 Has anyone seen any naughty pumpkins about? That's right, in this video about Halloween, I'm letting my cats think what I read just as pumpkins, which they are so happy about. Pumpkins. I love Halloween. So I've done this before where I put treats on three different books and whichever book they read, they read, my cat's like, whew. Whichever book they eat the treat from, I have to read. But they're dressed up as pumpkins for an extra Halloween twist. So I've got three different rounds. I've got a fantasy round, a horror round, and a mystery round, all with books in that I feel like fit the Halloween-y vibe. So let's just get into it and see what the first cat chose. So Lux is up first choosing for fantasy, and the options I gave him were Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson, Gallant by V.E. Schwab, and Belladonna by Adeline Grace. After many attempts, we finally got him in the pumpkin outfit, and look how cute he looks. He's so cute. So let's see what he picks. Which one should I read? Do you want treats? Which one? Which one? Which one? Oh, I think it was a purple pick. Maybe he didn't like those ones. He didn't like the other ones either. He had to see them in Port Out. There we go! He loves the purple book! Yay! I'll read that then. Great pick. Great pick, Lux. Whoa. Are you happy with us, Lux? Do you still like us? Do you still like us? So Lux chose Belladonna by Adeline Grace, one that I am so excited to read. I got this gorgeous edition in Fairyly very recently, and I was like, hang on, I might have to read that straight away. I have used up every bit of my patience. I think I unboxed this in my 24 hour reading vlog, and I was like, do I just shut the rest of the vlog down and just read this? But I didn't, but now I'm going to be reading it, which I'm so glad about. I don't know too much about it. I think we're following an orphan who falls in love with death itself? I don't know. But I've never read anything from Adeline Grace, but I've always been intrigued by her stuff. She liked her kind of vibe and synopses, so very excited. I feel like Lux picked very well. I feel like this is going to be pretty accessible to read, nice big font, and it fits this gothic dark vibe. I feel like it's perfect. I'm going to be looking for some good Spotify playlists for this book to fit the vibe. So next up was Miko with horror, and I gave him The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson, Yesienda by Isabella Canes, and The Rest is Stark by Erica Waters. You're me? You like cameras, usually? Okay. Should we make you a pumpkin? You're a pumpkin boy, you are. That's still. Whoa. You're the pumpkin. Oh my goodness. My pumpkin boy is. Do you like it? This has been a difficult video to film, but I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. Bye. And they're not cooperative cats. Some cats you see wearing Halloween outfits and they love them. Yeah, I like the model cat that struts down the runway. These? No. No, he's a slinky-malinky. You're really eating treats off of that book. Then Miko chose The Asienda by Isabella Canes. I think it's funny I'm reading this before I read Mexican Gothic, which this has been like pitched at. I think our main protagonist's family has suffered some economic difficulties and so she marries this man. There's rumours about his first wife that she ignores. I've heard it's Rebecca Meets Mexican Gothic, which are two books that have been on my TBR for probably the longest and haven't read them. So I'm just reading an amalgamation of them and said, I know there's a priest in this and it's the priest, maybe, you know, I've heard, I've heard some things. We think Jesus in advance for his healing. Amen. But yeah, I've heard a lot of good things about this and I feel like again, this is kind of the Gothic horror that I'm really into at the moment. I really love this kind of horror that isn't like gory necessarily, but is eerie, creepy, claustrophobic. So yes, very excited for this one. And then finally was Rora with Mystery and I gave her Three Dahlia's by Katie Watson, The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett and The It Girl by Ruth Ware. The Queen has arrived. Are you ready to be a pumpkin? I love pumpkins. Hello, Queen on your throne. Are you ready to pick a book for me to read? She's gonna kill you. She's gonna... Lacerate. Uh oh. I'm in danger. Good girl. All right, hold still. They're good up going backwards, aren't they? They are. They're like, scoop. I'm in danger. Good girl. Hold still. They're good at going backwards aren't they? They're like scoop. I'm hands got moving quick enough. I like the other cats who then run away. She just goes back the wall. Right stay here. Stay here you. Okay. You're looking so great. Treats over here now though. Yeah well that's because she's shabbling them in. What are these? Mmm interesting. I've actually got the pumpkin on her. Which are the treats? Oh this is a fair thing now because it's not like I put it in front of her. She doesn't like them. What? Which one are you going to choose? Look there's treats. Oh she's going for the middle. She's going for the middle. You've got to pick a book. You've got to eat one off a book while we're at it. It's raining treats. Have you eaten one off a book yet? No I haven't. She knows how to trick us. She knows how to be part of your game. You've got to choose one. No. She's so sneaky. Oh no here we go. This one I want to eat. Did we clap for you? We did didn't we? Look at you little Miss Pumpkin. She's putting up with it. She just wants treats so bad. She's the greediest cat that's ever lived. But now she eats them off the books. You're all crunching it aren't you? She knows books. Whenever this cat sees books she knows she's getting fed. Do you like being a pumpkin? And then Laura tried her best not to choose a book. She was like this is beneath me. I'm just not going to choose one but in the end she chose The Three Dahlias by Katie Watson. Yes I know I've still got the price to crown. It's just really hard to get it off because it's like this book is in a sleeve. I am really excited for this. This is a murder mystery definitely paying homage to Icatha Christie. There's like a famous character that a author wrote a famous detective called Dahlia Lively and we're following three actresses who have played that character in different generations coming together to solve a murder mystery at the author's family estate home. Listen we've got references to Icatha Christie. We've got a stately home murder. We've got like unlikely duo detectives. I think this is a series. I've only just realized it but look at this. Look at what we get. I showed this in another video but look we get a cast of characters. We get a ground floor map. We get a first floor map. We get a second floor map and we get a grounds map. That suggests to me it's going to be very like based on clues and figuring stuff out and really giving you the information to like figure out the mystery. I think this is going to be a really fun book to read for me because I think it's definitely going to be like you know lending yourself to me trying to solve it a little bit. So those are the books I'm going to be reading in this vlog. I'm really really excited getting to all of them. I think I'm going to read them in the order that they were chosen so let's start with Belladonna. I get straight into the gothic vibes and yeah I'm really excited. So I'm only 100 pages into Belladonna. I was like hoping to finish this whole book today. Um probably not gonna happen. I'm still I still want to get quite a bit away from it but like it's it's taken me a long time to get into it. You gotta do me a favor. Anything? You can't say a word. I don't know how I feel about this yet essentially. Let me tell you a plot and then we'll talk about it. So in this what is her name? Girl I thought her name was gonna be Belladonna. No, Cygna. Her name's Cygna and she was orphaned as a baby and death could not come to get her. She was supposed to be poisoned by her mother's milk. I don't know why that sounds okay. Whatever. No it's a natural natural. We love women. We love mothers anyways. Death couldn't touch her and it becomes clear she can't die. The bitch can't die. Break her neck? Fine. Poison? Fine. You can't touch me as basically what she's saying. She is now trying to like meet with death. She keeps trying to summon death and she keeps getting passed around um many different like what's the word? Guardians I guess? They all keep dying. She through and the chain events ends up in this old house with these her last remaining relatives. She's burned through the wall where the mother has recently died and the daughter is very ill and um that's basically what we know so far. She's like trying to get to know death, trying to understand what of death's powers she has and she's at this home with her family and I just haven't gotten into it yet and it's making me sad. Like I'm actually I'm feeling really upset. I'm not disliking it. I just haven't made up how I feel about it yet. The writing has these moments of like gorgeous lyrical writing that I should love. I mean it's definitely YA. It's definitely YA vibes. Like is she gonna fall in love with death or with the stable boy? That's what that's what's going on here you know what I mean? And it's like I guess a YA version of you know writing that I love like Erin Morgensen for example. You know she's probably my favorite writer in terms of language and it's like that but like YA. It's like that but like not quite there. And so I should love it and like I'm loving the gothic vibes but I'm just not caring about picking it up. Sue me. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean look at them. I should love this. I love the gothic vibes. So yeah I'm hoping it's just a case of I haven't fully gotten into it yet. I've got reading sprints with my patrons and like what is the extra time? About an hour. About reading sprints and about an hour with my patrons. So I'm hoping to read at least like another 150 pages tonight. Is the goal? We shall see. How will I do with that? But I love a haunted house book. There's obviously spirits in there. She can see spirits. I love a haunted house book but a haunted house book that kind of I prefer the intrigue of like leaves you on edge as to like our ghost real or whatever or her knowing death. Like I feel like they're bestie mates already. They're not but like he's been there a lot and we've heard a lot from him and I feel like the mystery isn't there either. So I'm like what is intriguing me other than finding out maybe how her is not her aunt. I don't know. The mother of the family died is maybe it. So anyways I'm gonna go read some more and hopefully once I get to page like 250 we will be having more success. So can you like adjust adjust the light? Come on. I know you can do it. No we're going orange today. I guess I'll turn the overhead lights on even though I hate them. Oh my god it's like burning my retinas anyway. So I just finished my reading sprints with my patrons and um yeah. So I'm on page two whoa whoa it's late I'm tired. I'm on page 250 so I don't have too much left to read. I have like 150 pages left to read. So here's the thing right there's a love triangle in this. I mean not a love triangle we've gone over this many times. Love triangles aren't love triangles because the line at the end is not connected. So it's a love 10. I don't know what's that shape. Yeah there's a love triangle and it's between death and a stable boy. Is that a competition? Like are this like shot like nah. There's no way I'm going to play fair. No way. Is it a competition? Is it a competition? Is it a co- I'm not sure it is. Death is a fairly frequent character and as he pops up he says hello. He's not mean but he's not like he has a strange character. He's kind of like kind to her always and soft and gentle but it's just like not fully committing to the bitch. You know what I mean? That's my biggest issue with this. I'm not loving it. My biggest issue with this is that it feels like I love the synopsis. I love the vibes. I love the premise but it's all vibes. It's like it's all vibes. Do you get what I mean? We're just vibing here. So here's the thing if you love fantasy with romance in it that's heavy on the autumnal spooky gothic vibes. Read this. Read it. Read it. The first 100 pages there's not really any intrigue. There's nothing moving the story along. The mystery began at page like 103 or something and it's to do with the mum who died. Was she murdered? Is her daughter who is now in the same way being poisoned in the same way? You know that's the the vague synopsis of it and I'm pretty sure I already know who our culprit is. I mean we'll see if that turns out to be true but I'm pretty sure I already know who the culprit is and I'm just like not loving it. It's a series as well and I just like unless the ending is amazing I've got to be strict with my series continuations like we're in the trenches over here on finishing series so I don't know if I'm going to continue this series. I don't know. We'll finish it in the morning. I have more reading sprints tomorrow actually my patrons because tonight's were replacing some that I missed last week so we will finish this tomorrow and we'll move on to our next book because lux I hate to tell you but I'm not loving it. I just got off more sprints for my patrons and I finished Bella Donna. I'm gonna give it 2.5 stars. I just really don't know how much more I can take. I have taken the front of so much. Listen I'm quite sad about it okay I'm quite upset because I wanted to love this so much. I just think I was like wanting a mystery. It promised me a mystery and instead we got like this love triangle. I don't know the writing just wasn't for me. I've never read anything bad in Grace before and I heard people who read her first book didn't love the writing. It just like for me writing is number one right I've talked about this before people prioritise writing plot or characters and they like everyone ranks us in a different way. Writing for me is so 100 top. Like I have to love and vibe with the writing. I can't get past like loving the characters or loving the plot if I don't love the writing and I just the writing didn't work for me personally but I'm sure other people will love this. It's very gothic. It's very vibes vibes vibes like it's heavy on the vibes. If you're an aesthetic girlie can you might like it. You know if you like romances if you like love triangles I think you would like it. I just don't think it's really a book for me. It's essentially the problem. There was a twist nearer the end that I thought oh that's good. That is good. Miss Adley and Grace slayed a little bit there. She did slay a bit there. She had me in the palm of her hand and she slayed a bit there and I thought about giving it a three but for that at that point like it had been a 2.5 in my mind for so long and by the time like I got past the twist I was like okay yeah this is still 2.5. You know it reminded me of like dual timelines right. I don't like when books yeah I would rather read romance. I don't think I really like fantasy romance. I would rather read a romance right just a whole romance because this is half romance half mystery essentially with like a fantastical twist to it but it's half romance half mystery and as much as I say oh I love books that are like 30% historical 30% fantasy 30% mystery right but that's more like vibes. I feel like you can beat all of those things at once right but this was half about the romance half about the mystery and I feel like neither of those were compelling enough to stand on their own. It's the same with dual timelines what I often don't like them is because I feel like neither of the timelines are compelling enough to stand on their own and that's why they're put together. I didn't feel like the mystery was compelling enough to stand on its own and I didn't feel like the romance was compelling enough to stand on its own. Two halves don't make a hole in reading for me but um I will not be continuing on with a series because it's a series so at least we must be great for small mercies because it means it doesn't add to my my series total. So first but down Lux did not choose well for me. He went for vibes over writing. Substance I like no substance is not the right word but you know I didn't love it. Didn't love it but let's just go ahead and get into our next book. So I haven't really got far into the ASEAN yet. I have no thoughts but I just realized whilst I was on my sprints my fairy lute of the month arrived and I thought let's unbox it right now. Actually I can't wait to open it. This is the October box. Yes Belladonna was my last fairy lute book. We are going to pretend we didn't hear that. But I will say the lovely fairy lute like you know the design on the hard cover the end pages made it a much more enjoyable reading experience than it would have been without it and fairy lute can't control how much I love the book. They can just send me gorgeous stuff. I feel like I really needed this today. I can't wait to see what we have. Okay oh we have more socks. I love I always say I love getting socks because I always need more socks. So these are capes water socks inspired by the Raven Cycle but those are cute. I actually feel like these could be look really cute with some kind of if you're trying like a woodland nymph I feel like the kind of tree socks could look cute. So I love that. Oh my god we have another one of these. So this is a canvas basket. This one inspired by Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber. That is useful. I use my other one. Can you see it there? That's what I put my like immediate TBR in. So the next few books I have to read for videos. That's what they go in. So I've got another one which is good because I have like a bajillion books planned to read for the next couple months that I can put in here. I like using these to separate out like the immediate TBR I have versus my whole TBR which goes in my TBR card. Oh we have a paperback. Princess of Souls. Cute. Look at that cover and the sprayed edges. It's a Rapunzel inspired romantic fantasy. It comes with a redesigned cover sprayed edges and a digital signature. Oh my god I like that. The green and the orange. What a vibe. And we have a house moving castle foiled art print. Let's see what the book of the month is. I love seeing Frodo editions. Oh my god she's very blue. Oh my god Jesus Christ. Check out their face mess. Okay. One dark window. What is this? A goth, another gothic fantasy. Listen they said we're going to spoil a gothic fantasy girl. Set in that's the tongue twister. Missed locked kingdom with a tarot inspired magic system that we could not get enough of. So we have the cover. Okay okay let's talk about this slowly. We have a very mysterious design on the hard cover. We have a design on the back of the dust jacket. We have the end pages. I mean we have sprayed edges as well but the end pages. I love this. I love them doing designs in the end pages. It makes me so happy. Cute. Oh my god I love the vibes of this cover. That sounds so good. Wow I'm so excited to read this. I will leave fairy-toot link down below. You should definitely go check them out if you've ever thought about it. Okay I'm gonna move from one gothic book to I think the Asciende is a gothic book. So I'll check in with you in a little bit. I think I'm gonna go out for a walk now actually. A nice autumnal walk. And I will check in with you in a little bit. Once I've read more of the Asciende. Well look it's your friend that can read in the book you chose Meeks. Meekoo does not like cuddles. Good morning everyone. This is like a strange angle. I've literally woken up like 10 minutes ago. I'm not really awake yet but I got halfway through this last night and I was too tired then to check in with you and I want to listen to more of the audiobook because I get ready. So we must we must chat now. I'm halfway through the Asciende by Isabel Karnes and I'm really enjoying it. It doesn't feel like a five star. I will just say that but it feels like the kind of book I can just enjoy and really enjoy the reading experience of it and know that it's not gonna be a five star but it might be but I'm just enjoying the experience. So basically a few moments later my mom came downstairs so I had to kick Tom out of bed so I could film up here. I'm halfway through the Asciende. I told you that the synopsis the Mexican government was overthrown and her father was de-worded and so her mum and her were thrown into this really like precarious situation and she has married this guy at this house who owns this house for stability because that's basically what her only choice was and she gets to the house and he quickly leaves and becomes clear that it's haunted perhaps by his ex-wife. He has a wife who we think we don't really know think died oh no we do know she died she died I think they said that she died of typhus but like the fact that she's so angry makes me think interesting so it is like a Rebecca esque story where she's being haunted by the ex-wife I will say this is some of the best like haunting I've seen I feel like the haunted the haunted house books I often read are like YA whereas because this is adult it can really go there it's scary it's scarier than I thought it was gonna be I don't know I've been listening a lot to the audiobook and I feel like when you're listening to it you can kind of like be a bit separated from it but like there's some there's some scary stuff going on some gory stuff go I was not expecting it to go this hard the thing that I think I'm loving the most about this is I think the atmosphere is amazing I think the writing is amazing for a debut and I think the atmosphere this gothic spooky atmosphere is just built so well because the writing is so good like it really just builds up this amazing image this amazing kind of vibe around everything where you're just you feel so on edge you feel so on edge with a character you don't want her to go back into the house you don't want her to have to sleep there another on her own like the stakes feel really high and I mentioned when I first mentioned about this the priest there is a priest who is helping her and there may be a little bit of a romance forming you know she doesn't really know her husband she didn't marry for love like they've literally spent like probably a week together in the whole life so like there's no qualms about this in my opinion and she's hired this priest who was he used to live here but it seems that he was ousted in some way to help her kind of banish whatever the spirit is and I'm gonna say this is how you have a romance in a book but it doesn't detract from the main mystery the main intrigue of the book no you're absolutely right in belladonna even though death and I've even forgot the other guy's name the other guy in the love triangle were helping her figure out the mystery it didn't really feel like it it felt like there was the mystery scenes and the romance scenes and they were very separate whereas again in this book the priest is helping our main character figure out and try and you know get rid of this spirit but it feels intertwined with the mystery of the book it doesn't feel like separate scenes it feels like it like it was like in belladonna she's like like this is gonna be a scene where we learn more about the mystery this is gonna be a scene where the romance progresses in some way whereas I think scenes are better in books when they fulfill more than one purpose and that's what this does every time there's a romantic element it is completely tied back to what is going on with the ghost essentially I've read two ghost books though in a row I don't think the three darlings are gonna be a ghost but yeah no I'm really enjoying this I'm really enjoying it I mean true to see where it goes I don't think it's gonna be a five star but I do think it's gonna be like a strong four star and I'm excited to read it so I'm gonna go do my makeup for the day get ready listen to the audiobook whilst I do that and then I will finish off the book straight after and let you know what I think because it's not that long it's only like 300-ish pages and the audiobook is really good as well I'm really enjoying the audiobook it has two narrators because we sometimes get the priest we sometimes get his perspective as well so yes I'm gonna go finish it okay so I just finished the acienda and I really enjoyed this it is a four star like I predicted it didn't end up being a four star let's start with the positives so I think this is some of my favorite imagery that I've read this year like the writing for a debut is so good the imagery and like the metaphors and just oh it's so lush and so like thick and I think that that really lends itself to the book because they're often talking about how the darkness is thick and the air is thick so just everything feels like overwhelming in a way so I loved the writing of this I'm so excited to see what Isabelle Kenyass comes out within the future because I just thought it was so good for a debut this is probably one of my favorite debuts I read this year I just thought it was so good I loved also like the level of horror in this you know I did that video testing out my horror taste this year and I just like the level of horror for me is perfect in this like it's serious horror it's not like you know fun and girls support group where it's kind of like campy horror this is like serious horror but you know it's not like too much for me I did your baby oh okay so also when I read like haunted house books I find there's often only like three events like three or four events where like this is where the house is haunted everyone look the house is being haunted do you not know what I mean there's only like a few big moments of that throughout a book but this it's just like bled through everything and there was a lot there were a lot of things that happened that was spooky and air there was spooky and eerie I meant to say eerie and scary there was a lot of moments of that it wasn't just like four distinct moments like I often find with books it was like throughout everything it was just it was really good the only reason I'm giving it are four stars and not a five stars because they didn't feel like a five star you know when some books you just like you love it you don't really have anything bad to say about it I mean the pacing in this was great it moved along at a great pace but I just don't feel like a five star I just I just don't feel like a five star I think perhaps I always felt at a distance from the characters I never fully got like 100 absorbed in the story I was always conscious I was reading a book do you know what I mean whereas a five star for me I need to just be like enveloped and like everything else goes away I never felt like that with this I was constantly aware that I was reading a book and I as much as I really liked the two main characters who we had the perspectives from I never like truly felt that I got to know them but that's something that's really easily fixed past your debut book I can totally understand why that would be the case and I still think it was great so Miko chose well I've also decided if I'm gonna lower my Bella Donna rating to two the more that I think about it it's a two star and I think let's not show away from giving a two star right let me back myself with my chest so we're now going to get into the final book which was chosen by Rora who's over there sleeping hey queen she chose The Three Dahlias by Katie Watson I went and had a look on Goodreads this has only had 170 no sorry how many 100 it was either 127 or 172 uh ratings barely anyone has read this and that makes me so excited to read it we'll get into the plot when I first check in with you I just know this is on the front it wouldn't be a country house weekend without a little murder come on like aren't we all excited this is what we've all been waiting for yeah there's a murder at the estate of this old famous English mystery author and we have got three characters who have played her famous female detective throughout the years for different generations there and they're gonna team up to solve it I'm very very very very very very excited I've got to try and read most of this tonight it's currently four o'clock I'm just about to have or it's almost four o'clock my zoom call with my team Rora patrons this video is going up tomorrow I need to edit some of the video and read this whole book so it's going to be a little bit of a struggle but I am so excited to read this and this is giving me five star energy so we'll see if Queen Rora wins usually she does she's in charge so I feel like maybe she's chosen the best one hey the cutest cats in the land how we're doing um it's late can you tell when I feel like when it's late I'm either very low energy or I'm like I hate myself editing it because I'm like anyways um so I am almost a hundred pages into the three dahlia's dahlia's however you can say it oh I just realized the cover has can you see has each of them in one of the windows it's really hard to focus on it can you see that though anyways I'm really enjoying this okay let me give you a plot first so we have this character called the tisha Davenport who wrote this detective called dahlia lively in the 1930s up into the 1990s agathchristi right after what I'm you agathchristi is referenced in this already because agathchristi was the queen of crime whereas apparently is it leticia no lettuce letis letis not lettuce is in the vegetable she was the princess of poison so I feel like we're gonna get some poisoning which is very exciting and oh my god I love this they've been gathered at the home in which the author lived for like a fan convention that is being run oh sorry I didn't mention they there's three actresses who have played her throughout their lives so there's one who was in like three films in the 1980s there's one who was in like lots of tv series in the early 2000s and then the current one is one who's going to be in the new film which is literally just been cast a couple days ago and they've been gathered at this the home for this fan convention it literally does anyone remember austinland the film austinland if you don't go watch it it's literally like a work of art why didn't they get oscars I don't know I don't know it just gives such a fun vibe to the book from the get go because it feels like a love letter to murder mystery like you know this is very referential to agathchristi it's very referential to the classic crime era of you know Dorothy else sayers um mr. Anthony Berkeley I don't think he was one of the main ones but I've read him that's why I'm referencing him yeah it just feels like our love letter it feels so fun it's so referential to so many different murder mysteries it's got at the start of every chapter it's got a quote from one of the books that this author has supposedly written and it just makes it feel so whole like it's so fleshed out you know and at the moment there's just been like a fake murder mystery right so there's been like a murder mystery set up for the people there to like play out and it says in the snot says when fictional death turns into real bodies can the three dahlias find the answers to the murders so the bodies have not arrived yet but I know they're coming and I'm excited I'm excited I think we're going to reach from all of the three's perspectives we open the book with the eldest perspective who's now in her sixties and I loved her perspective but it was only one chapter and then we've been with the youngest one for a good chunk and then I think we're going to go to the middle one in a second so I really like that I am liking the I like multiple perspective stories I think because people think that I don't like dual timelines I don't like multiple perspectives but I do if you're telling I like to be told a cohesive story that's always my issue I want my story to be just like you know one easy bite but the writing is very easy to read it feels a bit like Thursday MetaCup I feel like if you enjoy the Thursday MetaCup you enjoy this it's not quite it's like funny or you know trying to be humorous like the Thursday MetaCup but it does give me a similar vibe I have high hopes for this book and for this series I just feel like I don't understand why only this only got like a hundred and something ratings and it's been out for like a couple months so if I love this I'm making it my lives mission to make people read it I am now on page 230 ish so I've got like about 130 pages left and I'm still really enjoying it like this is just such a fun read for someone like me who loves murder mysteries who loves this whole kind of vibe of like cozy murder mysteries but with this kind of modern modern a mainstream slant to it that I feel like the Thursday MetaCup has bought but I love about this is that it's different right I think I'm just special special I feel like a lot of the cozy murder mysteries that we've seen spring up as a result of the Thursday MetaCup have all been very similar right it's all got you know an elderly main character a group of elderly main characters there's the main synopses of them that's all what they kind of revolve around but this you've got those three women who come from different points of life yes one is older I think she's my maybe mid 60s but the other one is middle age and so he's dealing with you know like stuff like perimenopause is mentioned and then the the young one is sitting with like you know issues you have in your 20s so I think they're all bringing something really unique to the table and I like that I like that it's like just not trying to copy something it is something different and I think all the three main characters are really fleshed out and have got a lot of like a lot of interesting stuff about them are still being kind of like an archetypal character that you get in murder mysteries murder mysteries are always like characters always fulfill a certain purpose or vibe like I feel like I love murder mysteries because characters always a bit larger than life and like can they can be afforded to be a bit ridiculous and I enjoy that I really love the writing for a debut I think the writing is really impressive it's just so so readable I'm just really enjoying it and I think the whole set at a convention for for the the author and like at the place where she lived and her family still live I think it's just such an interesting setting and how so much scope for to be so interesting and it's just making me want to read Agatha Christie I haven't read a Christie in a while I've only read Death on an Annihilal this year I haven't made progress I really want to read Perilet and House which is the next chronologically in the Poro series that I need to read but I don't have any plans to read so I don't know I'll have to shoehorn it in somewhere but it's making me just appreciate you know although it's not Agatha Christie it is based off Agatha Christie like it's just making me appreciate her whole legacy I think it calls back to her and shows the influence she's had on the whole murder mystery genre as a whole so I don't know I'm really enjoying it I'm really excited I'm just gonna go ahead and finish it I'm hoping the twists at the end are gonna be good because you know murder mysteries always do kind of like they can hinge on what the rebellion is and if it's shit you're like oh well I don't know I haven't really got any theories yet I think it's doing a really good job of us getting to know the main characters whilst also um furthering the mystery so yeah I'm just gonna go ahead and finish it and I will let you know my thoughts when I do okay I finished the three dahlias I am so proud of her I could cry finally I have to like quickly edit this like the end of this video and get this video up for you I don't know how late it's gonna be up tonight but anyways yeah I finished the three dahlias and I'm gonna give it a full start I loved the re-experts this I think is such a lovely read I'm really sad it's only got like 170 ratings I think it deserves so much more than that so if you like mysteries if you like the kind of golden age of crime I would 100 recommend picking this up you know the more I think about it I think I would recommend this to people who love Agatha Christie it just feels so like referential and honouring like her style of doing stuff and just you know it's constantly referencing kind of tropes or or events that continue down a book like the whole bit at the end where she gathers her suspects together and Parra accuses one of them like it just is referential to all of that so it's not similar in any way to Agatha Christie's style of writing or even like quality of plot that's not shade to this that's like you know I think Agatha Christie especially for time is kind of unparalleled but you know if you love Agatha Christie or the golden age of crime and want to read something modern that's kind of referential to that and just like you know appreciating that then I would recommend picking this up I think it deserves way more ratings than it currently has it's like a solid mystery I had so much fun reading it and I'm really excited to see this as a series with these characters I think it could work really well as a series and I feel like the author could just grow I loved the setting I can't go over how much I loved the like location of it being this kind of convention with these super fans like I just think it was a very fun take on everything and um I really felt so absorbed in it like different to the Ascienda where I kind of felt always distant from it I did feel totally absorbed in this book like totally wrapped up in it I'm just editing this and I just realized I didn't say why I gave the book a four star and not a five star and the main reason was that I felt like the who done it was pretty obvious I knew who it was from probably like the last third of the book yeah I just like from then on like everything that happened at the end of the book didn't need to happen because it was pretty obvious who it was for quite a long time so we could just wrap things up a bit quicker I didn't find it like unsatisfying I think the who done it made sense within the mystery and was set up well it was just from a certain point once you got a certain piece of information it was really obvious so yeah I just feel like with a mystery if it's that obvious you cannot give it a five star but I still did really enjoy it there we have it that is the end of this vlog where my cat's aka spooky halloween pumpkins picked what I read Lux did not do so well but me co and rora did do well even I am a grad to admit that because rora just bit my toes yeah they were both four stars and I'm glad that I've ticked all these books off my list they were all 2022 releases that I've been really excited to get to so yeah I feel that's a pretty successful vlog even if I didn't have a five star but alas thank you for watching this video if you got into the end comment the cat or pumpkin emoji down below either the cat or pumpkin emoji down below if you got into the end please let me know what you thought of any of these books or if you're interested in picking any of them up and I will see you very soon in another video bye