Synopsis: The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London, it’s the start of a new life at a boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city, gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper events of more than a century ago.

Review: I listened to The Name Of The Star on audiobook, and the narrative was really great. There were so many accents to try and do, from Rory’s southern accent, to the different English dialects and the narrator was amazing at this, transitioning into each one with ease which made the book very easy to listen to and get sucked in to.

Overall it was actually a pretty cool story. Rory moves from Louisiana to London where she’s studying. She finds herself in dangers way however when someone is copying the Jack The Ripper murders to the nth detail. Same dates, same murder styles at each crime.. but he is ready to go further this time than the original Jack The Ripper ever did. And when Rory sees someone at one of the crime scenes she fears he is now after her.

Rory has some spunk and sass about her which I really enjoyed. I had a few laugh out loud moments throughout the book at her reactions to things, her her smart ass comments to her roomates. She’s great value! She’s also vulnerable when she needed to be, and showed a great deal of bravery and strength too.

The supernatural factor in this book is huge, but we don’t really get into that until maybe the second half of the book. Definitely a cool perspective on the whole Ripper story, and honestly I didn’t know where the book was going to take me when it all unfolded. I was dubious at first, but ended up really liking the storyline as a whole.

Maureen has done a fabulous job at setting us up for the second book in the Shades of London series, and I am quite interested to see where the storyline is going to take us.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Trailer: