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Grave Expectations: The hilarious and gripping BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick for 2023

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This book hasbags of humor, bags of heart, and a proper murder mystery at its core.”—Janice Hallett, author of The Appeal I’m so looking forward to waking the dead with Corvus and PRH in 2023 and beyond. To see Grave Expectations published at all is almost unbelievable, let alone getting to work with editors as smart and passionate as Sarah and Anna, who have helped bring Claire and Sophie to life (and un-life) in ways I never expected. It’s very invigorating to be so supported in my efforts to put more swearing, crying, and falling over into cosy crime.” 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.

But in Grave Expectations we finally see Lincoln and Charlie commit to a serious relationship, the appearance of a serial killer targeting paranormal humans and the possibility that someone close to Lichfield Park is trying to harm Charlie. It was great to finally see the common thread connecting all the mysteries that the Ministry has encountered finally becoming evident, as the members confront kidnappings, betrayal and spirits from their past. Thisbook positively lit up my weekends. . . . A story that will both send chills down your spine and wrap you up in a hug.” Yep I'm in tears. The next book will be a bit weird because it's told from lincoln which obviously I'm not used to. I'm not much of a murder mystery reader, but this is in some ways not much of a murder mystery. I don't mean that as a diminutive or a criticism, the 'he's not much of a player, is he?' that my dad would perhaps offhandedly say about whichever snooker person he wasn't keen on at the time, but in the sense that of the time I spent with Grave Expectations, relatively little of it was focused on the actual murder mystery. That's there, and it's competently done (as far as I can tell, having little to compare it to), but straight-up character work is what occupies most of the book. Well, that and what I suspect is a very specific type of humour particular to British people between the ages of, say, twenty-five and thirty-seven, but since I fall neatly into that band all I can really say about that is that it works for me. 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.

This novel was an absolute gem, funny and clever with really engaging characters. I loved the dynamic between eternal teen Sophie and millennial Claire. The capable, unflappable Alex takes everything in their stride, their enthusiasm for the investigation sweeping Bash reluctantly along with them. Claire and Sophie team up with self-assured teenager Alex and sceptical ex-police officer Bash to try and work out who has died and who killed them.

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.Together they must race against incompetence to find the murderer - before the murderer finds them... in this funny, modern, media-literate mystery for the My Favourite Murder generation. 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. When the pair arrive at The Cloisters, they find themselves drawn to a tragic and unrecognisable ghost, clearly an unquiet spirit who met an untimely end. Teaming up with the least unbearable members of the Wellington-Forge family - depressive ex-cop Basher and teenage reactionary Alex - Claire and Sophie determine to figure out not just whodunnit, but who they killed, why and when. Together they must race against incompetence to find the murderer before the murderer finds them, in this funny, modern, media-literate debut mystery for the My Favourite Murder generation." A really unique concept paired with whip-smart writing and lots of heart -- Heather Darwent, author of The Things We Do to Our Friends

A clever and playful contemporary cosy mystery by Cobh-based debut author, the talented Alice Bell. Think Ghosts meets Knives Out." - Catherine Kirwan C.J. Archer is the USA Today bestselling author of historical mystery and historical fantasy novels including the GLASS AND STEELE series, the CLEOPATRA FOX MYSTERIES, the MINISTRY OF CURIOSITIES and the FREAK HOUSE books. 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. Claire 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.The concept of Grave Expectations is nothing short of delightful and the novel shines best when it’s exploring the ramifications of being a medium and being one in the modern day. Tonally it reads like Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) meets Midsomer Murders (the show, not the much-darker books by Caroline Graham): charming, breezy, with moments of pathos and darkness scattered throughout what is a predominantly light book. I really enjoyed the insight to Lincoln and Charlie's past that was revealed; where we learn who Lincoln's father and orphanage Charlie was given up to. I absolutely loved the way Seth and Gus doted on Charlie like a sister and I love the newly introduced butler at Lincoln's household. This is a mystery with a paranormal twist as several ghosts help out along the way. Claire & Sophie are still best friends even though one of them is dead & some of their conversations are like those conducted between slightly exasperated siblings. The mystery itself is rather thin, there's not a great deal of actual detecting even though Claire is a self-confessed crime show addict. There were one or two laugh out loud bits though - I particularly liked the misheard Spice Girls lyrics one. Yes, it lost its way a little in the middle but overall it was a nice little paranormal mystery with a humorous edge. 3.5 stars (rounded up) 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. 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.

Bell shines in her sharp, funny debut. . . . The adroit plotting, which cannily plays with mystery tropes, is amply leavened with humor. Fans . . . will be eager for more adventures from Claire and Sophie.” 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.

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.

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