A cosy murder mystery with the paranormal twist was just what I needed over a wet weekend. Claire, a medium, has been invited to perform at a university friends family home over Halloween. But all is not what it seems and Claire along with Sophie – her murdered best friend and ghostly assistant – decide to investigate. This book has it all–humour , a spooky old house, creepy family members and some great ghosts. I really enjoyed reading this novel and I will be looking out for more from this author. I hope that Claire and Sophie along with their friends Basher and Alex return in future books . Many thanks to NetGalley, and the publisher for the ARC of this novel in return for an honest review.

Claire Hendricks is spending the weekend with an old university friend. Figgy has asked her to provide the 'entertainment' at her grandmother's birthday party as Claire works as a medium so a paid séance is in the offing. Figgy's family home is the sort of place where a selection of ghosts are quite likely but Claire always has one with her - her friend, Sophie, who disappeared when she was seventeen. Sophie can't remember what happened &, as her body was never found, Claire is the only one who knows Sophie is dead.

The party doesn't quite go to plan though & the next morning, the family matriarch is dead, but luckily her ghost hangs around long enough to ask Claire to solve the mystery of the library ghost as she is worried that a family member has committed murder & covered it up. A ghost in the shape of a skeleton, it is tethered to the library until someone solves the mystery of its death & finds the body. Enlisting the help of the only two living people there that could possibly be trusted, Alex & Basher (Sebastian), Claire & Sophie set about solving their first mystery.

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)

TW: sexual references, bad language, alcohol & drug use.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Atlantic Books/Corvus, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

And now for something a little different. 😊

Yes, this is a mystery, but a rather unconventional one.

For starters, most detectives don’t come with a sidekick in the form of a teenage female ghost named Sophie, but Claire does.

What’s more, for most of the book, to quote Basher, one of the characters: “This isn’t a whodunnit, it’s a whodeadit. And a howdeadit. And a whendeadit.”

Before I confuse you completely, a quick recap of the story. Claire’s life has been strange, to put it mildly, ever since her best friend Sophie disappeared when they were both seventeen. Fifteen-odd years later, the rest of the world still considers Sophie a missing person. Claire knows better. Claire knows Sophie is dead because Sophie’s ghost has attached herself to Claire. Claire can see and communicate with Sophie, but the rest of the world can’t which makes life awkward at times. Turning her misfortune into an advantage, Claire has taken up doing seances for a living and when a former college friend invites her to a family gathering to perform her ‘act’, Claire, always in dire need of money, agrees.

The séance should have been the highlight of a weekend celebrating the matriarch of the family’s birthday but gets overshadowed by the death of the woman, followed by the appearance of a clearly very distraught ghost. When the ghost of her hostess asks Claire to look into the desperate ghost and its reasons for being there, Claire can’t make herself refuse. And thus commences a rather unorthodox investigation.

Obviously, none of the other people present actually believe Claire can see and talk to ghosts. Nobody has any idea who the desperate ghost might be, why they might be there, and what caused their demise. Or so they say.

I won’t go into the investigation and how Claire eventually gets to the solution; you’ll have far more fun reading that for yourself. I will say however that this is a solid mystery, with proper clues, and plausible explanations. What’s more, this story also did a good job illustrating how isolating Claire’s supernatural ability is. As a result, this book was as much about Claire finding courage, determination, and ultimately friends, as it was about solving the mystery/mysteries this story contained.

I can’t help wondering if naming one of the characters Tuppence, is a small nod to Agatha Christie and I find myself hoping it is, although, at first glance, this Tuppence is rather meek and therefore the exact opposite of Christie’s creation. Then again, still waters run deep, and Tuppence may yet surprise us.

All in all, this was an original and wonderful story filled with surprises, vivid characters (both alive and dead), and, most importantly, a well-plotted murder mystery. I hope this is a first in series. I wouldn’t mind spending more time with Claire and Sophie (and maybe one or two other characters) while they solve crimes.

I love a so called cosy murder mystery and for me, Grave Expectations didn’t disappoint. Many times I laughed out loud as Claire and best friend Sophie, oh she’s a ghost by the way, attempted to solve the case of an unknown murder at the country pile of The Wellington-Forge family. Having been invited by an old university acquaintance to perform a seance at a family gathering, Claire and Sophie find themselves face to face with an unrecognisable ghost. Something untoward happened here the previous year and they decide to help solve the mystery so the poor ghost can rest in peace. Along with Basher and Alex, members of the Wellington-Forge family, they bumble along hilariously trying to piece together the clues. Ghosts, more ghosts, a purple dildo (!) and an unsolved murder - brilliant!
A great, highly amusing story and I’ll be keeping an eye out for more from Alice Bell in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for a review.

Hilarious cozy, paranormal mystery.
Claire is a freelance medium and has been ‘haunted’ by her best friend Sophie, ever since Sophie was murdered at 17..
Claire and Sophie aren’t your usual amateur sleuths.
When Claire is invited to an old university friend, Figgy’s family country mansion, The Cloisters to perform a seance for her Grandmother’s birthday, things start to happen.
It’s clear the family is hiding something, but Claire and Sophie must race to find the murderer without a body or a motive.
Claire and Sophie’s relationship is at the heart of the novel, they are a medium double act, bouncing off each other, together with Sophie’s sarcastic insults and attitude problem that only a 17 year old trapped in time can make.
Loved the other characters too, Basher, an ex cop, Alex, and angst teenager, the Grandmother and a pervy ghostly gardener.
Altogether gave the quirky vibes of Randall & Hopkirk (deceased) meets Scooby Doo with a bit of the sitcom Ghosts thrown in.
Witty and amusingly written with likeable characters, lots of laugh out moments.
Let’s hope this book is the launch of a series, as I would love to read more of Claire and Sophie’s escapades and hang out with them again.
Thanks @ABeeWords @atlanticbooks & @netgalley for the eARC

I wasn't sure of this book at first due to the way some of the characters communicated ect but the more I read the more I enjoyed it! It really was quite a wild book

It felt very british, it was quirky and it was really funny! It was good to see a different take on a cosy murder mystery. I'd say to give it a chance and you might really love it!

Thanks to netgalley for my ARC!

Funny, quirky and essentially a cracking whodunit, I really enjoyed this book. The premise that the main character's sidekick is a ghost worked so well and was used to real advantage when working out who the murderer was. Witty, a touch bonkers, good pace and a great plot, I recommend for a refreshing take on a murder mystery.

Well, this clearly hit the right side of my ghost tolerance levels. I had a few issues with this but for the most part it’s a fun and funny cozy mystery with an engaging group of side characters and a heroine with issues, who I wish wasn’t quite so messy. Really promising if this is the start to a series.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced copy of this book.

I loved the premise of the story with a mystery being solved with the help of ghosts but I just found the plot a little flat and didn't go anywhere until the end of the book. I found the main character Claire bumbling and incompetent, she just seemed to be making drunken ramblings most of time. The other characters were good though.

This is a good read if you like cosy crime but it wasn't for me

This was a fun murder mystery with a supernatural twist, but it did have a few bits that didn't quite work for me.

I really liked both Claire (our clairvoyant) and Sophie (our ghost), who had a fascinating relationship. They were school friends before Sophie’s murder, and Claire has had to try to grow up and be an adult, whilst Sophie is stuck as her teenage self, and they've ended up in an incredibly co-depenent, complicated friendship.

This is a book packed with humour that enjoys poking fun at people and their foibles (particularly those on the upper end of the class scale). This was mostly a lot of fun, but a couple of the jokes started to wear thin. (For example, there's repeated jokes about millennials vs gen z and while the first few are amusing after awhile I started to cringe at them.)

On that theme, there was quite a bit of second hand cringe/ anxiety in this. (At least for me, but I know I'm particularly suspectible to this, so YMMV.)

The LGBTQA+ rep was a little all over the place, too. There's a non-binary secondary character, Alex, who is treated respectfully, but then there's a weird 'twist' at the very end where Basher, the MMC, is gay to the surprise of Claire, our FMC who may have just started to have feelings for him. (And previously they'd been a confusing thing where they talk about his ex-partner like she was a romantic partner - or that's how I read it - but it turns out to be his former police partner.) Like the whole bit just had weird vibes to me.

Overall, an interesting concept with some fun humour and fascinating characters, but let down by some of the writing choices in my opinion.

Claire Hendricks is a true crime fan, and a fairly successful medium. She does seances with an extra twist, she has an unseen assistant called Sophie. Sophie and Claire have been friends since childhood, Claire is now 30+, Sophie is aged 17, the age she was when she went missing and was murdered.
Claire has been invited to The Cloisters, a grand 200 year old house that used to be a Monastery, but now belongs to an acquaintance. The get together is to celebrate the birthday of Nana, the elderly owner. Sophie can scout around the house and gather up information before the evening’s entertainment, which is to be a seance. Both Claire and Sophie feel they are being watched, they feel fear and nausea, a spirit is abroad, but they don’t know they are dead yet. The next day, Nana is found dead!
Sophie meets Nana the next day, talking to Ted, the long departed gardener. They both believe that a member of the family is responsible for these deaths, but which member of this ghastly family has done the deed?
There is great humour and wit in this book. There were also some very unpleasant family members, it was a surprise that somebody hadn’t bumped them off!! Many laugh out moments, modern likeable characters, very entertaining read. A great plot, wicked atmosphere, and really loved the character of Nana. A lovely device to have Sophie suffering the agonies of being a permanent teenager, and greed certainly does bring out the worst in all families. I really want to know more about the demise of poor Sophie, that alone would make for a marvellous second book! Highly recommend this novel.
My thanks go to Netgalley and the publishers Atlantic books for my advance digital copy, freely given in exchange for my honest review.
I will post to Goodreads and Amazon UK .

I really liked the concept of this book - the partnership between Sophie, the ghostly eighties teenager and Claire, her best friend who she now permanently haunts. As a child of the eighties myself, I loved all the references too - remember those bright velour tracksuits? In fact, I liked all the ghost characters, Alf the bored gardener, and Luke who guarded his graveyard whilst playing football.

I enjoyed working out who was dead, and how it had been concealed, but I got there about half-way through the book, which I felt was a bit of a shame. I'm afraid I wasn't really on board with Claire, who I thought was just a bit too much of a mess to be convincing.

Overall Grave Expectations was a quick, light read which worked really well for bus journeys and waiting in queues - times when I don't really want to have to think too much! It feels as though it might be the first in a series, and I might consider picking up the next.

A millennial take on the country house murder mystery genre. The detective is a thirty something clairvoyant helped by best friend who also happens to be a ghost who died at the age of 17.

While conducting a seance at country house for a family of dislikable aristocrats a murder is discovered. Or is it...? What follows is an enjoyable romp to find out whodunnit, whatdunnit and if anyone actually did anything.

This feels like it is being set up for a sequel and I will be on the look out for the author in future

This was an interesting idea for a 'cosy-ish' crime novel. The strongest element was the relationships between the characters, particularly Claire (crime-solving medium) and Sophie (her best friend, who is a ghost). They team up with Basher, an ex-detective and the teenage Alex, to solve a country house murder. Sophie and Alex are much the most mature characters, and drive the action. I'm not giving any spoilers, but if you like cosy crime with an unusual twist, I would definitely recommend this.

This is a fun and quirky twist on the cosy mystery theme. I really enjoyed reading it. There was a good amount of humour and a murder mystery to solve. This was an engaging and entertaining read.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for my ARC.

Grave Expectations is a ghost-murder-mystery story about thirty-something Claire and her childhood friend Sophie who disappeared at the age of 17 and reappeared as a ghost which only Claire can see.

Claire is invited to the family home of her rich university acquaintance Figgy Wellington-Forge to provide entertainment for her grandmother's birthday party in the form of a séance. However, it all goes wrong and there seem to be some very nasty goings-on at The Cloisters which Claire and Sophie need to investigate.

It was a fun read and I'd definitely read another story by this author.

Grave Expectations is the funny, cozy mystery from Alice Bell with an unusual premise - one of our protagonists is in fact a ghost. Having died as a teenager, Sophie continues to haunt her best friend Claire and the duo have formed a reasonably successful medium double act.
As the novel opens, Claire and Sophie are travelling to the home of an old university friend for Claire to perform as a medium at a family party. Unfortunately there is an unexpected death and our intrepid duo find themselves investigating a year old murder - well, the likelihood of a murder.
Grave Expectations is such a fun twist on the traditional take of the country house murder, with plenty of humorous commentary. I really do hope that there will be a followup adventure - especially with Alex and Basher.

This book had a really good premise but unfortunately it fell a little short. I did like Claire and Sophie whose friendship had survived a lot of unusual tests and the murder was intriguing but seemed to be more of a side plot than the actual story which was a little disappointing. It seemed that the characters got more of a development than the murder itself and overall the story got rather tiresome and I just wanted to get to the end for the reveal.

Oh SUCH FUN!

This was a really quirky and unique take on a cosy murder mystery.

Meet Claire Hendricks, a thirty something medium who's been invited to perform a seance at Cloisters, a large country estate.
Claire's best friend Sophie, who also happens to be a ghost, tags along... Sophie was murdered when they were 17 and now she always stays by Claire's side.

The Seance uncovers a murder and Claire and Sophie must try to solve a secret murder, with an unknown victim, an unknown motive and of course an unknown killer!...

Full to the brim with amusing characters and incidents, this story is a real breath of fresh air.

My only slight criticism is that it drags a bit in the middle and my interest did slightly waver...but not for long, it soon picked up and ended with a bang

This book grew on me the deeper in that I got. At first I thought it was an interesting (but nit unique premise) Claire being a young woman whose best friend, Sophie, disappeared at the age of 17 and then reappeared as a spirit. Thus Claire now encumbered with a spirit begins her life as a medium. Sophie is by far the most interesting and funny character in this book. I'd be quite happy to read another book with this crime fighting duo in it.

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 book does seem to meander about a little bit to begin with but before you're halfway through the action picks up. There are some extremely comic scenes which lift the narrative but not too many as to make the book silly. The characters are interesting and Claire does bumbling detective exceptionally well. She certainly falls over more clues than she means to.

As a debut novel it's very good. I will definitely look out for Alice Bell in the future, whether Claire and Sophie are part of it or not.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.