Bestselling author Alexandra Christo, author of TikTok sensation To Kill a Kingdom, introduces her new book, The Night Hunt (Hot Key Books), a dark...

For a thriller, it did the job. It was faced paced and you couldn’t predict what would happen next. No no. No no. Instead - INSTEAD - it turns out that we’ve got an unreliable narrator on our hands and she’s just been LYING to us this whole time 😱 Like girlie straight up has been like “they’re dead 😮” when she MURDERED them??? Like okay then 🤷‍♀️ My first impressions of the book was that it was quite creepy and scary, but if fear is not your thing don’t let this put you off because, as the story progresses, there are intervals in the book that aren’t as creepy. The winners of the Diverse Book Awards 2023 have been announced, with one winner from each of the four categories announced: Picture book, Children...

Alles is gewoon vrij onlogisch, het boek is te beschrijvend like letterlijk de details van een theekopje worden nog verteld, er zijn allerlei moorden maar alleen in t eerste begin en de laatste paar paginas van t boek, en alsnog was t niet echt thrilling ofso. Tussendoor gebeurd er ook echt saus en de auteur probeert t Interessant te maken maar er gebeurd gewoon niks. Morton Academy is a school for specially selected, high-achieving students. Being chosen as Head Girl is an incredible honour, and everyone wants to be the successful candidate. But when Head Girls start dying in unusual and violent ways, it becomes obvious that there is a serial killer loose in the school. Liv and her friends Kat, Taylor, Marcus and Cole are determined to discover what is going on, and begin to investigate. It soon becomes apparent that no one is safe from the killer, and that becoming Head Girl may not be such a prize after all. Add in a secret society, Jewel and Bone, and an enthralling story begins. I would have preferred for the plot that the characters were coming up with to have played out as it would’ve meant the killer had way more motive and the twist could still have been there in some way, but would’ve felt much less of a stretch. Vivid prose by Murphy spins a suspenseful plot to craft a dark-academia flavored high school slasher littered with convincing twists and foreshadowing.”— PW So, Cole was my guy. There’s NO WAY that someone can be this much of a nice person and not be sus. I flat out thought that was going to be the premise of this was that Liz was going to be like “Oh nO - *betrayal*”.

A lethal, high-stakes thriller that gave me whiplash and trust issues.”—Natasha Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fear Cynthia Murphy cleverly weaves together teen drama and the dark side of ambition in this twisty thriller. Win Lose Kill Die will keep you up at night with its swoony romance, unpredictable mysteries, and impressive body count. Witty, atmospheric, and a little bit evil.”—Kathryn Foxfield, author of Good Girls Die First Another aspect I really liked about the book was the way in which it kept switching between the two characters who were narrating the story. This made the book more intriguing because it made me wonder even more about the people who did the things in the book (trying not to give too much away here!) because I knew how they felt about it and how they had done it. It also made me wonder what they would do next and why they would do it because I was able to get into the mind of the characters.Dapo Adeola, Tracy Darnton, Joseph Coelho and Chitra Soundar are among the 19 authors and illustrators longlisted for the Inclusive Books for Child... I’m working on three different projects, two of which will be out this year, and I have some exciting events booked in, including an appearance at Lancashire Lit Fest. SPOILER) Het enige positieve is is dat er een goeie twist zit aan t einde en dat is dat de hoofdkarakter uiteindelijk de moordenaar bleek te zijn wat je dus zelf als lezer ook niet wist. The chapters we are reading, the normal ones, don’t seem to indicate that she isn’t scared, that she knows who did it. Like her tone does seem frightened and scared and wanting to find out who did it. She offers to search around and look for things, just for her to what? get caught? it doesn’t make much sense. The whole bathroom scene, why would she lie to us the readers about the steam in the mirror. Maybe it’s be different if she just said it, but she was lying in her first person perspective— it just didn’t make sense. And her whole personality just changed at the end, we didn’t see any of this side of her at all— there was no foreshadowing no anything.

And like why would she want to START the investigation? Like girly was out here like “gotta do our part to get justice for our friends ⭐️” when SHE COULD GET CAUGHT??? Is it just some thrill of the chase thing??? And then, Cole was ALWAYS the one that was there - he found Frank, he found Kat, he had ample opportunity to get to Taylor and he was there that night with Jameela. Then I thought it might be Marcus cause like… he seemed a bit shady, too good to be true (turns out he was just awesome). And he has the tiger balm, he was initially trying to get them to drop the investigation, ya know, stereotypical suspicious behaviour. The circle of suspects tightens, and only a few remain untouched. Even their trusted teacher may harbor dark secrets from her past and family history, making her a potential perpetrator. Liz must uncover the mastermind behind this sinister scheme to protect everyone, but can she do it on her own? In this atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty, no one is above suspicion, and nothing is as it seems. The characters were only loosely developed, it was hard to care what half of them were doing and primary and secondary characters felt like they kept switching. There was a romantic interest that didn’t really add much to the story.A mixture of working in schools, exploring power dynamics in friendships and my love of a claustrophobic setting. I wanted to write something that made you fall in love with the characters and then devastate you when something bad happened… There are so many suspects - the enigmatic Headmistress, Dr Patel, and the odd groundskeeper, Creepy Billy, with his love of unusual, sometimes poisonous plants, and handsome new boy, Cole, who becomes Liz's boyfriend, that the reader is constantly kept guessing. The story concludes with a very clever twist, which I doubt few readers will see coming. All in all, a highly recommended thriller which will be a huge hit with teenage readers. For a brief moment, I though it could be Kat (once again, the Tiger balm, amongst other things, like the bathroom message). How do you come up with your plot and characters, do they develop over time or do you plan exactly what is going to happen and all about the characters before you start writing?