The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor #Release Day #Review Tour

The Chalk Man

by C.J. Tudor

My rating: 5 stars

Publisher: Crown (January 9, 2018)

Publication Date: January 9, 2018

Genre: Adult Fiction | Suspense

Print Length: 288 pages

Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy little English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code; little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he's put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead. That's when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor

You cannot outrun your past or your secrets, but you can learn to cope with them. They were best friends, twelve years old and growing up in a time that held the innocence of youth, the wonder of simple adventures and the intrigue of special secrets. They lost that cloak of sweet protection when murder came to their sleepy little village and they became caught up in a nightmare that wouldn’t let go, even as it destroyed the childhood bond they once shared.

The THE CHALK MAN knew what happened, but he wasn’t real, right? He was a game the kids played, a secret code only they knew, and yet…he left his messages, made his threats and gave his clues…and they were scared…

Eddie and his friends have all grown up now. Thirty years have passed, but the events are not forgotten, only buried. THE CHALK MANby C.J. Tudor is mystery and suspense at its most devious. What happened the night that girl was killed? Who did it? Why? And who has come back 30 years later to toy with the town, the killer and the one man who knew more than he let on? What happened to those innocent kids?

Someone is still out there, someone knows what happened that night in the woods, someone knows what happened to the missing head, but no one will suspect the answers to a crime that killed a town and its innocence decades before.

Dark, devious, filled with an atmosphere of fear, broken bonds and the pain of growing up and losing the innocence of childhood and friendships. Life will go on, death will come to many who were there in 1986, yes, life will go on…

C.J. Tudor has created a tale that is both chilling and so entangled in the webs of lies, half-truths and mystery that it is nearly impossible to guess the outcome of the next page, let alone the ending! What tale! What a fabulous read, but definitely not for those who seek the perfectly wrapped closure with the pretty bow all neatly tied on top!

I received an ARC edition from Crown Publishing in exchange for my honest and voluntary review.

C. J. TUDOR lives in Nottingham, England, with her partner and young daughter. Over the years she has worked as a copywriter, television presenter, voice-over, and dog walker. She is now thrilled to be able to write full-time, and doesn’t miss chasing wet dogs through muddy fields all that much. The Chalk Man is her first novel.