This novel is an unusual mash up of the cosy crime mystery and the paranormal. Clare has been ‘haunted’ by her best friend Sophie ever since the latter was murdered in mysterious circumstances at the age of seventeen. They are now a literally inseparable pair as Sophie has to go wherever Clare goes. Their relationship is brilliantly written as thirty something Clare bickers with the eternal teenager.
Clare can see and talk to other ghosts and when, in her role as a professional medium, she is called to be the entertainment at a house party given by an old school friend she and Sophie find themselves drawn in to a real-life murder mystery with a difference. No one seems to know who was killed, when or why. They feel compelled to investigate as the ghost of the victim is in a sorry way and needs to be laid to rest properly. Add to this a truly dysfunctional family with some of the most entertaining ‘love to hate them’ characters I have read and you have a real page turner.
The exploits of Clare and Sophie as they try to solve this mystery form the backbone of the story but the characters and the dialogue are as much fun as the plot. It is all too easy to picture the action and alternately empathise with Clare and despair of her as she bumbles about trying to solve ‘the case’.
I loved it and I hope that Alice Bell will come back with more tales about Clare and Sophie, perhaps even squirrelling out more about the circumstances surrounding Sophie’s disappearance and murder.
Thanks to Atlantic Books for a review copy.

This was a fun read and something a little different to the usual murder/mystery and whilst there are times when I found it a little immature - surprising really as the main character is in her 30's - overall, I quite enjoyed it.

The main characters of Claire, Sophie, Basher and Alex are an excellent eclectic group of people (and a ghost!) and I found their friendship was really well developed and felt authentic; the other characters ... not so much; they were a little stereotypical which was unfortunate. The mystery element was intriguing but the pace was a little slow.

Overall, a pretty good read although it may appeal to a more younger audience than me, i.e., under 30's!

Thanks to Atlantic Books, Corvus and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of Grave Expectations.

This book feels as though it’s taken the best bits of so many different thriller and cosy mystery books and put them all together in one wonderfully enjoyable read! I couldn’t have loved this more and would urge any mystery reader to settle down for the weekend with this, as you won’t want to put it down!
-
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for my early copy!!

I read a lot of crime fiction and the genre can be quite samey (police procedurals, cozy mysteries, old people sleuthing, country house murders). I was desperate to read Grave Expectations because its such an original concept for the crime fiction genre. I'm happy to say I wasnt disappointed! It's filled with wit and humour and a brilliant murder mystery at the centre of it. Sophie and Claire are one of the best crime solving duos around (even if one of them is a ghost!) I'd recommend this to anyone who likes witty, original murder mysteries - you can't go wrong! Thanks to Alice Bell, Corvus and Netgalley for the ARC.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. This was a quirky read and I actually really enjoyed it. Great storyline and characters.

Claire and Sophie are the team in this frothy, fun and frolicks murder mystery. Ne’er mind that Claire is mostly incompetent and Sophie is, well… dead.

I loved the premise of Grave Expectations, the execution not so much. Having said that I don’t think I am the target audience, this lands closer to YA and would probably do great in that arena, think it might just need a tweak to its Marketing.

For me it didn’t hit the mark, I found the humour of an incompetent young woman falling over herself (often quite literally) tired, frustrating and not very funny. Come on ladies, we are awesome, let’s own our stuff - there has to be other ways of injecting humour into a story.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review- sorry it wasn’t for me this time around.

I didn't quite know what to expect with this…a thirty-year-old medium, Claire, and her seventeen-year-old ghostly companion, Sophie, trying to solve a (maybe murder) mystery.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. The dialogue between Claire and Sophie is wonderful, and there are some laugh-out-loud moments. It's entertaining and, quite simply, jolly good fun. It reminded me a bit of the TV comedy, Ghosts. In fact, I can quite easily see this on TV.

The only thing that irked me a little was the gender neutrality of one of characters. 'They' was thoroughly confusing; I really thought it referred to more than one person every time. And the gender of the character (which was obvious in any case) was mentioned in one slip-up. But, it was to the characters in the book to whom 'they' wanted to be gender neutral. I didn't think it was necessary for the reader (yes, yes, I know it's all very woke).

But…I loved the book, the story, and the premise. It's delightful, great fun, amusing and well-written.

More please, Ms Bell!

Grave Expectations! The title is a pun so I am immediately won over, I’m super easy like that but Grave Expectations was also lots of fun. Claire is a lonely 30 something making ends meet being a medium which she doesn’t really enjoy because it’s all too real but needs must and when you can see ghosts being normal isn’t such an easy option. She’s invited to a house party as entertainment by an old acquaintance and discovers that someone was recently murdered and so Claire and her band of merry sceptics plus the ghost of her 17 year old bestie set out to scooby doo that shit. This was a fun, quirky murder mystery I like how everyone is a bit sad, lonely and dysfunctional. Claire really gets put through the wringer and I appreciate the difficulty of writing a main character who is invisible to the rest of the characters, tricky.

As a 64-year old, after reading a few pages of Alice Bell’s Grave Expectations, I suspected I was not in the target demographic for the book. The main characters are the ghost of a 17-year old girl and her best (still live) friend (now aged about 33), who speak in the patois of modern teenagers. I had to look up the meaning of “ttyl” and “ft.”. There is also a character called Alex, whose pronoun throughout is they/them. However, I did relate to “This was not just a mum. This was an M&S mum.” – and I sniggered, as I did when I read the crack about why people older than teenagers really use Facebook.

Between the publisher’s blurb and other reviewers’ comments, you’ll have seen the plot summary, so I won’t waste your time repeating it. I’ll just tell you what I think…

I thought the book was excellent. The pages are liberally coated with swearwords, but that’s probably in keeping with how teenagers talk to each other these days. At first, I wondered whether the author’s desire to write dialogue like that stemmed from a desire to be modern and relevant to Millennials and Generation Z. However, having read the whole book, I have much greater respect for the author than that. She captures the zest of two teenagers bickering - remember, although Claire is 33, her best friend will always be 17 and thus Claire is also likely to forever have a teenage outlook, as we see in the book.

So, was I really excluded from the target demographic? No, absolutely not. I wouldn’t recommend it to my late mum, but if a reader can tolerate lots of swearing, then I would recommend it to them. Although Claire gets drunk and hungover more than once, don’t confuse her subsequent fuzziness with fuzzy writing by the author. The plot is progressed very skilfully indeed; clues are slipped in here and there; throwaway comments matter, if the reader is paying attention; characters are developed beautifully; and we want to know what happens. Bell’s writing is pin-sharp under that blanket of teenager argot. Although I’d partially guessed what had happened and who it happened to, I did not foresee the nature of the denouement. I was very impressed by the cathartic climax; the satisfyingly feelgood resolution and the twist in the last-but-one page that I had wondered about but still found very funny.

I shall definitely look out for the author’s next book.

#GraveExpectations #NetGalley

I absolutely loved this funny and interesting take on a detective duo. Great plot and fabulous characters, especially Alex, who lights up the page with every appearance. I so hope this is going to be a series. It’s actually laugh out loud funny at some points too.

How exciting to find a modern murder mystery with a paranormal twist and interesting main characters!

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.

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.

I am already desperate for a sequel and let out an audible groan when I realised that this book will be releasing on 4th May, so I will have to wait a little while to get more investigative shenanigans from this quirkily endearing little Mystery Inc-style found family.

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

Unfortunately this was not one for me I actually thought I was reading a young adult novel.

I just couldn't engage with the premise or characters and found it very slow.

A unique storyline and as a fan of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) a book that was right up my street!
Following the death of her uni friend Figgy‘s Nana after a seance she conducted, the night before. Claire and Sophie, her deceased 17 year old best friend and spirit guide are tasked with investigating who is responsible for the death of the now traumatised ghost haunting the library; a ghost presumed murdered by a member of the family.
With no clues at all to go on, apart from a date; Claire, Sophie enlist the help of Figgy’s family members Alex and Basher and together they race to find the body of the deceased and identify their murderer.
A delightful easy read, one that deserves to be on the big screen! 📚🎬👻

Claire is a medium and is on her way to the home of the parents of an old university friend. to do a seance.
It is the entertainment for a party to celebrate the birthday of Nana.
She is roped into doing a session the night before the party and the next morning Nana is dead.
Claire can see ghosts and see's Nana's ghost who asks her to look into why there is a ghost in the library. With the help of Sophie, her own resident ghost, they realise that the ghost died about a year ago, probably at the family gathering for Nana's birthday then.
It's not easy looking into something where the people in the house may be the murderers and her investigations lead her to all sorts of trouble.
A nice read which I enjoyed.

When I read the synopsis of this book I thought this sounds really interesting but also thinking this sounds like my kind of book, turns out I was right on both counts, I had been in a bit of a reading slump for awhile but from the moment that Grave Expectations landed on my shelf I was hooked.
I love a good muder mystery throw in some supernatural elements and I'm there this book had it all I immediately liked our main character Claire she was very real and recognizable personality one I feel many readers will connect with, a murder mystery wrapped with a ghost hunt and a spiritual advisor in the form of Sophie Claires deceased 17 year old best friend this story has many humorous and relatable moments throughout especially when Claire is forced to help the host prepare dinner, it's a big country estate with more secrets than blades of grass, I honestly can't say enough good things about this book I loved it I loved the pace, characters and plot of this book, I will be picking it up and reading it again in the not to distant future.

Claire Hendricks can see and speak to ghosts. Aided by the ghost of her childhood best friend, Sophie, who went missing at age 17 and has been tied to Claire ever since, she works as a medium, conducting seances and passing messages from the dead on to the living. Hired by a rich family for their Nana’s birthday party, Claire and Sophie find themselves drawn into the mystery of an unquiet spirit who, they believe, was murdered by a member of the family. Teaming up with the least unbearable members of the family, Claire and Sophie determine to discover who was killed, why, and by whom.

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.

I really liked all the characters, especially Claire, Sophie and Alex. They all felt completely realistic even with their various eccentricities and there were some parts that made me genuinely laugh out loud. Although the story is primarily a mystery, it is very character driven and we spend a lot of time with the characters as their relationships develop. This slowed the pace down a bit, but also added an extra dimension and helped me to be more invested in the outcome.

I also thought the plot was very good. The fact that they don’t actually know who has been murdered makes solving the mystery much more difficult, and there are red-herrings and distractions galore. I really loved it.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is a decent whodunnit with a difference; as, the person helping the lead protagonist, Claire, is her friend, Sophie, a ghost.

It’s well written and I was initially really gripped. Unfortunately, it slowed right down after the first few chapters, when the storyline focuses less on the murder and more on all of the characters and their relationships. But, overall, it’s a unique storyline that definitely held my interest.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Atlantic Books, Corvus for the opportunity to preview.

This was a cute, quirky spin on the classic country house murder story, this time featuring a flailing psychic and her teenaged ghost bestie to solve a who was murdered, when & why. Being in my 50s, I definitely wasn't the the target audience for this, although I did enjoy it.

Ghost stories are generally not my cup of tea. Described as adult humour containing a murder mystery with a depressive ex-cop named Basher, this sounded different and promising. After reading too many who-done-its, I hoped Grave Expectations would suit my twisted sense of humour. The book started well but soon slowed down and by the time I had sorted everyone out (living and ghosts), I began to lose interest, especially as many characters were thoroughly unpleasant.

My constant problem was the 'teenage reactionary, gender neutral, Alex'. Whenever Alex was described as 'they/them/their', I kept thinking someone else had arrived in the scene, causing my confusion and ruining the flow of the plot.

Maybe this will appeal to other readers, but not to me, I gave up at 40%.

DNF

Thank you the author, Atlantic Books and NetGalley for the ARC, this review is my personal, unbiased opinion.

This was just the book I needed to perk me up after a nasty bout of covid !
This must be a great start to a great series and I really need the next book now. It is such a long time since I read a book that had me so griped but laughing out loud too. I loved it.