Witch Elm (French) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
You savor the details—the delicious portrayal of crisp fall weather in Ireland—as you race through the pages.… A tick-tocking mystery and a fascinating portrayal of memory as a cracked mirror, through which the past can’t quite be seen clearly.
Seattle Times


Head-spinning.… French has spun an engrossing meditation on memory, identity, and family. A master of psychological complexity, she toys with the minds of her characters and readers both.
Vogue
 

Spooky.
Entertainment Weekly
 

A thrilling novel about privilege, family lore, and perception.
PopSugar


The crime writer for people who think they don’t like genre fiction. Her prose is enveloping and intricate, but casually masks its cleverness. She sucks you in with mystery, then unfurls a masterfully rendered, super specific slice of Irish society.
Vogue.com


Exquisitely suspenseful.
Bustle


Tana French’s The Witch Elm is a chilling mystery about the unreliability of memory.
Real Simple


(Starred review) [A]s good as the best of [French's other] novels, if not better… using the driving mystery …as a vehicle for asking complex questions about identity and human nature.… [A] chilling interrogation of privilege and the transformative effects of trauma.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) French's slow-burning, character-driven examination of male privilege is timely, sharp, and meticulously crafted. Recommended for her legions of fans, as well as any readers of literary crime fiction.—Stephanie Klose
Library Journal


(Starred review) [A] spellbinding stand-alone novel carefully crafted in her unique, darkly elegant prose style…, and the reader gets pulled into the vortex right along with [the characters]. —Jane Murphy
Booklist


The pace is slow, but the story is compelling, and French is deft in unraveling this book’s puzzles. Readers will see some revelations coming…, but there are some shocking twists, too. Psychologically intense.
Kirkus Reviews