An Ethical Guide to Murder by Jenny Morris is a thought-provoking, dark and clever book exploring the ideas of what’s right and wrong, with an added theme of supernatural powers. The protagonist, Thea, discovers she has the unusual talent of being able to see how long people have left to live. After a traumatic event she discovers that she can transfer life from one person to another which results in her dealing with some ethical dilemmas. 

This is a book with an unpredictable journey which had me laughing and gasping throughout. It took me down a rabbit-hole of ethical dilemmas and dark-humour (two of my favourite things). Thea’s matter-of-fact attitude and her morally complex reality gripped me from the start. The author’s clever use of humour and twists and turns (not big and dramatic, but always effective) kept me hooked and eager to find out what Thea’s next move was going to be. 

If you want a book that will entertain you while subtly poking holes in your moral compass, then this is the one for you! It blends clever storytelling, strange dilemmas and an interesting protagonist. It’ll stay in your mind long after you’ve read it. It will have you thinking ‘what would I do in her shoes?’, ‘how do we decide what’s fair?’, ‘what lines would I cross if I thought no one was watching?’ and ‘is it ever truly possible to act ethically when you have too much power?’

With thanks to Mellissa for a fabulous guest review!

About the Book

How to Kill Your Family meets The Power in this entertaining and thought-provoking read, that asks:

If you had the power between life and death, what would you do?

Thea has a secret.
She can tell how long someone has left to live just by touching them.
Not only that, but she can transfer life from one person to another – something she finds out the hard way when her best friend Ruth suffers a fatal head injury on a night out.
Desperate to save her, Thea touches the arm of the man responsible when he comes to check if Ruth is all right. As Ruth comes to, the man quietly slumps to the ground, dead.

Thea realises that she has a godlike power: but despite deciding to use her ability for good, she can’t help but sometimes use it for her own benefit.
Boss annoying her at work? She can take some life from them and give it as a tip to her masseuse for a great job.
Creating an ‘Ethical Guide to Murder’ helps Thea to focus her new-found skills.
But as she embarks on her mission to punish the wicked and give the deserving more time, she finds that it isn’t as simple as she first thought.

How can she really know who deserves to die, and can she figure out her own rules before Ruth’s borrowed time runs out?

About The Author

Jenny Morris is a psychology researcher with a fascination in ethics, human behaviour and moral dilemmas. She completed the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ six-month course and has won short-story contests in both Writing Magazine and Writers’ Forum. In 2020, she completed a PhD in psychology.

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