Name: The Blue Hour
Rating: 4.5 (6 reviews)
Author: Paula Hawkins

About this book

Summary
Book Club Questions
Discuss

Book Summary

The propulsive and powerful new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train.

Welcome to Eris: an island with only one house, one inhabitant, one way out. Unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day.

Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge....

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, The Blue Hour recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Hawkins's place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

Becker serves as an intermediary between two conflicting interests—Grace's and those of Fairburn House. How would you describe his own interests and motivations?
The tide is a prominent symbol throughout the novel. What do you think it represents? What other symbols did you notice in the text?
Lady Emmeline insinuates that, because Helena left Sebastian for Becker, she must be untrustworthy and is likely a serial cheater. Julian had multiple affairs, always returning to infidelity even after reconciling with Vanessa. Do you believe in the mantra, "Once a cheater, always a cheater?" How do you think perpetrators can redeem themselves after a betrayal, if it's possible?
How does class impact the relationships ...

Please be aware that this discussion may contain spoilers!

See what our members are saying about this book in our Community Forum.

What are you reading this week? (7/24/2025)
I just struggled to finish The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins. It is unevenly plotted with cardboard characters and left me entirely unsatisfied. I'm currently reading Penman of the Founding, A Biography of John...
-Vivian_H

What book or books are you reading this week? (01/16/2025)
I just finished The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train). It's a good, fast-paced mystery/thriller. It starts out with the discovery that a revered artist's sculpture contains a huma...
-Roberta_Winchester

Membership Advantages

Reviews
"Beyond the Book" articles
Free books to read and review (US only)
Find books by time period, setting & theme
Read-alike suggestions by book and author
Book club discussions
and much more!
Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
More about membership!

Media Reviews

"This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Mystery and psychological thriller readers will enjoy peeling back the countless layers of this novel." —Library Journal

"[P]redictable...Hawkins manages few surprises and fewer insights into her characters, resulting in a narrative that's curiously uninvolving even as her skills as a stylist are on full display. This fails to add up to more than the sum of its parts." —Publishers Weekly

"The Blue Hour is an atmospheric, stylish puzzle box of a thriller with a deliciously inventive premise. I love a locked-room mystery—or, in this case, a locked-island mystery—and Paula Hawkins has delivered a truly exceptional one." —Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River and The God of the Woods

"An atmospheric and marvelously twisty novel—Paula Hawkins returns with an examination of legacy, and the mountains we'll move to feel like we belong. The Blue Hour builds a labyrinth of surprises, which deliver through to the very last page." —Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution

This information about The Blue Hour was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own review

Jill

Slow-Burn Psychological Thriller
THE BLUE HOUR by Paula Hawkins

The Blue Hour is a slow-burn psychological thriller and a different read from her other books. I thought this was well written and enjoyed reading it. A discovery is made in the sculpture of a well known artist that starts this story off. Setting is on an isolated Scottish island where there is only access to it every twelve hours.

The novel’s setting is a character unto itself. We meet Grace who lives in isolation in the house on the island where the artist, Vanessa Chapman, once lived. Paula Hawkins captured the feeling of this isolated island with her depictions of the environment, sea, and woods of this eerie landscape. Becker, who works in the art world and did his thesis on Vanessa Chapman will travel to the island and meet with Grace to collect art pieces for an exhibition. Secrets are abound and clues are slowly revealed in this intriguing read.

The title refers to a time at dusk before the stars come out when the color leaches from the day but it’s not yet full dark. Themes of love, friendship, obsession, and insecurities. I always look forward to what Paula Hawkins does next.

Membership Advantages

Reviews
"Beyond the Book" articles
Free books to read and review (US only)
Find books by time period, setting & theme
Read-alike suggestions by book and author
Book club discussions
and much more!
Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
More about membership!

Author Information

Biography
Books by this Author

Paula Hawkins Author Biography

Photo: Kate Neil

Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction. She lives in London. The Girl on the Train is her first thriller. It is being published all over the world and has been optioned by Dreamworks

Link to Paula Hawkins's Website