All of Us Murderers Review, Mostly Vibes, Little Else

All of Us Murderers is one of those books I’ve been seeing everywhere. The cover always seemed intriguing to me, but something about it reminded me strongly of Don’t Let the Forest In — a book I tried and failed to read at least three times. So, I didn’t dare go further. 

But as I already mentioned in my Nora Roberts review, I’ve been in a horrible reading slump for a few months, and I was desperate to read something that will give me that ravenous feeling of more, more, more.

Originally, I wanted horror but this seemed like a good compromise — a splash of romance, a bit of a whodunit, atmospheric horror, why not?

The spoiler-free TLDR is: The atmosphere in All of Us Murderers was truly eerie, claustrophobic and oppressive, but the story fell short of its promise. The romance suffered little tension and the crisis resolved too easily, mostly off-screen. Some of the mystery was interesting, but I felt like, other than the atmosphere, all individual elements of this book needed more work. 

• My rating: 3 ⭐
• Heat level: 3 🌶 (emotional but explicit sex scenes)
• Standalone or series? Standalone.
• Content warnings: Murder, incest, rape, death, violence and blood/gore, slavery, drinking, drugs, homophobia, and more.
• Page count: 352 pages (on my e-reader).
• Read if: you want great atmosphere for a rainy, gloomy day; plus, some Agatha Christie vibes!

On to the review. 

Summary

The story opens with our main character, Zebedee (what a name) arriving at his cousin’s home. He doesn’t really speak to his family, and he didn’t want to come originally, but agreed in the end because he had nothing left to do in London, and his cousin Wynn seemed nice enough. Immediately, things seem off. There’s a young lady running out of the house in a nightgown, crying, the driver is rude, there’s almost no staff in the house — oh, and all of his family members are there, and so is his ex-partner, Gideon. 

So things are not going as planned, and to make it all worse, Wynn announced that one of them (Zeb, his brother Bram, or their cousins Hawley and Dash) have to marry the crying girl (who’s their cousin as well, of sorts) to inherit the house and fortune from Wynn. The tension is high because none of them like each other, and all of them (except Zeb) want the inheritance. Not to mention, the house is huge and creepy, there are high walls all around the property, only one gate, all set in Dartmoor with its mires and shifty weather. And there are rumors of a ghost haunting the residents. 

(See what I mean about excellent atmosphere.)

Soon, the guests get haunted as well, and as much as Zeb wants to leave, he can’t, and it’s starting to look like his cousin Wynn is scheming to keep him there indefinitely. 

The Romance

The romance started out promising. Gideon and Zeb were together back in London, but it appears to have ended badly and all we know is that it was Zeb’s fault somehow. Gideon is clearly pissed, cold and distant in front of others, rude and angry when Zeb tries to speak to him.

I really liked that Zeb didn’t try to win him back. He was deeply sorry for what happened, and wanted to leave almost immediately so as to avoid making Gideon uncomfortable or messing things up for him again. Their reconciliation was progressing slowly at first, but as the horror/mystery storyline ramps up, the romance sort of resolves itself. 

To be perfectly honest, I was a little underwhelmed by it all. I loved Zeb’s character (with some caveats), but Gideon wasn’t as fleshed out so in the end, I couldn’t come to understand how these two people fit together, only that they somehow did. They talked things out too directly and in a way that suggested years of therapy — and I understand this urge to make everything right by our standards, but it’s jarring in a historical romance. 

The overall impression to me was less swoony, other than in one or two scenes, and more thoroughly orchestrated by the author, and I really dislike seeing the author at work when I’m reading. 

The Story, Characters, Preachiness, etc. 

Zeb’s character was fun to read — he’s self-deprecating, funny and kind — but frustrating at the same time. He has ADHD, and the author decided to harp on this point so much that it became annoying. Yes, we know he has to fidget, we know he forgets things and gets sidetracked a lot. I like that it affects essentially all the major plot points in the book, but I dislike how preachy the book is about it. 

And of course, it’s very preachy about everything. Zeb exists to react to horrible acts and people and hold speeches on how bad he feels about it. It’s a waste of a perfectly interesting character, and the book could have done more if it didn’t insist on sitting the reader down for these long-winded monologues on social injustices. The purpose of a book should be to tell a good story, in my mind, and let the reader draw conclusions. 

An example of this being excellently done is The Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. Similar to this book, The Starling House is somewhat inspired by real events and people, but it understands that its main job is to tell a good story, and you end up more affected by it. I still think about the politics of small towns and how much we collectively look away from, just from reading it. 

Meanwhile, I’m struggling to recall all the many social issues All Of Us Murderers wanted me to know about. Yes, creepy old men are creepy and they do bad things, and the bad things are obviously worth caring about. But you can’t write a story knowing already what its themes are going to be — you have to just write it, and see what shines through. 

I’ll give credit where credit is due — this book had me really frightened for the characters. The horror element was doing its job well, reliant as it was on the atmosphere and setting. I really enjoyed (perhaps enjoyed is not the right word) its stifling, oppressive mood.

However, I can’t say I liked the mystery plot too much. It started out promising, with all the characters hating each other and being stuck in the same place, but, well… there was no actual murder until about 60% so there was nothing much to solve. There’s an overall sense of dread, but nothing too bad has happened until this point. 

And then it’s all explained and resolved by an outside character, after which Gideon and Zeb escape and only in the epilogue do we learn what happened to everyone, which is a strange way to go about it. 

In the end, you’re left feeling as if the entire plot happened around the main character(s), not to them, and they came out unaffected and unscathed, uncaring about what would likely be a traumatizing episode in their lives. 

Final Thoughts

All of this is not to say that this book is wholly unenjoyable. It did get me out of the reading slump, and I read the whole thing in a day, so credit where credit is due. There’s something compulsively readable about it, something with a fanfiction-y flavor that I just can’t put my finger on, but I enjoyed at the very least, the first half of the book. And it left me interested in this author’s other work, which based on Goodreads might be better (?). 

I would highly recommend it if you don’t mind books with an atmosphere stronger than plot, especially if you plan on reading it during a rainy, moody day. Happy reading!