#CBR9 Book 21: "Every Move" by Ellie Marney

Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the third book in a trilogy, and as such, it will be impossible for me to write this review without at least minor spoilers for the earlier books in the series. Start at the beginning with book 1, Every Breath and come back here when you've caught up.

It's been a few months since Rachel Watts and James Mycroft came back from their trip to England, but Rachel is still having nightmares nearly every night because of her kidnapping and torture. Her mother doesn't even know the full details of what happened, but is barely speaking to Rachel after she impulsively went off to England after Mycroft with no warning. Rachel's not really spending a lot of time with Mycroft either, as he's hot on the trail of his own personal Moriarty, the enigmatic and sinister Mr. Wild. Rachel is deeply uncomfortable with the whole thing and while Mycroft wants to unmask Mr. Wild before he has a chance to hurt Rachel or Mycroft any further, his continued investigation is just making Rachel feel more unsafe and terrified.

Rachel and her brother Mike spend a little time back at their old, now abandoned farm and Mike's best friend Harris returns to Melbourne with them. He can't help but notice Rachel's PTSD and offers to help her with some self defence. Initially, Rachel gets a panic attack the minute he touches her, but the lessons gradually make her feel more confident and help get her anxiety and fear under control. While Mycroft is away with his aunt, investigating another lead into the identity of Mr. Wild, the body of a dead teenager bearing a striking resemblance to him shows up and both Rachel and the local police suspect someone is trying to send a very creepy message. When another dead teen, this time a girl looking uncannily like Rachel shows up, even Mycroft seems to realise just how much danger they are facing. Mr. Wild claims Mycroft has something he wants, and he's proven himself willing to stop at nothing to get it. Can Rachel and Mycroft unmask him and bring him to justice before it's too late?

In book 2, Every Word, Rachel and Mycroft grew closer and their relationship developed, both physically and emotionally. They faced down some very scary people together and Mycroft started opening up about his feelings about his parents' death and his grief. Yet at the beginning of this book, it's like they've taken a huge step back and are drifting apart, because Rachel is stubbornly trying to deal with her panic attacks, nightmares and anxiety without asking anyone for help and Mycroft has buried himself in the quest to find the man who killed his parents and who was also the employer of the men who kidnapped Rachel in Oxford and put both teens through a hell of an ordeal. Having discovered that his father was working for the secret service, most likely investigating a mole, Mycroft can't let the matter rest, no matter how much danger he may be putting himself, and Rachel in. The search for Mr. Wild is driving a wedge between the couple and it made for some miserable reading.

While Rachel is completely on the outs with her mother, unable to tell her everything about what happened on her England-trip, her brother Mike and her dad know the truth and try to help her as best they can. Rachel's friends are also doing their best to make her feel better, but it's Harris, Mike's best friend, who she hasn't seen in years who has the most success with reaching through to her. Pushing her past her initial fear of being touched and teaching her self defence, he finally provides the one thing that lets her sleep through the night again. Of course, while Rachel isn't really romantically interested in anyone but Mycroft, it's quite clear that Harris provides one third of a potential love triangle and this aspect of the book just annoyed me. Why couldn't he just have been a supportive guy friend, who saw that someone he'd known for a long time was struggling, and wanting to help her without any ulterior motive? It seems that opposite gender characters in YA must have a romantic interest in one another, whether that serves the plot or not.

I had a lot of guy friends growing up, and never fell in love with any of them. I'm pretty convinced that none of them ever harboured a crush on me either, unless they hid that infatuation REALLY well over the years. How is it that platonic friendships between opposite gender teens is such an impossibility? Why do they always end up together, or even worse, in some sort of contrived love triangle? I am a huge fan of romance, but don't think it needs to be an element in everything I read, especially YA books, where a lot of people are still maturing, physically and emotionally, and are unlikely to necessarily be looking for romantic entanglements at all.

While the first two books were quite fast-paced and entertaining, this book dragged in places. There's the first third, where Rachel is understandably traumatised after the events in the last book and trying to find back to herself. There's the new and unnecessary love triangle with Harris, her brother's best friend. There's the physical and emotional distance between Rachel and Mycroft. Then the build-up, where the teens come to terms with how they are going to confront Mr. Wild takes too long. While I was very emotionally connected to the characters (I love Rachel and Mycroft, separately and together), I was a bit impatient with the story and the bit with the murdered look-alike teens veered a bit close to moustache-twirling melodrama from the villain.

The final confrontation is still very tense and my heart was certainly racing, but the book took its sweet time getting there. I must admit, these teens get into some pretty serious scrapes and it's a wonder to me that they can walk at all with the amount of horrible injuries they sustain. Nearly mauled by lions, tortured and interrogated by ruthless kidnappers, chased by a sociopathic murderer through an abandoned quarry - there really is quite the variety of dangerous near-death experiences here.

All in all, I can absolutely recommend this trilogy of YA-mysteries, where Mycroft is clearly modelled rather closely on Bendedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. Rachel is a very engaging and likable heroine, the couple work well as friends who turn into something more and the action in each of the books is certainly a lot more elaborate than I seem to remember from the Nancy Drew books I read growing up. The conclusion wraps up nicely, but is still the weakest of the three books structurally.

Judging a book by its cover: Another rather generic YA cover, with the cover models portraying Mycroft and Rachel looking attractive and loving. I very much doubt I'd pick up the third book if I saw this displayed in a bookstore. The publishers could have done something a bit more fun.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR9 Book 20: "Every Word" by Ellie Marney

Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the second book in a trilogy. While readers could start with this one, I would recommend that they start at the beginning with book 1, Every Breath. There may be mild spoilers for the first book in the series in this review, so if you want to go in completely cold, skip this until you're caught up. 

Rachel Watts has pretty severely grounded after the events that led to both her and her new boyfriend (also her neighbour from two doors' down the street) James Mycroft ending up in a near death situation, having caught the attention of some rather ruthless people while investigating the death of a homeless man. They hardly get any time to themselves, which doesn't exactly decrease the unresolved sexual tension between them. Their developing relationship may be over before it's really had a chance to properly begin, however, when Mycroft suddenly travels to London, leaving Rachel only a short text message, nothing else.

Having lost his parents in a horrific car jacking seven years ago, Mycroft, who despite still being a teenager, is something of a wunderkind of forensic science, has been obsessed with finding out more about their murder. Having been in the car at the time his parents died, he's scarred both physically and emotionally and the reason he persuades his supervisor, Dr. Walsh, to allow him to go along as a consultant to London is that the death in question bears a striking resemblance to the car jacking where his parents were killed. A rare Shakespearean Folio has been stolen from the Bodleian library in Oxford. Now one of the librarians who worked there has been killed in another car jacking, his car driven off the road. Mycroft is convinced the case is linked to that of his parents', not that he's going to tell Dr. Walsh that.

Rachel, however, is fully aware of what Mycroft is doing, and worried about his mental state, she impulsively spends most of her savings on a return ticket to London to follow him. Alicia, her brother's girlfriend, is spending the next three months travelling in Europe, so her first time on a plane ever won't have to be a lonely experience. When she and Alicia track down Mycroft, he's both shocked and dismayed to see her, but can't really make her return to Australia when she followed him halfway across the globe.

Together with Dr Walsh, the teens are able to visit the accident site, and you don't have to be an investigative genius to see that the story that the victim's alleged girlfriend is telling about the accident doesn't match up with the actual evidence on the scene. While the car jacking victim had an alibi when the Shakespeare Folio was stolen, both Rachel and Mycroft suspect that he was involved somehow, and that is why he was driven off the road and shot at. When Rachel takes it upon herself to visit the dead man's work place in Oxford, claiming to be his niece, she finds clues that suggest their theory is correct, but before she can tell anyone about it, she's abducted and wakes up in a remote warehouse. Some very threatening people want to know what she knows about the case, and whether she knows anything about the extremely valuable Folio's location. They're clearly the people responsible for the murder, and everything suggests that if she doesn't come up with something clever, she will be their next victim.

I really rather enjoyed the first book in the series, where we first get introduced to the likable Rachel and her somewhat abrasive, but brilliant neighbour Mycroft, who over the course of their first murder investigation fall in love. If I was fond of them in the first book, my affection and worry for them only grew the further I got into the story of this one. As the two were friends before they became a couple, Rachel is willing to travel the very long distance to England to be with James, even if he's so unhappy to see her there that he breaks up with her. She's honestly not sure how he'll react, but also knows that the whole situation with his parents' death is so fraught for him, and he's so incredibly obsessed with solving their murder that he may put himself at serious risk. She wants to be there for him as emotional support, whether it means losing him as a boyfriend or not.

As Mycroft is clearly teetering on the edge of a breakdown by the time Rachel shows up on the doorstep of his hostel, it's clearly a good idea that she threw caution to the wind and hopped on the first available plane from Melbourne. Chain-smoking and soothing his jangled nerves with far too much alcohol, Mycroft is not entirely reliable, and his supervisor, Dr. Walsh, very much appreciates Rachel's assistance in keeping his mind on the task at hand. As it becomes more and more obvious that the car jacking case involving the Bodleian librarian is indeed most likely linked to that of Mycroft's parents, seven years ago, he just becomes more and more sharpened on his goal. Rachel is frustrated that he refuses to share any of his thoughts and feelings about their actual deaths, though, believing it may help him get some piece of mind, no matter what the outcome of the current investigation.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book, other than Rachel and Mycroft exploring London a bit. I was not expecting the really very creepy and suspenseful turn the book took as Rachel is kidnapped from the Bodleian, by people who believe her to be the dead man's niece. They have already killed to get the missing Shakespeare Folio and are clearly willing to resort to both threats and outright torture to figure out what she knows about the case. Alone, desperate and scared out of her wits, Rachel is in a very bad place and is torn between agreeing to let the kidnappers notify Mycroft, to get him to reveal information that could lead to her release or stay quiet to protect him. There were some really rather unpleasant scenes in the latter half of the book, not exactly for the faint of heart.

As this is the second book in a trilogy, I'm sure the reader will not be surprised when I reveal that neither Rachel nor Mycroft die, though they both go through some real unpleasantness and it's touch and go there for a while (just as in the end of the first book). They also figure out not only who is responsible for the theft of the Folio, but eventually where it's located, as well as getting much further in clearing up the details surrounding Mycroft's parents' murder. That some of their discoveries possibly put them in even more danger than before, even as they return to Melbourne was probably not what they were expecting.

This was absolutely my favourite book in the trilogy. I raced through the latter half, too worried to find out what happened to be able to put the book down. This book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I was glad to have the third book at hand, so I could move onto the resolution as soon as possible.

Judging a book by its cover: I don't exactly think the covers for these books are amazing, but there is a teenage boy and a girl who look vaguely like the description of Rachel and Mycroft, and just so it's immediately obvious to the reader that the action in this book takes place in London, there is Big Ben in the background. The cover is a bit generic, but I've seen a lot worse on YA books.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR7 Book 66: "Every Breath" by Ellie Marney

Page count: 335 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Rachel Watts lives two doors down from the brilliant, troubled and eccentric James Mycroft, the most intelligent boy in school. What he has in abundance in the IQ department, he lacks in social smarts, and as his closest friend, it seems to be Rachel's job to try to keep him out of scrapes with other students at school (who he will frequently inadvertently or purposefully insult) or from getting suspended for breaking school rules. She also tends to bring him food, as he has a tendency to forget to eat when left to his own devices. While he lives with his aunt Angela, they barely speak and seem to have a mostly antagonistic relationship.

Mycroft, who likes to compare himself to his fictional namesake, Sherlock Holmes' older and allegedly smarter brother, has a passion for forensic pathology and frequents message boards online and writes articles, even occasionally consulting on cases, under the name Diogenes. Watts helps him proof-read and edit the articles. When the teenagers find "Homeless Dave", a man they regularly visit and bring food near Melbourne zoo, murdered not far from his local sleeping spot, Mycroft uses everything he knows of forensic experience to document the scene before the police arrive. He later persuades Watts to be his side-kick in earnest, determined to investigate the death that the police undoubtedly won't care much about, as the victim was a homeless nobody.

Rachel used to live with her parents and older brother Mike on a sheep farm in the country. Financial difficulties forced them to sell the farm and relocate to Melbourne, where Rachel's parents and brother work hard to make ends meet. Rachel wants to study agriculture and move back to the countryside, she feels uprooted and unsettled in her new urban surroundings. With her academic achievements, her family want her to go to college and get a proper degree, though. Previously home schooled and used to a solitary life, the bustling corridors of her new high school and the constant stress and noise of the city is making Rachel miserable. Having made good friends in Mycroft and the fierce Mai Ng, as well as Mai's boyfriend Gus, makes her existence more bearable, but she's still not happy in Melbourne.

James (who always goes by Mycroft) is English and lost both his parents in a horrific car crash that left him scarred both physically and emotionally. His aunt Angela is his legal guardian, but they may as well be strangers just living in the same house for all the time they spend together. Mycroft is constantly skirting the edge of having social services investigate his living situation, which while not idyllic, is at least better than a foster home. Mycroft loves mysteries and is a keen observer of everything around him. While fiercely intelligent, he's also low on social graces and frequently pisses off his class mates or gets into trouble with the school management. He's obsessed with finding out the cause of his parents' accident, and frequently emotionally unstable, with Rachel, sometimes aided by Mai and Gus, doing her best to keep him from getting beaten up or expelled.

Rightly surmising that the police are unlikely to expend too many resources on trying to solve the murder of a homeless man, especially one who appears to have been killed for sport, Mycroft insists that he and Watts need to do their best to figure out who's behind the murder. Rachel initially refuses, but is unable to resist the lure of the mystery or Mycroft's charismatic persuasion for long, and soon the two teens are using everything they know of forensic pathology to identify the killer of their homeless friend. Hunting killers is a dangerous hobby, though, and before long Mycroft and Watts are courting danger and find themselves in near-death situations of their own.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that there is also a romantic sub-plot in the book, which is very well done, for all that I'm not sure Rachel should involve herself with someone who is clearly not the most emotionally or mentally stable person (I speak from experience here, Watts). Both Rachel and Mycroft are very engaging protagonists and there is a good supporting cast in the book - Rachel's parents and Mike, her brother, as well as Mai, their loyal friend who more than once uses the legal knowledge she's picked up in school, and Gus, her sweet and funny boyfriend.

I really liked this book, and am going to do my best to track down an e-book store which will legally sell me the sequels online, so I don't have to wait for the US release of the next two books before I can read them.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.