I really enjoyed this (maybe) murder mystery that had Claire and Sophie trying to solve a crime that no one but they had any proof of occurring (and frankly even their evidence is a bit flimsy) Add to that the fact that Claire ropes in two members of the Wellington-Forge family who would prefer for their family not to me murderers, thanks – one of whom definitely doesn’t believe Claire can talk to ghosts and our protagonists definitely have their work cut out for them!

I developed a real soft spot for both Claire – stumbling through life with 17 year old Sophie as her only real companion (everyone failing to get close to a 30 something year old who speaks to thin air) and Sophie – stuck as a 17 year old with a teenagers emotions but a 30 year olds life (and death) experiences.

The crime element was cleverly put together, a real whodunnit mystery with zigs and zags at various points. I didn’t manage to work it out either.

I really hope we get to join these characters again in future!

Live as a medium not glamour as it say, no glimps of future, no light beyond the tunnel, no angel, only ghost who still around because regret they have like their business not famous, cant buy a thing and still pissed about it after death. The first ghost come to her is Sophie, Claire bestfriend who died in her 17. Since that she start business as a medium with help from her nosy bestfriend, who can eavesdropping easily. Claire Invited to an old university friend's country pile to provide entertainment as a medium for a family party, in that mansion murder happend. Claire never seen ghost like that, skeleton with running flesh, empty eye and lost in pain and silent screaming. Basher and Alex help her, what a shame is Claire didnt use her power to solve this case, it is more easy if she ask the ghost around first, one ghost already give her clue, rockie mistake then.

Thank you to NetGalley for provide this book, it is pleasure to review this book.

#GraveExpectations #AliceBell #AtlanticBooks #Corvus #NetGalley #ARC

Grave Expectations was a brilliant cosy, whodunnit murder mystery read. Claire is a medium and upon bumping into an old uni friend ends up being invited to one of their parties in their family’s grand old house. Claire is accompanied to the party by her friend Sophie, although the twist to this is that Sophie has been dead since she was 17 and is now permanently haunting Claire. After a night at the house, they wake up to find one of the family members has died, however they have unfinished business to do and need Claire’s help to solve the crime. I found this to be a really fun read, all the characters played an integral part in sorting out the crime at hand. I especially enjoyed the friendship between Claire and Sophie. I felt like it was quite different to other murder mysteries I’ve read mainly down to the medium perspective. The humour was fabulous and all in all a very entertaining read.

An entertaining story with lots of twists, Sophie is a great addition to the story and makes you think through the text in more detail.

Grave Expectations
by Alice Bell

I loved this book! It was funny and it was tender and it had a really good mystery at its heart.

Claire Hendricks is a medium and she has a spirit guide called Sophie.. who happens to be Claires childhood best friend who went missing when they were teenagers..

Claire gets the job of being the entertainment at a party at Cloisters.. she has a vague connection with the family after going to university with the daughter.. the night before the party Claire is entertaining a few of the family when Nana (who the party is being held for) dies, Nana tells Claire that she passed naturally of old age but there is a spirt in the house who is lost and does not know that they have been murdered in the house and asks Claire to help track down the murderer and find out who the spirt belongs to….

I loved Claire, she is just trying to make the best of her gift, there has been an incident in the past where she has used her gifts and it ended badly for her, so Claire is a little battered and bruised metaphorically but still plodding on.. I really want good things to happen to Claire.

Investigating with Claire and Sophie are Basher and his nephew Alex, they are directly related to Nana and are good side kicks for Claire and bring her out of her shell.. I wanted a love story between Claire and Basher but that does not work out well..

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.

#GraveExpectations #NetGalley #Humour #Murder #Mystery

Probably one of the strangest books I’ve read in a while. It’s a modern ghost story. Claire has a ‘job’ as a seer of ghosts gif house parties. She is accompanied by Sophie who died a while back but was a friend of Claire’s they attend a house party where the Nan dies but then another ghost arrives in a dreadful state of Repair. And they try and find out who it is and how it died. I found the use of the ‘they’ pronoun for Alex s bit disconcerting. But overall I quite enjoyed it.

When I started this book I wasn’t convinced but my mind was soon changed.

The characters were fantastic and well rounded and the plot kept a solid pace throughout.
It’s been a long time since a book made me LOL (check out the book) but I can honestly say it really made me laugh.
Some fantastic plot twists, it was genuinely heartwarming.

I can’t wait to see what this au5or does next.

A wonderful debut. A quirky cosy crime featuring 30-year medium Claire and her childhood friend Sophie. And childhood should be taken literally as unfortunately Sophie died as a teen. Her family haven’t heard from her and assume she’s fine but Claire sadly knows the she was murdered and has been seeing her friend and other spirits ever since. The pair make a great duo with their differences and Sophie’s engaging character brings a lot of humour throughout. A clever, unique and funny spin on the genre.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Likeable protagonists in Claire and her the ghost of her dead friend Sophie, slapstick elements, love interest, humour, poignant momenrs. Would be a great choice for a holiday read.

A weird and wonderful cosy crime. I absolutely adored Alice's unique voice - it was so light touch yet utterly gripping. A brilliant take on the murder in the country house trope!

Knives Out meets Ghosts! I really enjoyed this quirky, laugh out loud mystery. In places I do think the mystery element needed tightening up but I found the last few chapters really exciting and it stuck the landing. It had a wry, slightly frenetic tone that reminded me of Jodi Taylor, and a cast of truly loveable characters. I do hope it is the start of the series as I’d love to find out what happened to Sophie, and I’d also like to see some nice things happen for Claire (sometimes the misery of her situation was a bit overwhelming!) If you’re looking for a fun, cosy mystery with a twist this will hit the spot.

This is a refreshingly different and zany contemporary take on the country-house murder mystery, and also a ghost story. The plot moves along quickly, with a socially inclusive set of characters involving several unconventional individuals, ghosts, and also stereotypical huntin', shootin' and fishin' City types. It is unlike anything I have read before, and had me laughing out loud in several places.

Claire is a thirty-year old medium, haunted by the ghost of her seventeen year old friend Sophie. Ever since Sophie materialised at her own vigil, Claire has been able to see and speak to ghosts, something that has alienated friends and family and cost a fortune in therapy. Now she scratches a very poor living from seances, although she has learned that people don't actually want to speak to their departed relatives (who often rabbit on about their football team or other mundane matters), they just want a bit of reassurance. So Sophie and Claire do a bit of snooping (Google and Facebook in Claire's case, actual snooping in Sophie's case) and come up with something plausible.

Now Claire has been invited by Tiggy Wellington-Forge, an old university acquaintance, to hold a séance at her grandmother's country house (called The Cloisters) for her grandmother's birthday, which falls close to Halloween. There's the usual motley crew of relatives, squabbling siblings, estranged couples, sinister undertones etc. But then the grandmother dies in the night. Surprisingly, she died of natural causes, but she has discovered another ghost who appears to have only died fairly recently and suspects that one of her family may have committed murder - the likely date being her birthday the previous year when her grandchildren brought a number of friends and colleagues to the party.

Accompanied by Basher Wellington-Forge, a former police detective and Tiggy's younger brother, and his nephew Alex, Claire and Sophie try to discover who died and whodunnit.

I'm not usually a fan of ghost stories but I have to say I loved this. It was funny, kept me guessing, and I really liked all the characters. If you like the sound of a modern twist on the country house murder then this could be right up your street.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

From the very first chapter, this book pulled me in. I didn't even realise who Sophie was until Claire outright stated it, and to me, that was clever writing. There was no indication of her role in everything until that moment, due to the way that it was written.

I really enjoyed the interactions between Sophie and Claire, Sophie being the far more worldly wise (despite her situation) and Claire being the one who wanted to avoid things. Although she is incredibly talented, there are clearly things that Claire isn't good at, reading signals being one of them. Admittedly, the signs from Basher were ones I also missed - so perhaps I am as oblivious as Claire!

Alex was a pure delight. Confident, self-assured and a character that brought something additional to the group - bright, breezy, casual and just this side of Gen-Z "I am immortal" that the group needed.

The resolution to the mystery was a wonderful surprise, especially the revelation of the purpose of the button - I was so sure I knew what was coming, until the moment before all was put together.

I would love to read more of Alex, Claire, Sophie and Basher.

Claire is a medium whose only friend is the ghost of her dead friend Sophie, she is invited to a country house to conduct a seance as part of the entertainment for a birthday party, while there she sees a ghost in the library, who is this ghost and did they die of natural causes or did someone in the family kill them, with the help of two family members, Alex and Basher, Claire sets out to find out.
The characters of Claire, Sophie, Alex and Basher are well written but the rest of the family are stereotypes and the story of the ghost is predictable, which is why I have given it three stars instead of four. I would like to read more about Claire, Sophie, Alex and Basher

Claire is unusual - not only can she see dead people, she has one follow her around - her friend Sophie, who died aged 17. Claire is invited to a former university friend's house in the country to do a 'turn' for grandma's birthday party. However, she sees a spirit who cannot remember who they are, but they were murdered at the house and Claire, helped by Alex and Basher, not to mention Sophie, sets out to find who the spirit is and give them peace.

The result is a fun and modern romp, which I enjoyed very much. The only thing that irritated was that the author chose to make 'Alex' androgynous, so we don't know if s/he is male or female. Continually referring to him/her as 'they' and 'their' was confusing and totally unnecesssary. It all went on far too long to be interesting.

Apart from that, its a great light read and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of Claire and Sophie. It was great that it was set in England, too. Thank you to NetGalley and Atlantic Books for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m really not sure what I thought of this book. At times it was confusing and manic, but overall I enjoyed this quirky book. Claire and Sophie made a great double act/ detective duo, getting into some dangerous scrapes along the way, meeting any number of ghosts and unearthing clues in the most unexpected places. Nothing like any book I’ve read before!

The synopsis made think this book was to be a melding of Richard Osman and Ben Aaronvich and to be honest it was not far a wrong assumption but with the authors own unique style , humour and angsts added into this mix, I am not going to be a bore and recant the tale like all reviewers seem to feel is mandatory (it’s not, it’s boring) suffice to say in a cold, dark and wet january this book brought laughter and light into my world, so thank you very much to Alice Bell for writing it and to Netgalley for letting me read it early, I will be buying this on audible so please get a good narrator 😉

Thank you so much to NetGallery and Atlantic Books for providing me with an eARC for an honest review.

I have to say, this book was a lot of fun. At the beginning I was not 100% sure, but very quickly got invested in the quirky characters and storyline. I especially enjoyed Claire and Sophie's relationship (very reminiscent of mine and my sister's relationship - minus the ghosts!), and the ghostly twist!

If you're looking for a fun new take on the classic country house/dinner party murder trope, this is for you! I hope to read more from Alice Bell!

My thanks to Netgalley and Alice Bell for the opportunity to read this ARC. My (positive) opinions are my own.
Sometimes, when the weather is so awful that life seems like a constant battle of drying clothes and trying not to get ill, and January, despite having gone on for WEEKS now, is still only half over, you need something fun, light and engaging to snuggle up with. Grave Expectations certainly hit the spot this weekend.
It might not be great literature, but the characters were a lot of fun, the storyline was entertaining and an interesting take on the "country house" murder, and the gibes were pointed but not too harsh. Most interestingly, our investigator is helped by her teenage best friend (murdered, now a ghost), which is not as much wonderful as one might think; the author quite skillfully negotiates the dark area here - and possibly also leaves room for a sequel. The blurbs which liken it to the TV series "Ghosts" is true (not so much of the Janice Hallett though). The mystery itself is perhaps not the most challenging but, again, the protagonist's slightly inept, but far more realistic way of solving the puzzle is a boon to all those would-be Poirots out there.
I know plenty of library patrons who're going to love this, and I'm recommending it to our Head of Acquisitions today!