The Christmas Murder Game

A very good book to read for Christmas. It was clever. The story was pretty well crafted I thought, not so predictable as to be ridiculous. The only things I didn't like were two annoying things the author kept inserting needlessly: the endless talk about corsets, and hitting us over and over and over the head about biphobia etc. The story worked well incorporating same sex romances - it was diminished by the author making these “no one understands people who are bi/lesbian!” comments. Let the story speak for itself!

A hard one to rate, and I'm still wondering how many stars to give it! It was OK, but I found it a little overblown at times. I think my favourite parts were the descriptions of the staying in the country house enjoying the food and drink! Loved the idea of the sonnets, which I thought were well written, and the idea of solving clues, but I thought that more attention could have been paid to character development. Sara was particularly annoying, as there didn't seem to be much motivation for her being so awful (I am not one of those readers who avoid unlikeable characters, but I do want them to be nuanced). Sometimes it was a little hard to keep track of who was who.