Grave Expectations

Product Information

That's actually quite a dark premise and we definitely touch into quite how screwed up Claire is, but it's well balanced with the enjoyable elements. Grove Press An imprint of Grove Atlantic, an American independent publisher, who publish in the UK through Atlantic Books.

Claire can see ghosts from the time her dead friend started making appearances ever since they were teenagers. When the hunt for the murderer starts in earnest though, it seems that the mystery takes a back-burner. Teaming up with the least unbearable members of the Wellington-Forge family – depressive ex-cop Basher and teenage radical Alex – Claire and Sophie determine to figure out not just whodunnit, but who they killed, why and when.

that my dad would perhaps offhandedly say about whichever snooker person he wasn't keen on at the time, but in the sense that of the time I spent with Grave Expectations, relatively little of it was focused on the actual murder mystery. When she is Invited to an old university friend's country pile to provide entertainment for a family party, her best friend Sophie tags along. Mash together Knives Out and Midsomer Murders, add in some supernatural elements and some referential millennial humour and you've got Grave Expectations. I will say that listening to the audiobook means you have to really concentrate otherwise it is easy to miss things/get confused, and I did find myself having to rewind quite a bit because I wasn't paying close enough attention.

The premise here is that Claire is a thirty-something down-on-her-luck (aren't we all (no we're not, but a lot of us are! Despite this traumatic past, Claire and Sophie are still unprepared for what they encounter when they arrive: a ghost, tragic and unrecognizable, and clearly the spirit of someone killed in a rage at the previous year's party. In fact, Sophie rarely leaves Claire's side, because she's been haunting her ever since she was murdered at the age of 17. Light and engaging with great characters ,if you like the TV Series Ghost you will love this book it is charming funny clever and a great read Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC .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. Hilariously, she ends up faking for most of her clients anyway because the majority of the people they want to contact have already passed on, and Claire can only commune with ghosts. Claire is a slightly crap medium—not because she's not actually psychic but because she's bad at making a living from it—who's invited to do a gig at the big crumbling country pile of a fairly frightful family of English toffs.

After spending several years in London and Brighton, Alice now lives in Cork, Ireland, where she reads a lot of books, makes crochet animals, and plays video games where you can set things on fire and make elves kiss. And I've had ridiculously good luck with mysteries this year, most of which are having fun with the traditional mystery format/genre). This crime-solving group of friends gave me a bit of a diverse Scooby Doo gang vibe without Scooby, and I enjoyed the story taking place among the characters along with the actual mystery portion.I'd recommend this to anyone who self-identifies as a member of the Spice Girls Generation; you'll laugh out loud and hope for a sequel by the time you're halfway through. 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. 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. The narrative voice is a delight, as is all the dialogue, but what really elevated this for me was the thread of genuine pathos running through it.