Book review: The Anniversary by Alex Finlay

4.25⭐
Genre ~ crime thriller
Setting ~ Nebraska
Publication date ~ May 12, 2026
Publisher ~ Macmillan Audio
Est Page Count ~ 317 (p+ 86 chapters)
Audio length ~ 7 hours 38 minutes
Narrator ~ Ari Fliakos, Brittany Pressley
POV ~ dual 3rd
Featuring ~ multiple timelines, serial killer, short chapters, mentions of off page rape/assault

My review:

Jules & Quinn are unlikely friends in high school. He’s poor, gets bullied, enlists in the ARMY after a stint in juvie, and becomes a PI. She’s rich, popular, a victim of the May Day Killer, and becomes a model. They are clearly on different paths, but we get a look into what’s going on with them and how their lives intertwine on every May 1st from 1992-2001, which also happens to be Quinn’s birthday.

Love books set in the 90’s, which bring me back to the days I grew up. Fun times! But not so fun if you’re in a town where a serial rapist lives.

Overall, this is my favorite of this author. It was fast paced and I was engaged throughout. I hadn’t guessed the killer, so yay for that. The epilogue is 10 years later in 2011 and it was a great.

Narration notes:
Brittany, of course, does a perfect job as usual. Ari was great, too, but he was kind of monotone sounding.

Add to your never ending TBR  ~ goodreads

I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read it.

Book blurb:

Every May 1st, a serial killer stalks a small town. Every year he comes for them . . .

On May 1, 1992, Jules Delaney and Quinn Riley hardly know each other.

Jules is high school queen bee in a small Midwestern town when she survives a brutal attack by the elusive May Day Killer—a predator who strikes every May 1st and then vanishes without a trace. Quinn, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, is arrested the same night after trying to break up a fight and nearly killing someone.

By morning, their lives are forever connected.

A year later, Jules is haunted by trauma and guilt, tormented by one Why was she spared? Quinn is newly released from juvenile detention and returns home to devastating news—the unsolved murder of his mother.

Over the next decade, their lives are revisited on a single day each May 1st.

As the years pass, secrets surface, lies unravel, and the paths of Jules and Quinn draw closer together. Two mysteries edge toward the truth—what really happened the night Jules was attacked, and who murdered Quinn’s mother? All the while, the May Day Killer is still out there.

And the clock is racing toward another anniversary.

Twisty, high-concept, and emotionally charged, The Anniversary is an addictive murder mystery and nail-biting thriller—but it’s also a tender, heartrending story about fate, innocence lost, and two people bound by a single day. With its masterful structure and propulsive tension, The Anniversary reaffirms Alex Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.

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