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Fast,funny, and furious, this book hasbags of humour, bags of heart, and a proper murder mystery at its core. Alice Bell is one to watch!” Grave Expectations is the debut crime novel from author Alice Bell, following washed-up Claire and her best friend Sophie, who must solve a cold case at a stately home in the British countryside, home to the secretive Wellington-Forge clan. So far, so pat – except for the bit where Claire is a disgraced medium and Sophie is dead, having died mysteriously at seventeen and now tethered to Claire as both a spectre and a keen assistant to Claire’s amateur sleuthing. That old story indeed.
The following review, will contain spoilers. If you haven't read the book or you just don't wanna be spoiled, don't read the rest of the text. A clever and playful contemporary cosy mystery by Cobh-based debut author, the talented Alice Bell. Think Ghosts meets Knives Out." - Catherine KirwanClaire has been booked by the Wellington-Forge family to act as a medium at their nana's birthday celebrations. However things do not go anywhere near to plan and Claire finds herself being pressganged into discovering what happened at last year's celebrations and why there is an unquiet spirit in the library. Who exactly is the spirit? Why are they hanging around the house and, far more importantly, which one of the Wellington-Forge's committed the murder? Thankfully Claire has Sophie to help otherwise, as Sophie quite rightly puts it, nothing would get detected because Claire is rubbish at it. A fast-paced and hilarious debut crime novel, in which a burnt-out Millennial medium must utilize her ability to see ghosts and team-up with a band of oddball investigators to figure out which member(s) of a posh English family are guilty of murder. After spending several years in London, Alice now lives in Cork in Ireland. She has probably read more detective fiction and watched more episodes of Midsomer Murders than you. A word from Alice
The whole story is really, really good fun and it is a solid murder mystery, but the characters are what makes this a really special read. A great read, with great characters, lots of humour, some misty-eyed moments and lots of swearing. Utterly delightful - like the BBC show Ghosts mixed with Cluedo." - Simon Toyne I think that this series is slowly but surely starting to lose me. First of all, the set-up for this novel was, in large part, false (or at the very least, a gross exaggeration and clever manipulation of the truth). I don’t really understand why this is or why the author felt it necessary to spin the synopsis in the way that she did. To some degree, this set the tone for the novel.This is one of those books that I wish we had a ten number scale instead of 5 stars because it's a true 7 to me. 3 seems too low and 4 too high.
To compound this, Charlie’s emotional response to Mrs. Webb after she kidnaps her, shoots her friend, and almost killed her was disconcerting and off-putting. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t screaming for Mrs. Webb’s death here, but the immediate compassion and “Don’t even scare her, Lincoln!” pleas were ridiculous. I’m all for empathy and forgiveness but this just didn’t seem believable to me at all. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. First things first, the concept of a medium and a ghost solving a murder really works for me. And it was executed perfectly. Grave Expectations by Alice Bell is a really fun paranormal crime fiction debut that kept me interested in both the characters and what would happen. I will say that listening to the audiobook means you have to really concentrate otherwise it is easy to miss things/get confused, and I did find myself having to rewind quite a bit because I wasn't paying close enough attention. That being said, the audiobook was still really great to listen to, and I thought Sophie Roberts did an excellent job with the narration. The accent was a little difficult for me to understand at times, so I did end up listening to this at around 2.5-2.8x speed; 2x speed in the car. You've never read a country house whodunit quite like Grave Expectations. Nor is there a generation gap quite as wide as the one between Claire and Sophie. Fast, funny and furious, this book has bags of humour, bags of heart and a proper murder mystery at its core. Alice Bell writes with real verve and crafts a preposterous premise into a sharp, well written and lively story that's at once out of this world and yet reassuringly real. As reader, you're along for the ride, and it's a runaway ghost train of a ride at that! Bell is one to watch." - Janice Hallett After spending several years in London and Brighton, Alice now lives in Cork, Ireland, Alice Bell grew up in South West England, in the sort of middle-of-nowhere where teenagers spend their weekends drinking Smirnoff Ice in a field that also has at least one horse in it.
Comments
It’s a really great mystery novel, a good story and all ends are neatly tied off and it was really funny and I want more of Claire and Sophie and Basher and Alex and really I want to know what happened to make Sophie a ghost. Clever, unpredictable and a genuinely humorous modern day country house murder mystery which left me guessing. Perfect for anyone who fancies themselves as a detective. -- Nadine Matheson You've never read a country house whodunit quite like Grave Expectations. Nor is there a generation gap quite as wide as the one between Claire and Sophie. Fast, funny and furious, this book has bags of humour, bags of heart and a proper murder mystery at its core. Alice Bell writes with real verve and crafts a preposterous premise into a sharp, well written and lively story that's at once out of this world and yet reassuringly real. As reader, you're along for the ride, and it's a runaway ghost train of a ride at that! Bell is one to watch. -- Janice Hallett I love Claire and Sophie, Basher and Alex, and how their little Scooby gang develops as the story progresses from faceless mystery ghosts to a possible murder investigation within a rich and deeply dysfunctional family. And as an added bonus, Claire has a secret past of her own that she doesn’t want her new friends to uncover, and the biggest event in Sophie’s teen life remains a mystery to her and Claire, which remains outstanding even after the book’s dramatic reveal. I enjoyed almost all of this except the ending which I really wasn't all that surprised about. To me it felt like just another version of the big "misunderstanding" that's always present in any novel featuring any type of romance.
Book four takes you for an emotional roller coaster that you will both love and hate. Just when you think things are going great, the rug gets pulled out from underneath Charlie (very much how it sometime goes in real life.) If you’ve read the series up to this point and are invested in the characters, this book will infuriate you, but it is still worth the read. I won’t say too much about this book as it would give away the good parts, but I will say that the characters are so well written and described that I was actually mad at one of them (in my opinion if an author can make you love or hate somebody, they clearly did their job.) I can’t wait till I find out what happens in the next book “Ashes To Ashes.” The actual crime itself is more of a cipher to investigate the family at the centre of it all, which is both a shame and a blessing, depending on how much you value character exploration over a juicy whodunnit mystery. Fortunately there’s enough light and shade scattered throughout to keep the reader entertained, the light being the moments of bonding amongst our quartet of detectives, and the dark being a moment of revelation about Claire’s past that could strike as too bleak for some readers in what is otherwise a tonally cohesive work. Clever,unpredictableand agenuinely humorousmodern day country house murder mystery which left me guessing.” Claire and Sophie are best friends, inseparable you might say. Unfortunately that’s because Sophie is a ghost & she’s been haunting Claire since her murder at 17. Claire can now see & speak to a multitude of ghosts, and is trying to earn a living as a professional medium carrying out seances.
Featured Reviews
Almost-authentic medium Claire and her best friend, Sophie, agree to take on a seemingly simple job at a crumbling old manor in the English countryside: performing a seance for the family matriarch’s 80th birthday. The pair have been friends since before Sophie went missing when they were seventeen. Everyone else is convinced Sophie simply ran away, but Claire knows the truth. Claire knows Sophie was murdered because Sophie has been haunting her ever since. After the conversation Charlie has with Marchbank, I can see aspects of why a particular decision was made towards the ending of the book, but I still felt that the ending came abruptly and completely left me hanging. I think this can be attributed partially to the fact that Lincoln's character doesn't feature as centrally in this book. This was because Lincoln places Charlie on house arrest to protect her, and so much of what she does is done without Lincoln's prior knowledge and in the company of Gus or Seth. That being said, I really liked this side of Charlie and the way that she was able to unravel the mystery by herself. Funny, fast, sharp, original, and addictive, Grave Expectations isa unique breath of fresh air. Brilliant!”
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