3 Stars for Curfew by Jayne Cowie

Curfew by Jayne Cowie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The title, blurb, and comparison to The Handmaid’s Tale got my attention and had me very interested, but then as I started reading, it started to lose the initial excitement for me. The thing is that when I saw it compared to The Handmaid’s Tale, the strict curfew and a murder investigation I was expecting something more. In the end, it still delivered, mostly, but some of it was a bit of a letdown.
In this story, the women are in charge, there’s a curfew where all the men have to be inside between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. or they go to jail, and all the men wear ankle monitors. This is set in the near future in Britain as a more idyllic place/society for women, but it, of course, still has its problems and doesn’t solve everything.
Sarah is a single mother with a teenage daughter, Cass, who has had to figure out life for herself after her husband, Greg, was sent to prison for breaking curfew. Then Greg is about to get out/gets out and this causes issues for Sarah and with her and Cass.
Then Cass is more of a typical rebellious type teen who is against what her mother is for and doesn’t understand why they have to have the curfew in place. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea and she has a lot of anger with her mother because of her Dad being put in prison. She also has a best friend named Billy, who she’s convinced is the best and a good guy that wouldn’t ever hurt anyone and wants to find a way to prove it.
And Helen is a teacher at the school, she is Cass and Billy’s teacher and is feeling the urgency of her biological clock ticking away and is desperately wanting to have a baby. Helen applies for a certificate to live with her boyfriend, Tom, so that the two of them can be together and have a baby.
The mystery that they have to solve is first to identify the victim and second to identify the killer, which isn’t as easy as they thought it would be because it’s obvious that the killer is a man. The problem is how that’s possible because all the men are tagged and have to follow curfew, but as we all know, where there is a will, there is a way and when someone wants to kill, they’ll do what’s necessary.
It did keep me mostly engaged and wanting to make certain of the answer and the ending, but a lot of the ways things were portrayed were quite a bit predictable. There isn’t a huge twist, but there is a little bit of one and some other things so it was a solid 3 star read for me.
If you liked The Handmaid’s Tale or the like, make sure to take a chance and check it out to see how you like it. Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group/Berkley and NetGalley for letting me have a chance to read and review this story. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This will be posted on my website, www.annettemwebber.com, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes, and Noble.



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