Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson

 
Summary from Goodreads:

Senior year at Ellingham Academy for Stevie Bell isn’t going well. Her boyfriend, David, is studying in London. Her friends are obsessed with college applications. With the cold case of the century solved, Stevie is adrift. There is nothing to distract her from the questions pinging around her brain—questions about college, love, and life in general.

Relief comes when David invites Stevie and her friends to join him for study abroad, and his new friend Izzy introduces her to a double-murder cold case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University went to a country house and played a drunken game of hide-and-seek. Two were found in the woodshed the next day, murdered with an ax.

The case was assumed to be a burglary gone wrong, but one of the remaining seven saw something she can’t explain. This was no break-in. Someone’s lying about what happened in the woodshed.

Seven suspects. Two murders. One killer still playing a deadly game.

Review:

I love these books. I honestly think Maureen Johnson is becoming the new Agatha Christie. There is something so compelling about Stevie, the teenage sleuth with panic attacks. I loved having the chance to watch her solve a British mystery this time. It was like stepping into a PBS show with some of my favorite characters. Thanks, Maureen Johnson.

This British mystery was also soooooooo good. I had to know what happened in 1995. I knew right away it wasn’t some random burglar. And when the aunt character disappears….I was hooked. The murder mystery was a good one. That being said, this book had a lot of other things going on too.

The kids are all at that dramatic age where they have to figure out what comes next. Where do they go after Ellingham? And while it’s sometimes hard for me to remember they are all kids because of how brilliant they all are, Johnson doesn’t let you forget it in this book. Colleges are on their minds and so are the inevitable separations of the group. And while I can see this being a pain for some readers, and I guess I found some of it painfully dramatic too…thinking about it now, it makes it all more believable and real.

There was also one point where I got so mad at Stevie that I literally had to stop reading….I put the book down for a while…I guess this is a sign that you know and love characters? You feel like you know them so well you can get upset at them. Of course I forgave her, and so did everyone else. I had to know what happened too.

There were moments where it felt like I was in London, or in a country estate finding clues. It’s not just the mystery that’s good and the characters you feel like you know. You physically get transported to these places in these books. Maureen Johnson is a skilled master at storytelling.

This latest installment (and yes there has to be more after this one…) was not my favorite book in the series so far. Some of the drama was a little much for me. I also wish there was more time with some of Stevie’s other friends. However, even my least favorite in this series ranks higher in the scheme of things than a lot of other books I’ve read just because of how skilled of a writer this author is. All in all, this gets a 9/10.

Twelfth Grade Night by Molly Horton booth, Stephanie Kate Strohm, and Jamie Green

Summary from Goodreads:

he course of true love never did run smooth . . . and neither does high school in this new graphic novel series for fans of Heartstopper and The Prince and the Dressmaker.

Vi came to Arden High for a fresh start and a chance to wear beanies and button-ups instead of uniform skirts. And though doing it without her twin feels like being split in half, Vi finds her stride when she stumbles (literally!) into broody and beautiful poet-slash-influencer, Orsino. Soon Vi gets roped into helping plan the school’s Twelfth Grade Night dance, and she can’t stop dreaming about slow dancing with Orsino under the fairy lights in the gym.

The problem? All Vi’s new friends assume she’s not even into guys. And before Vi can ask Orsino to the dance, he recruits Vi to help woo his crush, Olivia. Who has a crush of her own . . . on Vi.

Star-crossed love abounds in this hilarious and romantic story of self-discovery, mistaken identities, and the magic that happens when we open our hearts to something new.

Review:

This was a really sweet graphic novel about crushes, dances, and growing up. The artwork and premise reminded me a little of the Heartstopper books by Alice Oseman. Though, these have a bit of fantastical element. And the character development for me was never quite as strong as it needed to be. I never loved the characters like I love everyone in the Heartstopper books.

Right away, there’s a lot going on here. I love Shakespeare. I love twin stories. I love stories about false misconceptions. I think maybe there was too much going on, so not enough time was focused on the things that mattered. I was a a little confused  by the presence of the fairies. At first I was like, are we supposed to think they they are real? Are fairies and magic real in this world? Why is nothing else magical if that is the case? And it kept taking me out of the plot whenever the fairy characters came to play….

The other thing I kept doing was trying to relate the story to the Shakespeare story it’s named for…but, I don’t think I was supposed to do that. There’s not too many connections besides the obvious ones. And then there are the fairies from a Midsummer’s Night Dream. Again, this took me out of the story…. I guess this could have been fixed if the book was just called something else. Maybe Shakespeare High was taken?

This all being said, I loved the idea for the book and the art was top level. It’s really stunning to look at. The crush story about going to the dance and the twins finding their way away from each other was nice on its own, but there’s just so much other stuff going, it got a little much for me. All in all, I give this one a 7/10.

The Killing Code by Ellie Marney

Summary from Goodreads:

A historical mystery about a girl who risks everything to track down a vicious serial killer, for fans of The Enigma Game and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.

Virginia, 1943: World War II is raging in Europe and on the Pacific front when Kit Sutherland is recruited to help the war effort as a codebreaker at Arlington Hall, a former girls’ college now serving as the site of a secret US Signals Intelligence facility in Virginia. But Kit is soon involved in another kind of fight: Government girls are being brutally murdered in Washington DC, and when Kit stumbles onto a bloody homicide scene, she is drawn into the hunt for the killer.
 
To find the man responsible for the gruesome murders and bring him to justice, Kit joins forces with other female codebreakers at Arlington Hall—gossip queen Dottie Crockford, sharp-tongued intelligence maven Moya Kershaw, and cleverly resourceful Violet DuLac from the segregated codebreaking unit. But as the girls begin to work together and develop friendships—and romance—that they never expected, two things begin to come clear: the murderer they’re hunting is closing in on them…and Kit is hiding a dangerous secret.

Review:

What a way to start 2023! I remember really liking the mysteries this author wrote before, but none of them come close to comparing to how compelling this book was. One of my “Drop everything” books came out while I was reading this book, but I did not drop this book…I couldn’t. This book is so good, any favorite author could have released a book and I would not have stopped reading. That in itself is a big statement for me.

(Side note: this review is taking me forever to write…I have a dog that interrupts every sentence for me to throw a ball for her….)

If the spies, the feminism, the LGBT love story, the serial killer, the friendship story and the girls trying to solve the murder mystery isn’t enough, then add in some racial conflict, secret codes, actual quotes from female codebreakers from World War II, and fun nights out at night clubs and political social functions in DC. When I say this book is un-put-down-able I’m not kidding. I was up way too late reading, knowing full well I’d be exhausted the next day at work. These are the best kinds of books and there are so few of these any more for me.

The other shocking thing for me was I did not guess who the murderer was immediately. I was pleasantly surprised a few times throughout the story. Mystery readers, suspense readers, and historical fiction readers will all enjoy this one. It does go a bit dark; it involves a serial killer after all…and racism, and antisemitism. But, that makes the mystery that much more intense and interesting. The setting is very unique too. It takes place at at a secret US Signals Intelligence facility in Virginia for women. And the characters are fascinating! The main character has a secret that absolutely cannot get out.

I read this book remarkably fast. It’s the kind of book that kept me up late, and I sincerely hope this author keeps writing. I give it a 10/10.