Seven Days by Patrick Senécal #BookReview #BookBloggers #travelingsistersread @SimonSchusterCA

Seven Days by Patrick Senécal

Happy Publication Day to Patrick Senécal!

Riveting, provocative & thoroughly absorbing!

Cautionary warning: This book has extremely graphic scenes of torture.

SEVEN DAYS by PATRICK SENÉCAL is a gripping, dark, horrific, disturbing and fast-paced read that at times was even a little tough for me to read. I can usually handle quite a bit of explicit content by distancing myself from it so where the graphic scenes did make me pause a few times to catch my breath the storyline itself had me immediately hooked to fully immerse me in this tale. 

I do consider this book to be a crime thriller but it does have a high dose of horror added in though. I found that mix of genres to be highly entertaining and an exciting book to read. The intensity level and suspense of this novel increases immensely over the course of what happens over those seven days that totally frightens and intrigues the reader. I definitely needed to know the outcome and come to terms with Dr. Bruno Hamel’s attempt to seek his own retribution and justice for the horrific crime that was inflicted on his daughter. 

PATRICK SENÉCAL delivers quite the fascinating, intense, suspenseful and well-written read here with an extremely enthralling storyline. There is an aspect in this novel that haunts Dr. Hamel’s character that I am unable to elaborate on because of spoilers but I will say though that I thoroughly enjoyed the meaning and the message that it all entailed.

This novel definitely invokes some strong opinions that will have you questioning some of the actions of the characters and the subject matter. I thought the author did a great job at allowing us to come to our own opinions of how we felt about the characters and the storyline.

Thank you so much to Simon & Schuster Canada and Patrick Senécal for gifting me a physical advance uncorrected proof to read. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading experience!

Seven Days has been translated to English and was originally written in French. It was called Les Sept jours du talion – “seven days of retaliation”.

Seven Days is a story that explores the ethical questions of revenge.  Dr Bruno Hamel is a grieving and distraught father who is out for revenge towards the monster who killed his daughter.  He kidnaps and tortures him and as the story progressed we started to see how people react to knowing he is out for revenge.

Seven Days is a disturbing thriller that crosses over to horror. Patrick Senécal has been referred to as Quebec’s Stephen King.  He doesn’t hold back here with the graphic details of torture. Pushing it almost to the point I started to struggle reading it.  I started to question if there was more than one monster in this story. Just when I thought I had enough the story takes a turn and really started to get very interesting.   We start to see what shapes Hamel as revenge turns into a monster itself and we see how this all affects him.

Patrick Senécal does a good job here creating our two main characters here with Dr. Bruno Hamel and Detective Mercure who tries to stop him from killing the monster.  Mercure becomes the moral center of the story.

I was a bit worried about how this story was going to come together and I am glad I stuck with it.  I thought it was cleverly written but maybe pushed it a bit too far with the graphic details that I felt stalled the story instead of driving it forward.  In the end, I liked how it wrapped up and was very satisfied with the ending. I recommend with caution. It’s certainly not for everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Canada and Patrick Senécal for my copy to read and review.

Norma’s Stats:
Cover: Definitely a creepy and sinister feeling happening here with this cover which represents the storyline extremely well.
Title: The title immediately piqued and grabbed my attention. 
Writing/Prose: I enjoyed the author’s writing style.
Plot: Disturbing, provocative, emotive, thought-provoking, suspenseful, gripping, fast-paced, absorbing and extremely entertaining. Even though this book was a little tough to read it was an excellent one!
Ending: I was thoroughly impressed and completely satisfied with the way this story ended.
Overall: I thoroughly applaud the author with how the drama of this story all unfolded, making it one heck of a memorable and fantastic page-turner. Would highly recommend with caution though as some of the violence might be a little disturbing to some readers. 

Have you read this one? Are you clicking on your favourite bookstore to order it now or out the door to buy this one? Drop us a comment!