 um basically on board you've been very very harsh nice that doesn't happen with this shit and this book is making me feel alive i'm so excited for this video this isn't a very good um start to a vlog it's a mess not very profesh but i am so excited for this vlog we're reading murder mysteries for a week just bathe in that for a second with me just bathe in it murder mysteries are my favorite genre i love a classic murder mystery oh you just you just can't you just can't top them i just love them so we're gonna be reading them for a week i'm so excited this requires no introductions this is what i've been waiting for spooky season icky kooky season we're here first we have got dead dead girls by nakiza afia i'm gonna start with this one it's set in 1920s harlem black women are going missing and our protagonist decides to investigate it i am just so excited this has been one of my most anticipated releases of this year to get to and i'm so excited that i'm finally going to read it another one of my most anticipated releases of 2021 is marion lane and the midnight murder by ta wilberg i bought this as a reward for finishing a piece of uni work back when i was still at uni and suffering it's set in 1950s london i think yeah 1950s london and there's this like company of detectives that our protagonist is a part of and there's this labyrinth of underground tunnels in london that they used to do their work and i think it's also a locked room murder mystery this one in particular like the case that she's covering and then there's a murder mystery i really want to read like i really want to read it in this video but the problem is if you watch recently i did a video shaving myself or the series i'm currently reading these are two new series neither of the second books in this series are out yet but this these are both going to be a series or a detective series the other book i really want to read is another series it's a sort of another series but i think i'm just gonna let myself do it because i've wanted to read this for so long you naughty naughty you teasing me you naughty naughty and it is the thursday murder club by richard osmond this is like one of the most successful books in the uk of the past couple years like it has topped the charts on everything topped the charts on hardback then it came out and painted back and it's been top of the chart of that for like 22 weeks or something ridiculous you're that girl i knew you were so i am so excited to read this this is set in like a quaint english village we have four friends who are older characters they are retired which i think is really fun because often you know books we read a young character so i'm excited to read like about older characters and this has just been so widely acclaimed that i'm excited to see if richard osmond's stuff is for me because he's a very famous tv presenter in the uk and i'm gonna go start dead dead girls i'm actually about to go out to epink forest it's tom's birthday my boyfriend's birthday i'm the next couple days we're doing some stuff for his birthday and we're gonna go for this lovely walk in epink forest now so i'm gonna go to that and i'm gonna go start dead dead girls in the car and i i don't want to expect but i am very excited hey vistes i need i need to go wash my hair but i um i've already read quite a lot of the book and i want to go read the book in the bath so we have to chat we have to speak i am halfway through dead dead girls i'm on page 147 and you guys i am loving this i cannot tell you how easy reading murder mysteries comes to me it's just my natural state now like i don't think i'll ever struggle to read a murder mystery you know sometimes with the fantasy i'm reading or romance or anything i'm like oh i see people have a struggle to read like oh that doesn't happen with this shit sorry i just kissed my cat and now i just have got fur all over my face like i can feel it all over me anyway so in this basically we're following louise in 1926 Harlem and these young black girls are being murdered they all kind of work at the same club and she through these circumstances basically has to team up with the police to kind of help them with their investigation it's kind of just a simple historical mystery i wouldn't say it's like out here the sun just said no i wouldn't say it's out here like you know groundbreaking but i don't want mysteries to do that i've said it a million times i want simple mysteries i am really loving the writing the fact this is the debut i am shocked like it is an amazing debut in terms of the writing it just keeps me reading it's so compulsively readable it's so easy to read i think that it is so vividly set in 1920s new york i think like the the setting is so deep and there's so many little quirks to what the characters do or how they speak or how they act that really put you in that time period so i'm loving that aspect of it louise is a very um interesting heroine because she's kind of got a past that she doesn't want to be recognized for anymore she we found out right at the beginning that she got kidnapped and saved her and three other girls lives by like killing the man essentially he would kidnap them so she's kind of got a lot of interesting elements to her that i think are being well developed alongside the mystery that is my favorite kind of murder mystery like look at a good girl's guide to murder where she has a storyline throughout the series as well as the mysteries the one thing i would say is this ain't a cozy mystery i've said that before you kind of look at the cover and you think ah cozy mystery vibes and there's elements of it that remind me of cozy mysteries and kind of the simpleness of it and the vibes but we are dealing with a lot of heavy topics and i feel like we've only just there's hair there's fur in my eye i feel like we're only beginning to scratch the surface on those heavy topics and it's just going to get even more so we've already got trigger warnings for like rape and sexual assault just in this first half and i feel like it's going to become a lot more but on the whole i'm really really loving it it's such an enjoyable interesting reading experience and this isn't letting me down this is one of my most anticipated like new releases of this year i've been so excited to get to this it's kind of been one of the books i've been most excited to own and now to read and it's really not disappointing this is going to be a four or five star i think you know it's going to be one of those two i finished the dead girls last night i read pretty much all of this in a day if i'm honest this is such a quick easy enjoyable read so if you're looking for like a quick mystery that is really immersive you'll be really kind of on the edge of your seat this is what i recommend i'm gonna give it four stars i love the experience of reading it i had a lot of fun it's just like a fun simple kind of mystery with a lot of really great characters a really great hero hero hero hero hero hero hero i'm getting older i don't know if i can if i want all this drama all the time if i'm being honest the problem at the end for me was the pacing is off at the end the ending is kind of drawn out kind of drawn out kind of drawn out not much happening everything happens in two pages right at the like right right right at the end and so hang on we're looking we're cutting off half my head the actual ending only happens in two pages i feel like there could have been a lot better of an ending. But it's a debut and I think it's a great debut. I really really loved it. I think our main character is so interesting. I'm so excited for this to become a series. The next one is coming out I think in summer time next year. I'll put the thumbnail here. Thumbnail? I'll put the cover here. I didn't could predict who the murderer was. I thought it was someone else entirely or I thought the person who it ended up being was working with this other character who I thought it really was this other character but I was wrong. It wasn't them. They were trustworthy. It's talking about real issues of how young black women were viewed in this time. The attitudes towards them and how difficult it was to be a young black woman in this time all interwoven in this mystery was absolutely wonderful. I thought the writing was amazing. I really really enjoyed it. I think it's a great solid mystery and I just love reading mysteries. I love reading murder mysteries. I cannot tell you how happy I am to be reading a murder mystery. I just love it. It just comes innately to me. It reduces stress. It alleviates depression. I was going to read Marion Lane in The Midnight Murder again but I realized they're quite similar in the fact that they're only set like 30 years apart. It's a young woman detective solving a murder so I thought they'd be quite similar. So I'm actually going to read The Thursday Murder Club next which I'm excited for. I mean this is like one of the most successful books in the UK. I'm not sure if its success has quite translated to like America and Canada and overseas but in the UK this is like one of the top selling books. So I'm very excited to go and give it a read. These four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders and then a brutal killing takes place on their doorstep. It sounds so interesting. It's been so positively received. I am very very excited. We are just going to pop out today to Lakeside which is like a shopping centre place near me. I need to get some new furniture and stuff in my room and we're going to go get some clothes. It's going to be loads of fun. So I'll take you with me and I'm going to read this in the car on the way there. Besties! This book is so good. Could we talk about the steak? The steak is the only thing I filmed yesterday. Nothing else is important but oh my god. I have been waiting for a Miller and Carter steak for a long time and let me tell you that moment I want to relive it. Like I keep thinking about it. I'm like I did not appreciate that steak enough. Sorry this is incredible. But anyway I'm 100 pages into the Thursday Murder Club and I'm loving it. I'm loving it. It's so good. So I think I explained already. We're basically following four friends who have this murder club at their retirement village where they investigate cold cases but then a murder happens on their doorstep kind of within the community of the retirement village. They're just starting to kind of investigate it. We've got some super interesting characters and most of all I love the way it's written. It's written in this very comedic tone of voice. You know it's funny. It's a funny book but it's very British humour and that's why I don't think, I mean I don't know the stats. It may have done very well in America but just from my feelings like I haven't really heard anyone from America speak about it but it has the UK in a chokehold. Like I'm pretty sure now every household in the UK must own a copy of this book for how much it's been on the best seller charts. The way our characters act is very like you know making fun out whilst also paying how much to like the way kind of older people like our grandparents act in the UK and it's just very British humour so I feel like perhaps that's why it hasn't translated to the US as well. Again this is just my my you know instinct. I don't know the statistics on how well it's done over there or internationally but it doesn't matter how it does internationally because it has the UK in a chokehold. Richard Osmond has said his fucking mystery bitches. I'm finding you quite aggressive now actually to be honest. I feel like it's a masterclass in character storytelling so far. The way we're kind of getting to know our four main characters and their friendship and their kind of relationships particularly Elizabeth and Joyce. The women rule. They're fucking icons. They're fucking legends. I love them. I'm really enjoying this book. Oh my god. The way it's just told I love funny comedic books. I've always said when I write a book it's coming ladies and gentlemen. It's coming in about 20 years. Delusion. Convince yourself. I'd want it to have this kind of like overseeing dramatic comedic narrator and that's kind of what this is. It's kind of what this has. It's got a very funny narrator to it like a general overseeing kind of narrator. There's definitely a lot of humor there and that's what I love to read. I just I just am very happy. So it's currently I think about half five maybe and I'm gonna try and finish this tonight. I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I'm quite tired. I'm quite sleepy but I want to try and read the whole thing tonight. So I've got about 270 pages left so I'm gonna read the 135 to page 235 and then I'm gonna check in with you is my goal and then I can take all my makeup off and like be like a slob but I want to read another 135 pages and then we'll try again but I am very much enjoying this so far. He has a painting of himself above the fireplace carrying a sword. Okay here's I it's getting weird. I want to be talking to you. Fuck off. I don't want to be here. I want to be downstairs reading my book. I want to be honestly reading my book. You guys it's gonna be five stars. I'm predicting it now. It's gonna be maybe maybe if whoa if we pull it off. Maybe one of if not the favorite book of the year. No that's listen. Favorite book of the year I feel like takes a bit of time to simmer out and adjust. You can't say after I'm not gonna even I'm not gonna make that decoration in this video. You can't say even in like the five days after you've finished a book if it's your favorite book of the year. It requires a bit of thought and a bit of evaluation but needless to say I'm loving it. I actually when was the last time I took a breath in that? Whoa okay. The mystery is amazing plot twist turns. I love our group. I love their investigation. I love how sneaky and cheeky and fun they are. It's look at age and mortality and yeah your perception of self as you age. Age I it's so interesting. We never books always about young people like pretty much books are about young people and I really appreciate this being about elderly people living in a retirement village having fun and like solving a mystery being what gets them alive. I just literally fuck off I don't want to talk to you. Don't be fucking rude. Are you kidding me? We just had a little plot twist. Just a little spicy one not a major one but a little like that really shocked me that I really wasn't expecting. I feel like I'm talking like that woman on. I don't even have TikTok but I do but I don't use it. But the one on TikTok who's like losing my mind. The one whose feet have voiced up and she would be like parents or teachers. So today. This book is just so good. Why don't I read more matter mysteries? Why do I not just read mysteries? Why tell you why? It's because not a lot come out. Like why is mystery a dead genre in many ways? Why are so many mysteries categorized as thrillers? Tell me. It's not fair. I don't get it. Tell me. This book is making me feel alive. And I feel like I save my mysteries. Like I have some mysteries as we've been talking about. I have the appeal. I have firekeeper's daughter. I have the dinner guest. I have in the hall with the knife. I have a lot of mysteries on my TBR but there's no loads of them. So I save them and I sprinkle them in because like if I read them all now then I wouldn't have any mysteries to read for a while or that I was interested in. I was saying this the other day on Twitter. If there's actually I was saying it today on Twitter. If there's ever any new release mysteries. Mysteries. Mysteries coming out. Let me know. Just let me know. Never let me go not knowing about a new release mystery. That's so hard. I feel like maybe they're not but they're so hard to find. And then there's some books. Some books are thrillers. There's some books that are mysteries and there's some that are like halfway in between which I do like but I love a good mystery. I love a good mystery. I'm gonna go finish it and I'll probably talk to you in the morning because it is like 9 o'clock and it's gonna take me a couple hours probably to finish it but it does read very fast. So here's I'm sitting in my lounge where because I'm feeling a bit delicate today. But I finished this this morning. I read the last 50 pages this morning so I did read a lot last night. This is such a quick read. And you guys five stars. Five stars. Love this. This is one of my new favorite mysteries. I think this is such an amazing book. There were so many twists and turns at the end like I was being kept being led to think it was someone else and it just like I never figured it out. Right up to the end with the final killer reveal because there's like a few mysteries in this book. It really led me to think it was someone else right at the end like intentionally and I was like oh shit we are fucked. But then it wasn't. It was someone else and it was just you know I cried again. But I think that's a sign of a great mystery that can it can have you feeling so many different emotions. Like I don't usually cry at mysteries but this is a tear jerker so if you do read it be prepared to cry. Be prepared to like be so sad. I mean listen I do cry easily. We all know this but it really it got me. It got me to wise like pages apart. I'd calm down and then it made me cry again. The one thing I will say is you know this isn't just me being like I'm British. I'm from the UK. To me I feel like the humor in this is so British, English, UK, United Kingdom, million that I generally don't know how it would perform for you like in terms of the humor which makes up a massive part of this book. If you are international I mean like all things have done this before. I don't think it's a big problem but with books where I feel like they're very like British and not just set in the UK but like they have British culture steeped into them I feel the need to like warn people because like I don't know how much of it is transferable for everyone else because I'm a target market. Do you know what I mean? So I can't remove myself from it but again I loved following you know older elderly characters. I think they're a bit of a forgotten part of society in our fiction. We always read about young-ish people I feel like and reading about these elderly characters and the way that they spoke about mortality and life and your perspective of life when you know you know that death is is kind of just around the corner for you. It was so interesting and I love the kind of freedom that it gave the characters. They're so cheeky, they're so fun and I just absolutely loved it. It was such a joyous reading experience. I was just like totally captivated by the whole winx. I read it really fast. I mean like you know it's not a long book but I literally read it pretty much all last night. So yeah I would super recommend this one of my favorite mysteries ever now. It's got a very like you know it's Pride of Place like it's so good but now now it's uh it's Saturday. It's Saturday. And you're going home sweetie. I need to, this video goes up tomorrow night, Sunday night. I need to obviously read the last book, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder and I need to edit what I have of this video so far and me and Tom are rearranging my whole room this weekend. While I say me and Tom he's gonna do it I'm just gonna think about what needs to be done. So I'm gonna go away and I'm gonna start editing this video for a couple hours and then kind of this afternoon evening time I will start Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder. It's not very long, it's only just over 300 pages. Again this is one set in 1950s in London and we have this girl who's part of this like private detective group I think so I'm super excited. This is another one of kind of my most anticipated releases of this year. I'm really treating myself this week, what can I say? So I'm gonna go start editing the video and I will catch up with you once I'm probably about halfway through this. Okay besties I'm gonna keep it short and sweet because Miko's here and he's so happy. We've just spent like 40 minutes cuddling and this is gonna wake him up and I feel bad that I have to speak to you. Um basically I'm bored. You've been very very harsh. Nice to meet you Kelly. I'm halfway through. By the way my room is so echoey because there's no furniture in here apart from my bed because no no don't get up no I'm so sorry. I'm halfway through and I feel like nothing has happened like nothing has happened like we're only really just getting into the real mystery like the real crux of the story. It feels like a smaller idea for a mystery that is kind of being stretched out and I don't appreciate that. I was hoping we were gonna have fucking home runs like home run after home run after home run pretty much in this video but I don't think it's gonna be the case. I'm kind of having to force myself through it. It's not it's not my favourite book and I'm very upset because I was so excited to read it. I love the cover. I'm pretty sure this is in a five star prediction. I want to cry. Yeah it's an okay read like it's on an okay mystery but I don't feel like the characters are very distinct. We've got like a lot of different characters and I don't feel like they're very distinct from one another which I feel like the other two mysteries really had. Also it's reminding me a lot of Amari in the night brothers actually because that is like a magical school like apprentice school middle grade but this one is these private detectives basically living underground in London like in these hidden tunnels underneath London but our main character is an apprentice so it's kind of got that school vibe like she kind of gets like a timetable every day and she has assignments so it's kind of got a school vibe and it's kind of magical as well like this is like semi fantastical mystery but I just feel like Amari in the night brothers like fulfills what I want better like I don't know but I feel like if you liked Amari in the night brothers you might like the vibes of this. Also finally final point before I go to sleep because I'm very tired. I don't feel like it's very rooted in its time period it's set in the 1950s and in comparison to Dead Dead Girls which was set in the 1920s and you just felt it like you felt the 20s. Granted I feel like the 20s are an easier period to conjure up a more like you know visuals of but like this could be set 80s 90s like I don't feel like there's anything that makes me feel like I'm in the 50s which is what I want if you're gonna do historical what's the point of doing historical if it reads like it pretty much could be modern. So anyway I'm just gonna go finish the book because I'm not having the best experience reading it but I just want to get it read. Besties I don't even know what to say. I had to really force myself there. This is another one of my most like disappointing books. Yeah because there's another one of my most undisputed books and it's another one of my most disappointing um what a sad little life Jane. It just felt so bland to me personally personally personal opinion it's personal opinion. I feel like this book didn't really figure out what it wanted to be if it wanted to be an alternate history more of a mystery because I feel like the mystery element was actually very weak and here's the thing I want to write a fantasy mystery in the future but it's very very very hard to do well because in a normal mystery everything we know is constrained by normality but when you enter in magical things suddenly the constraints and the boundaries of what is possible are so much wider like so much more as possible so it's so hard to keep a lid on who it could have been how it could have been done so that it feels satisfying to the reader. Example of something that I feel like it does it well is something like Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo I think she's very good at that but I think it's hard to do and I think this book struggled with that kind of element. I think it is very hard to do all those genres well historical mystery fantasy that is my favorite combination of genres is a genre that I want to write in the future but I think it's so hard to do it well I think in a way you are setting yourself up for failure I mean I can just accept that I'm setting myself up for failure but hey ho I think I'm gonna give it two stars the same problem persisted as well for me with the characters like I could not tell these characters apart like I literally don't know who these people were like they all blurred into one and maybe the problem is as I'd read two very strong mysteries before this a four star on a five star mysteries I'd really enjoyed so then maybe I would have enjoyed this more had I not come off the back of that so that is something to take into consideration as well but yeah I really did not love this I'm very disappointed I'm very very sad I love the addition like it was one of my favorite kind of looking mysteries I love the way it looked and I'm fucking devastated. We had a mix in this vlog we had a four star on a five star book I really really enjoyed and then this to end it all and I don't think I've really spoken about it much because I haven't wanted to like it's been a bit of a blur I've just kind of forced myself through it since last night like I literally read it again just last night and this morning so that's where we're gonna end it but I hope you enjoyed this video I love reading murder mysteries I love finally getting some of them ticked off my list so I hope you enjoyed it too if you got into the end of this video comment the lock like padlock emoji um comment it down below if you've gotten to the end of this video and I love you very much thank you for all of your support and yeah I'll see you very soon in another video bye