Tag: mystery

ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: Let’s Play Murder by Kesia Lupo

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Book Review: Let’s Play Murder by Kesia Lupo

I’ve been so lucky to get early copies or proofs of a bunch of the books I included in my Will I Like This Book series. And Let’s Play Murder is the next of these books. If you remember, I was insanely hyped for this book. I was comping it from the sampler alone as Sword Art Online meets Danganronpa and the Escape Room films.

Getting into the book, those weren’t really the vibes in the end. But honestly? I’d still probably describe it that way and add that there are some paranormal elements too.

In this book, we follow Veronica as she wakes up trapped in a VR world with four strangers. They’ve all been brought into The Game, a black market competition where they could win millions if they’re the first to solve a murder mystery. But when strange things start happening, and the players themselves start to die in both the game and the real world, Veronica has to decide whether to solve the mystery or whether she wants to win the game.

A big thank you to the team at Bloomsbury for sending me this one!

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ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: Wait For Me by Sara Shepard

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Book Review: Wait For Me by Sara Shepard

Though I wouldn’t say Sara Shepard is the best author, I’ve definitely read and enjoyed a few of her books. They can be a little ridiculous, but they’re generally easy reads. Wait For Me is a different type of story for Shepard. It is a reincarnation story, so I was definitely intrigued.
Thank you to Union Square and Co for allowing me to read this early through NetGalley. This was a quick read and the perfect break with all the fantasy I’ve been reading recently.

Casey Rhodes has many disguises, but as a 17-year-old sophomore in college and girlfriend of a highly eligible bachelor? She has to. So when she starts hearing voices, she runs to the seaside town of Avon, hoping to rest and reset without worrying anyone. But as the voices get worse, she starts to think she recognises people there, including Jake. They’ve never met before, but she swears there’s a connection, and he thinks so too. Casey and Jake decide to look into her memories together and to find out whose memories she actually has.

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ARC, books, japanese, middlegrade, Review

Book Review: Thousand Mysteries of the World by Rima Kitaki and Morinobu Ota

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Book Review: Thousand Mysteries of the World by Rima Kitaki and Morinobu Ota
Book Review: Thousand Mysteries of the World by Rima Kitaki and Morinobu Ota

I’ve made it very clear in the past that I’m British and still in the early stages of learning Japanese. But thanks to translation apps, I decided that I just had to read this middle-grade novel, despite being Japanese. Obviously, a translation app won’t translate perfectly, but despite that, I was still able to really lose myself in this story. I had the opportunity to read this book as an e-arc from NetGalley.

This book follows Michito and his father as they travel across the world for a series of paranormal incidents. All these incidents have been talked about in real life, so it could really strike something in the kids who read this. They’ll have plenty to look into if they want to.

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books, Will I Like This Book?, Young Adult

Will I Like This Book? – This Book Kills by Ravena Guron

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books3 Comments on Will I Like This Book? – This Book Kills by Ravena Guron
Will I Like This Book? – This Book Kills by Ravena Guron

I wrote about going to YALC last week, and one of the opportunities this afforded me was to gather up so many book samplers. I don’t pick up samplers in book shops too often, so it was nice to get the opportunity to preview a few more books.

One of the samplers I picked up was for Usborne. It wasn’t a big sampler, and there were previews for a few different books. The one that interested me the most is the one I’m going to talk about today.

This Book Kills is a YA thriller coming out in January 2023. It’s UKYA, something that I know I do not read enough of. In this book, we follow Jess, a scholarship student who winds up the focus of an investigation when a popular boy from her school winds up dead. Killed in the exact way a character in her short story was. When she receives a mysterious text thanking her for the inspiration, Jess knows she’ll have to solve this mystery soon. If not, she could wind up dead too.

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ARC, blog tour, books, Review, Young Adult

Blog Tour: The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson

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Blog Tour: The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson

I love a good YA mystery or thriller, and this was a book that sounded so good. The Agathas is a mystery very inspired by the works of Agatha Christie. I won’t pretend to be an Agatha Christie fan myself. Honestly, years of seeing the same episodes of Poirot and Miss Marple repeatedly, thanks to my Mum, derailed any interest I might have had in them. But this book sounded like so much fun, and I’m glad that I asked to be part of this tour. Thanks again to Anne at Random Things Tours for allowing me to participate!

This book follows two teens – Alice and Iris, who couldn’t live more different lives. Alice needs to stay out of trouble after disappearing a few months ago, and Iris just needs to get out of town. Iris is hired to tutor Alice, but after a girl disappears, Alice convinces Iris to help her look into the case. When the girl then turns up murdered, they realise that there may be a lot of secrets out there that they need to uncover.

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books, Review, Young Adult

Series Review: Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

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Series Review: Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

In February I finally sat down to read Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson. I’d had the e-book for a while, but I just wasn’t in the mood for something like it the last time I picked it up. Since then, I’d also picked myself up a physical copy of the second book, yet I wasn’t any closer to reading them. So when trying to decide on an audiobook to read, I found this one on Scribd – yes, I know I’m supposed to be reading more audiobooks I don’t own on there, but the third one counts for that – I knew that it was about time that I finally got to this one.

This review is only going to cover the first three books. If you’ve heard anything about this series, it’s probably that you should read the main three books one after the other. The Box in the Woods and the new one coming out this year, do follow Stevie and her friends again. But each of those is a standalone mystery in different locations. I plan on reading The Box in the Woods this month, and I’m very excited to do so.

Truly Devious follows Stevie Bell, a teenage girl who wants to one day be a top detective. With some luck, she managed to get into Ellingham Academy, a prestigious academy where only the best students attend and there’s no obvious application. Back in the 1930s, the wife of the school’s founder and their young daughter disappeared after the founder received a mysterious letter. Stevie has been fascinated with this case for years and she plans to solve it.

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ARC, blog tour, books, Review, Young Adult

Blog Tour: You’ll Be The Death Of Me by Karen M. McManus

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books2 Comments on Blog Tour: You’ll Be The Death Of Me by Karen M. McManus
Blog Tour: You’ll Be The Death Of Me by Karen M. McManus

I’m here today with another book review as part of a blog tour! This time we have You’ll Be The Death Of Me, the latest YA mystery by bestseller Karen M. McManus. I’ve read and enjoyed the vast majority of her books, so I’m happy to be on The Write Reads Ultimate Blog Tour for this one. Thank you so much to the team at The Write Reads for letting me take part in this tour, fun fact, I had already been granted the e-arc for this one when I signed up, but I couldn’t resist participating.

You’ll Be The Death of Me is inspired by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and it follows three old friends who randomly decide to skip school together only to stumble across the corpse of a murdered classmate.

I’d usually write a little more of a summary, but I don’t want to give anything away. Though this isn’t the most original mystery, it’s thoroughly enjoyable, and you’ll want to go in as blind as possible.

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