This books reminded me a lot of the Murder most Unladylike series by Robin Stevens. It has two main female characters and is set in a boarding school which is steeped and tradition and history.

I did feel that some of the characters were stereotypical and not fully developed (Teddy, Araminta); however, the two main characters definitely develop throughout the novel and I though they had authentic, individual voices which came through. Given that each was written by a different author, I thought the technique worked well.

There are plenty of red herrings in the book, as you would expect of a murder/mystery story. I did get a little irritated at the amount of secret hidden passages that Audrey and Ivy kept conveniently discovering. For a school with such a significant amount of history, and an unexplained death, it felt a little unbelievable that no-one had uncovered the leads earlier!

The book ends on a huge hook. You will have to read book two to have many of the issues resolved... I hope!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this.

I acknowledge that I’m not the target audience for this book, but I looked forward to it.

This is a cracking idea for a young adult mystery - Audrey, an American with a secret sorrow arrives at an expensive English boarding school not long after the suspicious death of a well loved pupil. Audrey has to team up with her room mate Ivy and some of the other students to unravel the secrets and make sure no one else suffers. There are arcane rituals, secret passages and canny use of modern technology galore.
.

I struggled with a few things, including separating the two main voices, the lack of characterisation and the ending which unveils another mystery. Sadly by then I was reading for duty rather than pleasure and I would have preferred something that could stand alone, rather than merely functioning as a long, rambling episode 1. For others that will deepen the interest.

I think it should translate well to screen, and I wish the authors well.

A rather enjoyable read.
I liked the mystery it was built around and the evolving friendship between the two main characters. This read comforted me in the ideas that I like mysteries and thrillers more than I thought.
When reading it, bear in mind that the target audience is YA.

Like a Gossip Girl/Hogwarts/Mallory Towers mash up with a good dollop of teen romance, tween and young teen girls will really enjoy this book I am sure.

A popular and confident student, lined up for the head-girl role (or, as is pointed out the head-STUDENT role for those who identify differently) is found dead on the beach at the end of term party. The question is, did she push or did she jump? This is where ‘Voice Unknown’ (aka Gossip Girl) comes in with her podcast aiming to unravel the mystery. Except her identity is soon revealed, as the two central characters (who unknowingly share a love interest) move from hating each other to working together and solve the mystery in double-quick time.

I have to say, I didn’t find this novel the most satisfying, but then I’m not the target audience and I did at least manage to finish it! It’s pretty suitable for your tweet/young teen reader (although there is a f-bomb dropped at one point that had my eyebrow raised slightly). I almost wish it wasn’t the first in a series - a few too many loose ends left at the end in my opinion. Even in Harry Potter you always felt satisfied with the conclusion, despite knowing it was part of a bigger story. This left me so far hanging off a cliff with so few questions answered it was a bit of a tricky place to be honest!

Wicked things come to the dark panelled halls of Illumen Hall, an independent school somewhere on the bleak Kent coast. After the end-of-term party, a girl's tangled body washes ashore: the popular and practically angelic (by all accounts) Lola Radcliffe. Deemed a likely suicide, the police call off their investigations. When a mysterious crime podcast stirs speculation that Lola was murdered, the School goes into meltdown and frenemies Ivy and Audrey feel a need to root out the truth from their own cursed room.

Ivy Moore-Zhang is a British scholarship student, born on the 'wrong side of the tracks' with a will to succeed. She is top of everything: music, maths and marathons (to name a few). She claims the affections of cyber-whizz and prankster Teddy and is crushing like mad on the fit history teacher Mr Willis. She and Lola were roommates -- and on track to be a prefect -- Ivy was relishing the prospect of lots of associated perks, like having a room to herself. When brash and naive Audrey Wagner (of the enviously wealthy Savannah, Georgia Wagners) shows up with her dry cleaning and baby pink manicured nails, Ivy works an attitude. The girls agree to disagree for some time until mystery throws them together, Teddy tears them asunder, and, like all good teens, they eventually bond over a 'bum' joke.

Will they uncover the identity of the podcaster and the truth about Lola and who sharpie-ed a magpie tattoo on her back? Let's say they give it the old school try. Their path hindered by a tangle of McGuffins and red herrings and the menacing eponymous magpies, this is definitely an old-school style mystery and indulgently 85% dark chocolate gothic. Did Audrey's failure to gift the magpies seal her fate? Are the feathers the key to the Magpie Society? Is the creepy Mrs Abbott involved deeper than her sensible shoes? Is hot Mr Willis seducing half the student population? And what about the furtive gardener? And what's up with Audrey's disturbing backstory? There's a lot to keep you up reading and wondering, and never fear, a sequel is afoot.

I loved the design of the book, its standout black-and-white cover and chapter headings feature the black-winged birds so well-described in the book 'wings with huge, oily black feathers that shimmer purple, green and blue.' Written by both authors, it's easy to hear two distinct voices and they play each other off well. I visited the accompanying social media takeaways and loved them. They really added to the enjoyment of the book as an 'event.' I am certain there will be lots of readers queueing for the copies to be returned so they can join Illumen Hall and its nefarious goings-on. If you liked Sophie McKenzie's All my secrets, One of us is lying by Karen McManus or even The truth about lies by Tracy Darnton, then you will love The Magpie Society.

While the plotting and characters are bang-on and totally lifelike, the writing is at times oddly literary and indulgent. I asked myself if Audrey was really a 30 year-old English graduate? But perhaps this is an element which will be explained later on. There is information at the end about helplines because of issues like suicide, bullying and bereavement that appear within. There is a lot on hold with this book's plot and I for one will be hanging on for the next instalment.

Like the charm of magpies appearing in the book, criticism aside, I was truly charmed by 'One for Sorrow'.

One for Sorrow is the first in a series set in an exclusive boarding school, where secrets are kept and nobody can be sure who to trust.
At Illumen Hall students are used to behaving in a certain way, and making the most of the privileges they are afforded. New girl Audrey is harbouring her own reasons for moving from America to attend the school, but she’s in no hurry to share her secrets. She’s required to share a room with one of the students who seems to be on the inside, Ivy.
The summer before our story starts one of the students is found dead. People suspect there’s more to the story, though the police claim the death of Lola was an accident. Someone is determined to push this, and a podcast is set up aiming to investigate the crime. A clear aura of mistrust springs up, and of course Audrey and Ivy end up teaming up to try and get some answers about what’s going on.
As the investigation continued, elements of the story were a little rushed. Some definite suspicious elements got overlooked because it didn’t suit the narrative the students were wanting to put forward. One or two elements were clearly on the way, and then not developed in any way to show why they’d been set up.
By the end we had some clues, but not a lot of answers as to what happened. Everything hinges on the mysterious Magpie Society...and I’m pretty sure the next book will start to look more at Clover and her significance.
Thanks to NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication.

This was a good start to what could be a brilliant series. The characters were intriguing, but need some more fleshing out in future tales. Hopefully the formatting issues and missing letters will be sorted for the final version! I'm looking forward to the next one.

This was an absolutely fantastic book. I loved it and its unique story and writing too. It gripped me from beginning to end. Highly recommended xx

My first ever wish granted by NetGalley! I was very excited to get the chance to read 'The Magpie Society' ahead of its general release. A thriller and murder mystery set at an elite boarding school? Sign me up!

The premise of this book is certainly intriguing. The setting is the gothic and ominous Illumen Hall, a boarding school with a huge number of secrets hidden within its ancient walls. At the pre-summer party, popular future head girl Lola plunged from the cliffs to her death. On the first day of the following school year, a new podcast is released, teasing the student body that there is much more to this apparent suicide than meets the eye. The anonymous voice plans to expose a web of lies, drawing various characters into a dangerous hunt for the mysterious 'Magpie Society' and a potential murderer in their midst.

The narration switches between new-girl, and American fish out of water, Audrey and her stuck up prodigy roommate Ivy. I wasn't aware until after reading that these different voices were written by the two separate authors. The transitions and consistency are certainly seamless considering and there are some effective moments of cliff-hanger style tension. In typical YA fiction, many topical issues are dealt with (bullying, poverty, murder, suicide..) but with enough subtlety and sensitivity to remain appropriate for a teenage audience.

However, two of my main issues with the book were pacing and the writing. The beginning of the book included a lot of scene setting and character building, arguably more than was strictly necessary. It wasn't until the second half that the revelations kept coming - Lola's story, the mysterious Magpie Society, Audrey's past - piling plot point on top of plot point. I would have appreciated a few clues to be slowly built in across the novel to avoid this sudden rush of exciting information. Additionally, at times, the writing style felt quite simple to me, perhaps a sign of its younger target audience.

Overall, the end of the book was explosive and has intrigued me enough to read any future instalments. I am certain that the YA target audience for this book are going to love it and there will be a Netflix adaptation in its future. An intriguing introduction to the world of Illumen Hall which has captured my interest!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have watched Zoe's YouTube channel for a number of years, and have always been a bit of a fan so when I noticed this on Netgalley I quickly wished for it and thankfully my wish was granted. In all honesty, I would have bought it on it's release date anyway!
I have read Zoe's other books and found them to be okay, but not particularly well written and clearly aimed at a very young audience. This is different. It is aimed at a slightly older audience as some of the content is more mature (bullying, death, suicide themes) and is well written.
I was totally hooked and finished the book within a few days. I liked both the main characters, there were a few brilliant twists and turns and I can't wait for the release of the next book now.
I was really intrigued to find out that Zoe and Amy each wrote alternate chapters (each writing the part of a main character). The book flows so well, I would never have known this just from reading the book.
5 out of 5 stars.

3.5/5 **rounded up**

“Dolores in Spanish means sorrow. One for sorrow.”

NONE OF YOU WARNED ME!

Okay, where to start? I hadn’t realised how this book would pan out. I love a good whodunnit it though so here are my thoughts.

Audrey is the American new girl in a British private boarding school. She’s rich and on the first day meets Ivy, her roommate. Her first meeting with Ivy doesn’t go so well and then she hears about the infamous but dead Lola, who lived in the room she’s currently boarding at and passed away last year.

Audrey is lovable, she’s cute and though spoilt, is making her way through life trying to learn again after a tragic accident which happened in her home town of Georgia. Ivy though, it felt like she was jumping from one personality to the other.

A new podcast is created which sends things spinning in Illumen Hall, a podcast called ‘Who Killed Lola’ with an unknown voice narrating it and Ivy needs to get to the bottom of this on the request of her headmistress.

I actually enjoyed this book overall, the setting of this book makes it perfect for Halloween/Fall. I do have to say though, this is more tween than young adult, I think I would have enjoyed it more at 12/13. The writing was fun, the cultural references to Hamilton and Extinction Rebellion gave me a chuckle.

After the introduction, you meet Clover. CLOVER IS BAE.

I loved Clover, I hope book 2 is from Clover’s perspective. A young black girl who doesn’t take any bs from anyone? YASSSSSSSS.

The storyline? At times predictable, but the ending got so exciting that I needed to know, I was speedreading to get my answers. I had answers to all the questions guys, all of them... Now I must wait for book 2.

The relationships/lack of made this book a bit disjointed. It did feel like high school, jumping from one friendship group to another but I wanted more drama or more of a love interest. I was actually shipping the main two after the boat scene.

A lil sapphic romance doesn’t hurt anyone, ya hear?

On the other hand, the way the Podcasts were written and introduced, added a whole new level to the whodunnit. The mystery was kept alive through the podcast, as a fan of My Favourite Murder, I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect. I looked forward to a chapter which started off with WKL.

The number of guesses I had? The number of plot guesses I rewrote. You need to see my notebook…

A solid effort from both and I expect book 2 to be of a higher standard than this one.

*Thank you to Penguin Random House Children's UK Publishers via NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book!*

Audrey arrives from the USA ready to start the year at Illumen Hall, an expensive English boarding school. Her room mate is Ivy, a lower sixth student who is at the school on a full scholarship. The two girls couldn’t be more different. Ivy is driven by a determination to succeed; Audrey is baffled by her new surroundings and haunted by something that happened at her previous school. When she finds out that the students are still grieving following the tragic death of a former student at the summer party, and that someone at the school is determined to get to the truth, she realises that they’re in for a turbulent term.

This is a grown up Mallory Towers. It has all the intrigue and camaraderie of a good boarding school caper mixed with a modern mystery story. I enjoyed the book and felt it moved at a good pace. The dual narrative worked fairly well but I felt that the characters could be better developed, especially Ivy. For a girl from a poor background, finding herself in this privileged situation through a scholarship scheme, I would have expected her to find fitting in with her wealthy schoolmates more of a challenge than it appeared to be. She is meant to be focused and single minded but that sometimes takes a back seat to the storyline which requires her to behave in a different way.

Having said that, the book was destined for five stars, until it stopped. Just. Like. That. Nothing is resolved. We don’t find out who the Magpie Society are or who killed Lola. I have no objection to books having sequels but the story needs a conclusion. Books that end without a proper ending don’t leave me wanting to read the sequel, they just make me annoyed. It’s a cop out for an author who cannot think of a decent ending and I won’t be reading the sequel in case the authors do it to me again. Disappointed.

OK... I love Zoe Sugg. I've followed her on YouTube since 2014 and i buy pretty much anything she releases. I am an avid book lover and was disappointed with her Girl Online series, but when I heard about this book, i thought yes! Something a bit darker and grown up!

I managed to get early access to the book via @netgalley and to start with, i was disappointed. It took ages to get into the book. I felt there was too much description and not enough dialogue.

About 50% into the book and FINALLY it got good! Great dialogue, great character development, some good twists. I love how the two main characters are written by each author, but somehow its all seamless and the chapters flow!

Overall, i think it is worth reading and those who mock Zoe, just because she is a YouTuber, need to grow up. Both authors did a good job and I hope the second book starts in a better way 😊😊

I read One for Sorrow in a day, I couldn’t put it down. It’s your classic YA murder mystery book, similar in style to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. I found this book really entertaining, and I love how it switched between the perspectives of international student, Audrey, and boarding school roommate, Ivy, so effortlessly. Showing their struggles but also such a strong bond of friendship really helps bring the characters and story to life.

One of the only criticisms I have for this book if the way in which it ends – I felt like it didn’t conclude properly but sets the world up perfectly for what I can only imagine will be an incredibly intriguing series.

Audrey has moved to England from Georgia in the USA to start again and get away from things in her past, things she doesn’t want to think about.
She starts at Illumen Hall, a boarding school in England where she shares a room with Ivy, something that Ivy isn’t too happy about after the promise of having a room to herself this year.
Things don’t start too well Audrey and Ivy don’t get on and Audrey is wishing she’d never come to England, especially when she finds out about the girl who used to sleep in her room, Lola and what happened to her last before the summer.

If I’m honest it took me a while to get into this book. What didn’t help was the fact that as an ARC and not being perfectly edited, all words that contained if or fl in them had those letters missing making it difficult to read it. That being said, I pushed through trying to ignore it and found I actually enjoyed the book.

The book is definitely written for a young adult audience and I think there will be a lot of teenagers out there that will really be pulled into this and future books. It takes you on a journey to try and find out if there’s a magpie society or if it’s just a story that’s been sent down through the generations of Illumen Hall students and teachers. Annoyingly it leaves you on a cliff hanger so now I’ll have to wait to find out what happened.
To round up slow burner but quite enjoyable.

Amy Alward (also known as Amy McCulloch) is an already established author of books such as Jinxed and The Potion Diaries series. Looking in the 'readers also enjoyed' section these look to be more middle grade reads, but I wouldn't pigeon hole (no pun intended) Amy into the MG category. Together, Zoe and Amy have written a solid YA read that would have a place in any bookcase - and I hope, in any Secondary School library.

The book is told in split point of view and the way it's done is really interesting and honestly is something that I as the reader found innovative. It could have been done before, but it's the first time I've come across this way of doing split POV. The chapters are separate, but in parts of the book slide almost seamless into one another, sharing a scene or a sentence. It was a great way to push a reader right into the different narratives, and whilst I found myself confused in chapter 2 when the end sentence of chapter 1 suddenly continued and I couldn't quite figure out who was speaking my brain re-wired to it rapidly and it caused no confusion after that moment.

I'd be truly interested in who wrote which sections, and how much of the writing Zoe Sugg did. Not in a gatekeeping way, purely because if Zoe Sugg herself wrote quite a bit of the book I'm truly excited to see what she does after this series. I'm curious in the same way I found myself wondering how much of Good Omens was written by Terry and how much was Neil. The writing is good - poetic and descriptive and I found myself instantly drawn into the mystery of the podcast, the death of Lola and the mysterious tragedy from Audrey's past.
There were reveals in this book that surprised me, and reveals that...didn't, being completely honest. I like to see what others think after I've finished a book and saw some reviews claiming the entire book was obvious; and would disagree with that. Some of the twists in this book had me both shocked and a little confused. They made sense after, but in the moment I was pleasantly surprised.

That being said though there were revelations that certainly didn't shock me. I think this book was in great need of a. More red herrings and b. More Nancy Drew sleuthing. Sneaking out at night to tiptoe into the library and get into the yearbooks, instead of just doing it in the day. The bits where they worked together to sneak around and figure stuff out were my absolute favourite chapters.


I think some more red herrings would have really amped up the drama though - wrong turns here and there. I can't say which bit I'm thinking of as it will spoil everything but there was a certain bit where I wish evidence had been planted rather than just true. It was too convenient and I rolled my eyes and how something like that could ever accidentally happen.


Audrey and Ivy are a great team, have a wonderful dynamic, and the way the book is constructed with quick chapters had me constantly thinking "oh, just one more then". I really enjoyed it, and look forward to seeing the next one!

This review will be posted to my blog on the 29th September 2020

This book was an easy read which i finished in a couple of hours. I really liked the characters of Ivy and Audrey and the relationship that they had. I was really looking forward to this book but it was just a little too simplistic for me and you could easily guess what was going to happen so i was disappointed that there were no twists that would shock me.

A thrilling first instalment from a new partnership of Zoe Sugg and Amy McCulloch

The Magpie Society is a secret. In fact very few students at Illumen Hall have heard of it but after the mysterious death of Lola, one of the most popular students, Ivy and Audrey start to investigate and suddenly everything starts to point towards this sinister group.

With a podcast at the very heart of this story, the book is reminiscent of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder with a touch of Mallory Towers thrown in.

My students will absolutely love this book and I can’t wait to introduce them to it.

The Magpie Society: One for Sorrow is a young adult mystery novel set at an elite boarding school, when two unlikely friends investigate a student's death. The previous summer at Illumen Hall, one of the students fell to her death during a party, and the police deemed it misadventure. When Audrey starts at the school's sixth form, fresh from the US and a secret in her past, she doesn't want to get drawn into the mystery. She immediately doesn't get along with her new roommate Ivy, who was friends with the victim, but soon they find themselves drawn together into trying to work out what happened, and why someone has created a podcast to expose the killer.

The novel is told from alternating first person point of view, which works well for getting the perspective of both someone new and someone more tied up in the drama, though it isn't used for suspense as much as might be expected considering the genre. The vibe of the book is good, a bit old school Point Horror and a bit dark boarding school, but trying to update these for a more current audience with elements like the podcast. As it's the first in a series, the ending is a bit disappointing, and it perhaps needed to strike a better balance between wanting you to read future books and feeling like a satisfying read in itself. However, it will probably draw plenty of readers into the world of Illumen Hall, and it has a fun, gothic atmosphere.

“I KNOW WHO KILLED LOLA … AND ONE OF YOU IS NEXT”

Audrey is the new girl at Illumen Hall, a prestigious boarding school a world away from her old life and the memories that haunt her. She’s sharing a room with Ivy, who doesn’t seem to want anything to do with her. It isn’t long before Audrey learns that Lola, one of Illumen Hall’s most popular girls, died recently.

The police have closed their case but there may be more to the story than meets the eye. While the students and staff are still coming to terms with their loss, a new podcast raises the question of whether Lola’s death was an accident, suicide, or something more sinister. It turns out that Audrey isn’t the only one at Illumen Hall that’s keeping a secret.

I probably would have been slightly obsessed with this book if I’d read it when I was 13. I’ve always loved stories set in boarding schools and the mystery of the death of a student, combined with a school that has such a rich history and a potential secret society, would have been all I needed. Even as an adult I found this book easy to get into, but I found myself questioning things that wouldn’t have even registered on my radar as a kid.

The podcast transcripts were an interesting way of building the mystery and introducing theories, although none of them had enough content to last more than a couple of minutes. I had a lot of trouble believing a Detective would discuss any details of a case, no matter how briefly, with an anonymous caller.

A time stamp on a photo is believed to be accurate by the people who see it, with no questions raised about its authenticity. Although there’s nothing in this book to indicate that the time stamp had been fudged, it seemed strange that it wasn’t even a consideration. The resolution in this book that related to the person concerned was too easy for me.

I liked the idea of Ivy and Audrey’s points of view being written by different authors but if I didn’t already know this book was written by two people I never would have picked it. Usually I would think that this was a good thing, as the transitions between chapters felt fairly seamless. However, in this instance, I thought there should have been something obvious about the writing styles to differentiate the girls’ voices.

After the initial mystery was introduced the investigation didn’t move quickly enough for me for much of the book. I didn’t feel the urgency of the investigation. Towards the end of the book the pace picked up and I was really starting to look forward to getting some answers, but then the book just ended. Right in the middle of a scene.

There is a planned sequel, ‘Two for Joy’, currently scheduled for release in 2021. I knew ahead of time that this was the first in a series so I suspected I wouldn’t learn the answers to all of my questions here but I don’t feel like I got any of the answers I was seeking. Unfortunately, while I expected to be excited about the answers that will hopefully be revealed in the second book, I’m left frustrated by the lack of resolution.

There’s a website mentioned in the book that I obviously had to look up. The website doesn’t currently exist but perhaps it will by the publication date. Likewise, I tested out an email address but it was undeliverable.

‘I won’t cross the magpies, and the magpies won’t cross me.’

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Children’s UK for granting my wish to read this book. I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.