Book Review: Twenty-Seven Minutes | Ashley Tate

Ashely Tate’s debut novel, Twenty-Seven Minutes is a dark, suspenseful portrayal of the long-term impact the death of a young woman has on those closest to the incident a decade later.

About the Book | Twenty-Seven Minutes

For the last ten years, the small, claustrophobic town of West Wilmer has been struggling to understand one thing: Why did it take young Grant Dean twenty-seven minutes to call for help on the fateful night of the car accident that took the life of his beloved sister, Phoebe?

Someone knows what really happened the night Phoebe died. Someone who is ready to tell the truth.

With Phoebe’s memorial in just three days, grief, delusion, ambition, and regret tornado together with biting gossip in a town full of people obsessed with a long-gone tragedy with four people at its heart—the caretaker, the secret girlfriend, the missing bad boy, and a former football star. Just kids back then, are forever tied together the fateful rainy night Phoebe died.

Perfect for fans of Jane Harper and Celeste Ng, Tate’s literary suspense Twenty-Seven Minutes is a gripping debut about what happens when grief becomes unbearable and dark secrets are unearthed in a hometown that is all too giddy to eat it up. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

Review | Twenty-Seven Minutes

I love to read a debut novel because it is a great way to learn about new authors and also get to know their writing. Ashley Tate’s novel Twenty-Seven Minutes is dark and often heavy. There is a dreariness to the story that showcases the weight placed on the characters. The pace is slow, but the final chapters are tense, and the twist is satisfying.

The story is set ten years after the tragic death of Phoebe Dean. Phoebe was a teenager when she lost her life in a tragic car accident. Before her death, Phoebe was beautiful, popular, and had a bright future. Often, I wondered (along with the characters) whether the perception of Phoebe was colored by what happened to her.

Grant Dean is Phoebe’s older brother and he was driving the night of the crash. It took Grant twenty-seven minutes to call in the accident after it occurred. Phoebe was alive when the car crashed—those twenty-seven minutes could have made the difference to save her life. Why did it take Grant so long to call for help?

 Grant is one of four narrators of the story (plus some flashback chapters that take place 10 years earlier just before the accident). The other narrators include Becca, June, and Wyatt. Becca was in the car with Grant and Phoebe the night of the accident. She was fighting with Phoebe over her relationship with Grant. Since the accident, Becca has carried guilt with her, knowing she distracted Grant and was partially responsible for the accident. Becca is in a bad place when the novel picks up.

Becca and Grant are no longer together, though she loves him and protects the secret of what happened that night and during those twenty-seven minutes for him. Grant is distant with Becca, often going periods where he refuses to speak to her at all. Grant is an alcoholic and his life is depressing. He lives with a mother who blames him for his sister’s death.

The other narrators are June and Wyatt—another set of siblings. Wyatt disappeared the night of the accident and wasn’t seen for ten years, until he returns right as the book begins, three days before Phoebe’s memorial. June’s life in the intervening years is not any better than Becca’s or Grant’s. Her mother recently died of cancer, and June lives in their dilapidated home without enough money to afford a car. June is glad Wyatt has finally returned, but he is cagey with her about where he has been. His health is in significant decline, and June worries that he is dying of the same cancer that took their mother.

The town where the book is set, West Wilmer is a small town with a somewhat dreary existence. As with most small towns, the major events like the death of Phoebe has never really gone away. She’s been idealized to such an extent that she appears as a bright flame extinguished too soon, in stark contrast to the dreary town of West Wilmer and the bleak lives of the four narrators.

The majority of the book is slow-moving, and not much develops in the plot until it reaches the day of the memorial towards the end. Leading up to it, the reader will spend most of the book understanding the sad state that the four narrators live in. They all were broken in one way or another the night of the accident. But as we learn by the end of the novel, some of them may have been broken even before that. The accident was a catalyst that set their downward spiral in motion. At one point Becca muses hauntingly that there aren’t stages of grief; it never goes away. Bleak but potentially true in the case of these characters.

I felt that Phoebe needed more development for the reader, though she is dead for the events of the book. Often stories like these benefit from the reader having some attachment to the victim. In this case, Phoebe doesn’t really come into focus for the reader for the person she was until the last 20% of the book.

The characters are largely unlikable, with the small exception of June who is more sympathetic than the others. The book is weighted by the heaviness of the story. This is surely intentional, as the accident itself was heavy and sucked the energy out of the characters who survived it.

It took me longer than usual to get into the book. The narrators switch quickly and added in are the flashbacks ten years earlier. There is little forward movement in the first half and so it was slower to get towards what was really going on. Phoebe’s memorial is a catalyst that sets in motion an uptick in the unraveling of the four central characters. As the story goes on, it becomes clear that the truth of what happened that night may finally become clear at the memorial.

The last several chapters are page-turners. I wanted to know what happened, even if my engagement waned towards the middle of the book. The ending unfolds without a series of reveals and one major twist that I didn’t see coming, though reflecting back there were hints of what may occur.

A heavy and suspenseful book that has a satisfying ending and a good twist!

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for my copy. Opinions are my own.