Book Tour: One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence | #Gifted

One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence
Series: Impossible Times #1
Genre: Science Fiction | Young Adult
Length: 204 pages
Published on 1st May 2019 by 47North
Purchase*: Amazon | Wordery | Blackwells
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Mark Lawrence: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
Received for free from publisher in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis: Ready Player One meets Stranger Things in this thrilling new novel by bestselling author Mark Lawrence.

In January 1986, fifteen-year-old boy-genius Nick Hayes discovers he’s dying. And it isn’t even the strangest thing to happen to him that week.

Nick and his Dungeons & Dragons-playing friends are used to living in their imaginations. But when a new girl, Mia, joins the group and reality becomes weirder than the fantasy world they visit in their weekly games, none of them are prepared for what comes next. A strange—yet curiously familiar—man is following Nick, with abilities that just shouldn’t exist. And this man bears a cryptic message: Mia’s in grave danger, though she doesn’t know it yet. She needs Nick’s help—now.

He finds himself in a race against time to unravel an impossible mystery and save the girl. And all that stands in his way is a probably terminal disease, a knife-wielding maniac and the laws of physics.

Challenge accepted.

Late last year a friend who is a big fan of Mark Lawrences work let me know he was looking for reviewers of his upcoming book – One Word Kill – so I reached out figuring this would be the perfect opportunity to delve into Lawrence’s writing!

I was very lucky that the publisher reached out to say I would be receiving one & at the start of this year they also asked if I’d like to take part in the blog tour too. I figured why not given I already had the book and all the time in the world due to a newly broken wrist (if youre new here Im fine now).

In my opinion, OWK was a great place to start with his work as its a fairly short book and I found his writing to be very enjoyable.

This book combines themes of time travel, Dungeons&Dragons, and friendships.

It also tackles very deep/dark topics such as dealing with being diagnosed with cancer, drug abuse, violence, and death.

I believe most of these were handled well and the characters emotions came across as very intense and real.

My favourite parts of this story were the DnD sessions and as they predicted and paralled events that were to follow in real life.

I found the way time travel was creatively used to guide the plot, however, i did have trouble with how in depth the characters went with the science.

Ive said this before in other science fiction reviews that one of my main gripes with scifi is when the books make me feel dumb if they go too heavy with the science. Unfortunately this is what oWK did and after a few appearances I did find myself skimming those little bits cause they took away from my enjoyment.

My only other complaint is the main character is very pretentious which I understand why as it fit him and his interests very well. I just generally dont take well to those characters ahah.

The lil friendship group in this book was lovely to read about, pretty diverse too, and it was sad to see that elements drove them apart at times. I’d really love to see where book 2 takes them and how things work out for the group. They were all interesting to read about.

Overall I enjoyed this book and found it to be a good start to a series. Really interested to see how the time travel elements play into book two.

3.5 stars / 5 stars

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