and saying that, it was similarly brilliant.

Molly and KT are twins, but they couldn't be more different. One is adventurous and brave, the other worries about everything. KT decides to move to New York and Molly can't forgive her the abandonment. Their relationship is strained and they're not that close anymore... and that's when KT is murdered, all alone in her apartment on the other side of the world...

Molly decides to conquer her fear and flies to America, so that she can find the killer, help the police and support her parents.
There are many secrets in KT's life, how she got University sponsorship, what kind of people she's friends with and maybe her life isn't what it seems...

The police doesn't seem to be making progress, the private detective approaches Molly and they're determined to solve the case.

Slow burning story, which makes you read until you finished the book. Sit comfortably, because you won't be able to do anything for a few hours!

Great thriller by a great author!

Will dean has done it again! First born is a great read, it is dark and chilling, it will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Molly is a quirky character who is devastate by the death of her twin sister. Molly is risk averse to the extreme but flies out to New York to be with her parents and find out what happens to her sister.

The first part of the book is gripping but then the twist shows up in a way that is so subtle you have to read it again to check you understand what was said!

The twists don’t stop there! Great characters, hugely chilling and dark storylines and fast paced drama. A must read.

This is a great psychological thriller.
Molly receives awful news that her twin sister has died. Their parents are already in New York so Molly arranges a flight out there asap.
Molly is the quieter, more introvert twin and Katie was a lot more outgoing.
It soon becomes apparent that Katie was murdered and Molly starts looking into Katie’s life to find out what happened.
There’s a few twists and turns and this book will definitely keep you on your toes.
A gripping psychological thriller.
Thanks to Hodder and Stoughton and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

First Born Will Dean
This book sucks you in from the first page and holds you until the end. I was immediately drawn to the character of Molly, her twin sister has been murdered in New York so the British girl then tries to unravel what happened.
Did I work out what was happening, nope not a chance.
The Last Thing To Burn was possibly my favourite book of last year, I thought about it long after I finished reading it, its my favourite of these two books, but now I am really excited to read more from this fantastic author.

I absolutely love Will Deans writing. This being his second stand alone novel the twists and turns just blew me away completely. I didn’t see the initial one coming but then another twist phew I was literally on the edge of my seat by then and my heart was pounding. Thank you Will Dean for another great read.

Molly and Katie are identical twins, but where Katie is outgoing and daring living life to the full Molly is the opposite, she is afraid of everything, she works out risks of doing everything, she began to wind me up for a while imagine living with that forever. But when Katie is murdered in NYC where she has gone to gone on a scholarship to do her Masters Degree. Molly has to get a plane to New York to be with her parents who had already flown out there. The parents are on the verge of going bankrupt, so finances are very tight. When Molly arrives she is desperate to find out who killed her sister, she gets herself into investigation mode, meeting people that Katie knew.

But despite being twins how well do you really know each other, they had been close when they were younger, but Molly had sucked the life out of Katie at times, meaning she had to be the opposite of Molly. But Molly hated the fact that Katie had moved to New York and left her.

Where the initial Molly annoyed me as the book moved on after Katie’s cremation she became a little more adventurous and I liked her more. All the characters are well written, fully believable. Who is following Molly? Who is Bogart, Or Peter Hill, or DeLuca?

I loved the setting of New York having visited a couple of times years ago I could picture some of the places, the sounds of the city, everything was described so perfectly you could actually feel you were there.

The twists I just didn’t see coming at all, I normally try and work out where a story is going but this one had me. It became a darker read, brilliantly penned.

I struggled a little at the beginning, but that’s mainly because I had just finished a book that I couldn’t get out of my head, once I was a little way into this I became engrossed and had to keep flipping those pages as fast as I could. If you like a dark crime read, with some twists and turns then grab yourself a copy of this.

I would like to thank #netgalley and #Simon&Schuster for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

With thrillers containing twists, it's difficult to fully review without giving anything away. First born is certainly full of shockers, and it's a fast paced journey from the Uk to the U. S. following the sudden death of Molly's twin sister KT.

Entertaining, but for me, the plot stetched credibility a little too much.

This was one of my most anticipated reads this year after discovering Will Dean last year and loving The Last Thing To Burn and one of his Tuva Moodyson books. But First Born... where do I begin? A three-star rating is being generous because I have so much love for this author, but this book just did not work for me.

I suppose it doesn't help that I read a similar book about twins earlier this year, so I had predicted most of the plot in the first few chapters. And there are some great twists thrown in, but it's one of those books where nothing makes sense until everything makes sense. Does that make sense?

For the first 90%, the plot really annoyed me. There were no reasons for the actions taking place. And then everything finally clicks into place, but I had already given up. There was so much that was left feeling unnecessary, too. Nothing came of the parts of the plot that I was excited by, and instead the focus was on a part of the story that I had no interest in.

I'm really sad that I feel this way because I would love nothing more than to shout Will Dean's praises from the rooftop. I will most definitely be looking forward to what he writes next and forever recommend his other work, but I'm just going to erase this one from my memory.

First Born by Will Dean is the first book which I have read by this author and it won’t be the last.
In short, it’s a dark, psychological tale of the consequences of identical twins and their parallel mindsets.
Well this was certainly a full scale twisty, original and sinister page turner with an epic ending…it’s all about righting a wrong. The writing is so skilfully detailed that the obsessive mindset of the twin raised even my anxieties! First Born was so immersive and masterfully gripping I couldn’t put it down, I highly recommend…although maybe there should be a warning to identical twins before reading!
Big thanks to Will Dean, Hodder and Stoughton and NetGalley for this eARC which I chose to read in return for my honest review.

Molly is an identical twin. Of the two she is the quiet one, the cautious one. She's always felt that her twin, Katie or KT as she is known, took all of the good parts and left her with the bad as she is outgoing, adventurous and well liked. They've always functioned as two parts of a whole, but the dynamics changed when KT took a scholarship to study in New York.
When Molly receives a phone call from her parents who are visiting KT to say that she has been found dead, she puts her fears aside and dashes to New York. When it is revealed that she is murdered, she wants answers and researches all of the people who it could have been.
As a reader, you understand that she wants to see the logic in the death of her sister, but then the dynamics change and the pace of the book changes completely. I raced through the past half of the book.

Blimey. This is a literary equivalent of being slapped in the face! Halfway through, reading a paragraph…wait, what did it say? And you have to go back and read it again to make sure it said what you thought it did. The second half of the book takes a different turn and you just have to keep reading to find out more. A fantastic page turner. I didn’t get much else done as I was too engrossed.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

Thank you to Jenny Platt at Hodder Books for my invitation to the tour and for this double delight of proofs in return for a fair and honest review.

Molly and KT are twins, Molly is very cautious and anxious. KT has moved to New York and then a shock call to Molly from her parents changes everything. Molly gets on a plane and heads to New York.

Molly’s anxiety makes her life challenging as she navigates through making sure she is safe and everything is in place. So when she finds out that Katie is gone and her parents are acting strangly she wants to find out the truth.

It is shocking and fast paced. I love Will’s books they are so twisty and unpredictable that you know you are in for a bumpy ride and this is no exception. It is one of those books that is hard to review without giving away spoilers but if you enjoy a gripping, thriller then you will love this.

Be prepared to sit down and not move until the very last page of this as it will keep you on the edge of your seat and your nerves !

5 stars *****

Molly and Kate are twins born three minutes apart they were inseparable as children and had their own language’
Until Kate decided to go and live in New York and Molly stayed in her own quiet life worrying about everything.
Kate dies in New York and molly and her parents go to find out what happened
That is when the story changes and the really mystery begins
Thanks net galley for this book it is the first Will Dean book I have read will look out for another one.