I received a copy from Netgalley.

I snagged this one when it was offered on a read it now for the first 100 members. I take a break from the YA I read for grown up mysteries and thrillers, this one sounded good and the fact it was written by Krysten Ritter caught my attention immediately.

Unfortunately, I just didn’t like this book. The story has been done before in one form or another, there wasn’t any particular character I necessarily liked. Most of them were horrible people. The story line was interesting enough – a small town girl leaves and goes to college, becomes a lawyer and winds up working for a centre for legal advocacy. Something to do with environmental law. Finds herself returning home to investigate a big company who make plastic and give the dying town new life and new employment opportunities. With some nasty side effects to the environment and some of the people who live there.

Nothing unfamiliar. The main character fell fowl of the school’s mean girls. The most popular one who used to be a childhood best friend turned toxic became the queen bee and disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Some sort of sinister Game is hinted at, to do with risqué pictures and blackmail and a whole host of perverted things related to it. There’s something going on and may be related to things that happened when the MC went to high school there, only things have taken a significantly darker turn. And of course there are people who don’t want the past digging up or the MC to connect the dots to what’s really happening.

Technically speaking there wasn’t anything terrible about the way it was written – it had its moment and really managed to capture the small dull life of a town without much going for it. The novel did a pretty good job of showing how horrible people can be behind the smiling facades they put on. Girls who were bullies in high school that don’t learn from it and don’t become good people.  The main character is reasonably level headed and intelligent and the investigation is interesting enough that it kept me wanting to know what was going on. One or two characters had some redeeming moments, but for the most part, nothing stood out.

Overall, it was just okay.

Thank you to Random House UK, Cornerstone for the review copy.

This came together well as an ending to the series. There were a couple of surprises - Charlie's sister, the identity of The Dire King (I pretty much figured this out), and a few loose ends that were never wrapped up - Douglas stays a duck? Overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire series.

If pressed, I think that the second book was the weakest. The historical urban fantasy element was fun, and I would read more books with sort of an aesthetic - it reminded me a little bit of the Fantastic Beasts franchise from a visual sense - merging early American elements with paranormal investigation and a strongly feminist sensibility.

There is some room at the end for additional books in Jackaby's world of New Fiddlesham, but whether William Ritter stays in the familiar place he's created or moves to write about someplace else, I'll give whatever comes next a try!

This is a series that I really enjoy, and it's hard to believe it's taken me this long to pick up the last two books! Abigail Rook and Jackaby are still hard at work as the only paranormal detectives in New Fiddleham, and in this installment of the series they are going to solve a murder - the murder of Jenny Cavanaugh, the resident ghost at 926 Augur Lane. The only difficulty with that prospect is that the murder happened a decade ago.

Jenny Cavanaugh has been one of my favorite characters in a series full of favorite characters, so having her take center stage here was enjoyable. Jackaby and Abigail solve one of the central mysteries of the series, and this third book sets us up for the final book, The Dire King, which I will be starting today.

Today is a work holiday, and I have nothing on my schedule, so my plan at this point is to curl up and read most of the day. I've just put a coffee cake in the over, so my house is filled with aromas of cake and cinnamon, I have a full cup of coffee, everything is warm and bright inside (as opposed to grey and rainy outside).

Bonfire – Sie gehörte nie dazu - 3.5 stars

Oh my goodness, this series is so much fun! I loved this second book every bit as much as the first. It was great to see Abigail assert herself more and get to flex her paleontology muscles and get a glimpse of what might have been had her first fateful dig not failed so miserably. Still, I can’t be anything but grateful for the failure that set her on the path to employment with Jackaby. These two may be my favorite duo of supernatural investigators.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to review this without squeeing inarticulately and dropping heaps of spoilers, so I’ll just say it’s a quick (too quick! I want more!), fun (so much fun!) read and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book.

I read this for the Halloween Bingo 2018 Shifters square.