Author: Jenny Morris
Published: January 16, 2025, by Simon & Schuster UK
Format: Kindle, 400 Pages
Genre: Magical Realism
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Blurb: Thea has a secret.
She can tell how long someone has left to live just by touching them. Not only that, but she can transfer life from one person to another – something she finds out the hard way when her best friend Ruth suffers a fatal head injury on a night out. Desperate to save her, Thea touches the arm of the man responsible when he comes to check if Ruth is all right. As Ruth comes to, the man quietly slumps to the ground, dead. Thea realises that she has a godlike power: but despite deciding to use her ability for good, she can’t help but sometimes use it for her own benefit.
Boss annoying her at work? She can take some life from them and give it as a tip to her masseuse for a great job.
Creating an ‘Ethical Guide to Murder’ helps Thea to focus her new-found skills.
But as she embarks on her mission to punish the wicked and give the deserving more time, she finds that it isn’t as simple as she first thought.
How can she really know who deserves to die, and can she figure out her own rules before Ruth’s borrowed time runs out?
My Opinion: When I first picked up this novel, I was expecting something else, maybe along the lines of Rupert Holmes’ How to Murder Your Employer. What I got instead was a narrative far more layered: imagine the moral tangle of Nickelback’s “Savin’ Me” video spliced with the eerie notes of Victoria Laurie’s When, then add an ethical dilemma at the top of each chapter like a philosophical pop quiz.
From the moment Thea realizes her ability to see how long someone has to live simply by touching them, you’re hooked. Then the questions start to creep in. What do you do with that kind of knowledge? Can you redirect lifespans? Can you steal years from the villain and hand them to the saint? And if you do… are you playing God, or just playing the odds?
Morris doesn’t hold back. Each chapter opens with a new ethical quandary that forces you to pause and ask yourself what you would do. The bright, cheerful cover may suggest cozy mystery vibes, but what waits inside is a moral tug-of-war. As Thea’s grandfather wisely warns: “Doing a wrong thing for a right reason is still a wrong thing. Especially if you're the one deciding what the right thing is.” That line? It lingers. Right up there with, “just because you can, should you.”
Now, that’s not to say it’s all doom and dread. There are moments of humor, irony, and even dry wit, as you find yourself muttering, “Come on, Thea,” while she ignores red flags that are practically neon. Thea’s desperation to be seen makes her vulnerable, and Sam swoops in with just enough charm to make the reader suspicious. I didn’t trust him from the start. He was moving too fast. The charm is too polished. He found Thea’s weakness and took full advantage of it. Come on, Thea, believe in yourself and stop using a hypocrite as a moral compass.
Watching Thea evolve and how power changes her is stomach-wrenching. As she slips deeper into her role as an avenging angel, wielding mortality as a weapon and justifying her choices, the tension intensifies. Is this still the Thea we first met, or has the power transformed her into something else?
Throughout all of this, Thea balances life math with emotional fallout and giving, taking, and never quite letting the reader know where her finish line is. And then come the reveals. A twist knocks the wind out of you. The answers that click into place are tender and devastating, especially for a girl who never truly felt she belonged after losing her parents.
The ending surprised me, not just once, but twice. Just when I thought the story had neatly tied itself up, Morris tugged on a thread that unraveled even more. And that final passage? Worth it. It reframes the entire story in a way that had me revisiting earlier chapters in my mind.
So don’t let your expectations or the cover steer you wrong; this one’s worth sticking with. An Ethical Guide to Murder asks what happens when moral clarity runs headfirst into personal grief and unchecked power. And long after the last page, you’ll still be chewing on the choices made. And the ones that weren’t.
She can tell how long someone has left to live just by touching them. Not only that, but she can transfer life from one person to another – something she finds out the hard way when her best friend Ruth suffers a fatal head injury on a night out. Desperate to save her, Thea touches the arm of the man responsible when he comes to check if Ruth is all right. As Ruth comes to, the man quietly slumps to the ground, dead. Thea realises that she has a godlike power: but despite deciding to use her ability for good, she can’t help but sometimes use it for her own benefit.
Boss annoying her at work? She can take some life from them and give it as a tip to her masseuse for a great job.
Creating an ‘Ethical Guide to Murder’ helps Thea to focus her new-found skills.
But as she embarks on her mission to punish the wicked and give the deserving more time, she finds that it isn’t as simple as she first thought.
How can she really know who deserves to die, and can she figure out her own rules before Ruth’s borrowed time runs out?
My Opinion: When I first picked up this novel, I was expecting something else, maybe along the lines of Rupert Holmes’ How to Murder Your Employer. What I got instead was a narrative far more layered: imagine the moral tangle of Nickelback’s “Savin’ Me” video spliced with the eerie notes of Victoria Laurie’s When, then add an ethical dilemma at the top of each chapter like a philosophical pop quiz.
From the moment Thea realizes her ability to see how long someone has to live simply by touching them, you’re hooked. Then the questions start to creep in. What do you do with that kind of knowledge? Can you redirect lifespans? Can you steal years from the villain and hand them to the saint? And if you do… are you playing God, or just playing the odds?
Morris doesn’t hold back. Each chapter opens with a new ethical quandary that forces you to pause and ask yourself what you would do. The bright, cheerful cover may suggest cozy mystery vibes, but what waits inside is a moral tug-of-war. As Thea’s grandfather wisely warns: “Doing a wrong thing for a right reason is still a wrong thing. Especially if you're the one deciding what the right thing is.” That line? It lingers. Right up there with, “just because you can, should you.”
Now, that’s not to say it’s all doom and dread. There are moments of humor, irony, and even dry wit, as you find yourself muttering, “Come on, Thea,” while she ignores red flags that are practically neon. Thea’s desperation to be seen makes her vulnerable, and Sam swoops in with just enough charm to make the reader suspicious. I didn’t trust him from the start. He was moving too fast. The charm is too polished. He found Thea’s weakness and took full advantage of it. Come on, Thea, believe in yourself and stop using a hypocrite as a moral compass.
Watching Thea evolve and how power changes her is stomach-wrenching. As she slips deeper into her role as an avenging angel, wielding mortality as a weapon and justifying her choices, the tension intensifies. Is this still the Thea we first met, or has the power transformed her into something else?
Throughout all of this, Thea balances life math with emotional fallout and giving, taking, and never quite letting the reader know where her finish line is. And then come the reveals. A twist knocks the wind out of you. The answers that click into place are tender and devastating, especially for a girl who never truly felt she belonged after losing her parents.
The ending surprised me, not just once, but twice. Just when I thought the story had neatly tied itself up, Morris tugged on a thread that unraveled even more. And that final passage? Worth it. It reframes the entire story in a way that had me revisiting earlier chapters in my mind.
So don’t let your expectations or the cover steer you wrong; this one’s worth sticking with. An Ethical Guide to Murder asks what happens when moral clarity runs headfirst into personal grief and unchecked power. And long after the last page, you’ll still be chewing on the choices made. And the ones that weren’t.
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