The Black Hour by Lori Rader-Day

The Black Hour

By Lori Rader-Day

Series: Standalone

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Publisher: Seventh Street Books

**I received a copy of this book, from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review**

Goodreads Summary:

For Chicago sociology professor Amelia Emmett, violence was a research topic—until a student she’d never met shot her.

He also shot himself. Now he’s dead and she’s back on campus, trying to keep up with her class schedule, a growing problem with painkillers, and a question she can’t let go: Why?

All she wants is for life to get back to normal, but normal is looking hard to come by. She’s thirty-eight and hobbles with a cane. Her first student interaction ends in tears (hers). Her fellow faculty members seem uncomfortable with her, and her ex—whom she may or may not still love—has moved on.

Enter Nathaniel Barber, a graduate student obsessed with Chicago’s violent history. Nath is a serious scholar, but also a serious mess about his first heartbreak, his mother’s death, and his father’s disapproval. Assigned as Amelia’s teaching assistant, Nath also takes on the investigative legwork that Amelia can’t do. And meanwhile, he’s hoping she’ll approve his dissertation topic, the reason he came to grad school in the first place: the student attack on Amelia Emmet.

Together and at cross-purposes, Amelia and Nathan stumble toward a truth that will explain the attack and take them both through the darkest hours of their lives.

Links:

The Black Hour on Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble

Lori Raider-Day’s website

My Thoughts:

This book was rough for me and so was writing this review. I can’t even tell you how many (much longer) versions of this ran through my head. Maybe it was me ‘getting my hopes up’ or ‘having my expectations too high’ that got me into trouble. Either way, The Black Hour was…okay. Just okay.

I wanted it to dig more into sociology and the sociology of violence. I wanted the characters to have the more drive to find out whether or not the shooting was random. If it wasn’t a random shooting, I wanted the suspense of a good mystery. I wanted to love the characters…or hate them…something. Instead I’m left feeling very little towards any of them and overall a little disappointed towards the book itself.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, just because I didn’t get what I wanted from this book doesn’t mean you won’t.

Overall Rating: 2.9 out of 5