reading 7 MURDER MYSTERIES in 7 DAYS!

So I like to do this video occasionally where I read seven books in seven days around a certain theme and I always think it's a great idea and I then hate myself for doing it whilst it's happening because I have to read a book a day and then by the end I'm like I should do this more often. I just read seven books in seven days and we're doing it again. We're here again, we're ready, we're back, it's time to do it all over again. Hi, how you doing? We're back and we're ready for it all over again. So yeah, this time we're gonna be reading seven murder mysteries in seven days. I love murder mysteries. If you guys have been here a long time you know I love murder mysteries and I've just been feeling like I haven't been reading enough of them. I haven't been reading enough of them, I haven't been replenishing my soul with enough murder mysteries. We've done this before with seven horror books and seven readathons. We did seven readathons in seven days and that was fun but this is just seven murder mysteries of my choosing, okay? I have full control, we can do this. We were all so happy that day. It's actually hard to even imagine how terrible things would soon become. So in terms of my TBR there's been a few that have been on previous TBR Crudos that I definitely want to make sure I get to. We've got four here. These are definites, these are absolutes, these are happening and you'll be pleased to see they were quite short. So we've got The Woman in the Library by Solari Gentile. This is probably the book I'm most excited to read in this video. I am pumped, I am ready, like let's go. This has been one of my most anticipated books. To give you like a brief synopsis, we don't need to talk about synopsis all of these. It's a book within a book, the book within a book, there's a murder in the library, one of the four strangers sitting around the table commit the murder but they were all sitting there, how did they do it? And then there's the author writing the book, writing letters to someone about the book. I'm confused. It's essentially it. Doesn't that fill you with excitement? Doesn't that get you going? Two series I'd like to make progress in. I'd like to read the next Porro. Good old, good old Agatha. Good old Agatha. Come on, it's not a murder mystery video if I don't read a bit of Agatha. This one is Lord Edgware Dies where I think a woman tells Porro she wants her husband to die and then he dies. So yeah, that's the next in the Porro. I'm up to number nine everyone. Applause please, we're getting there. I would also like to read the next in the Lady Hardcastle mystery series. This might be more a missing person murder mystery but like these are basically murder mysteries, like come on, if you've been here you allow me this. I don't really know much about it, we're on the seaside, I love Lady Hardcastle and Flo, the audiobooks, these are incredible so this will be good for a day when I want to listen to an audiobook. Good for a day when I'm super busy, we are going to read Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper. This is basically a graphic novel taking the mick out of murder mysteries. It's got like the usual suspects, the usual places, like the little village that often exists in murder mysteries. I have been so excited to read this for so long. This and Woman in the Library are probably the two I'm most excited for. So those are like four definites that are absolutely happening. Two that I would like to get to, one because it's short, Six Stories by Matt Wazolowski. This is like a podcast kind of one. I've heard really good things about this. We've got like, I think this teenager was killed and then years on he's trying to like interview the teenagers at the time who were kind of like around him when it happened. I've heard really good things. And I would also like to get to The Murder Game by Tom Hindle. This is the only murder mystery from 2023 that I have so far. I mean it is long so this is going to be for a day when I can just read basically. But it's at this 1920s murder mystery dinner party and someone actually gets killed. So that's six. So today it is Mother's Day here in the UK and I don't want to read a long book today, even though I'm not really doing much, because I've been reading a lot the past couple days. Like I feel like let's do something substantial but not intimidating. I'm thinking why don't we start with Agatha? Because I can listen to the audiobook for this. Priory books are always quite quick. Like they're nice and speedy. So I think let's start with Lord Edgware Dies today. We're not doing loads for Mother's Day. We're just going to the garden centre locally. We're gonna have lunch there and we'll buy some plants and maybe do some gardening. That's basically the plan for today. So yeah, I feel good about reading this. Get the Agatha out of the way and then maybe tomorrow. I feel like maybe tomorrow we read the women in the library. I don't know. Anyways, we're almost about to leave for the garden centre so see ya. Good evening. We had a lovely day. I'm very tired. I dressed for the weather that I wanted, not the weather that actually existed and I got so cold and when I get cold I get really tired and like crabby. Crabby? It's not African-Americanism. Grumpy. I'm about to have a bath. I don't know if you can hear it running. I need to warm up. But I am halfway through Lord Edgware Dies and it's okay. Essentially all you need to know is that this woman comes to Poro going like, I want to divorce my husband. I want to get rid of him. I might even kill him. You know what? You know? I don't believe in the glorification of murder. I do believe in the empowerment of women. And she's asking his help to convince Lord Edgware that they should get a divorce essentially. And then like the next day he's married. And certain people claim to have seen her at the house that night so she is definitely the chief suspect. Who knows? Who knows? It feels like every suspect that we've got it's like too obvious for it to be them. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. But that's basically all you need to know. And I mean it's fine but guess who's here? Guess who's here? Hastings! Hastings! When will I be free? To be fair this is... there's only... I've looked it up. He's in this one. ABC Murders which is in like four books time. And then Curtain which is the last one. I'm almost free of this man. But I didn't think he was in this one and he is. I actually have no objection to him being in a book. Right? Hastings. If you don't know, Hastings is like Poro's friend who narrates a lot of the early early books. And he narrates this one. And he's kind of just like... Poro just said he's like he's kind of like the every generic man. Like he thinks what the generic thing would be to think. Like he's just like... he's dumb. And he always gets offended when Poro speaks the truth to him. I'm like Hastings get a grip. Good god get a grip girl. I don't mind him being in a book. I'm hoping maybe for ABC Murders. I don't know. But I hope for ABC Murders and Curtain he doesn't narrate it but he's just there. Because I have no problem with him being there. It's just being in his head. It's no coincidence that like all of her best books don't have Hastings in them. All of the best Poro books don't have Hastings in them. He can get gone. It's so annoying. Objectively I don't mind him. But I just don't like the books that I read from his perspective as much. You know? Murder of Roger Ackroyd is arguably the best from the early Poro books before Murder on the Urine Express. And guess what? That's the one that doesn't have Poro in it. The one that doesn't have Hastings. But yeah it's a fairly easy mystery. I mean we've met lots of people. It feels like what's going to happen in this one is that all of the suspects seem so obvious. Or at least the suspects that I think it is seem so obvious. And so you think oh no it's way too obvious to be them. And then it's going to end up being them because you discounted them because it was way too obvious to be them. It's what it feels like this is going to be. I feel like for a Hastings one though I am enjoying this a bit more. Like I'm liking I feel like the writing is starting to come into her own a bit more. The way that the book is moving I feel like I prefer to some of the other Poro early ones. So anyways I'm going to finish it tonight. I don't know if I will see you tonight or if I'll just check in with you in the morning because I am quite tired. Yeah maybe I'll just see you in the morning with my thoughts. But I'm definitely going to finish it tonight because I've only got like an hour and a half maybe of reading left to do. Like like if I'm reading it from the page. Yeah ******* Hastings bro. I'm so sorry Hastings. There's nothing against you. You're just annoying. Yeah I want to like you but you're annoying. Good evening everyone. So I finished Lord Edgware Dies last night but it was too late to check in with you and then all day I've been prepping. Oh my gosh let's just move this over a little bit. Um all day I have been prepping for the Agatha Christie disappearance video which is fitting since I just read a video that I'm doing that hopefully is out already by the time this is coming out one would hope. But I've been reading like a lot of books and um like websites and stuff for that and trying to find pictures and newspapers and stuff. So I've done all my research for that today. That took like the whole day. And then tomorrow I'm gonna script and film it hopefully. But anyways so yeah that took up the whole day. It's six o'clock now. Anyways let's talk about Lord Edgware and then we'll talk about what we're gonna read today. I finished this last night and I'm gonna give it a three. Right that's for multiple reasons. Firstly Hastings. Now that's bullying. Did you see that? Turns out he does narrate the ABC murders. I'm hoping since that's such a loved one. Listen I don't dislike Hastings as a person. I just don't like him narrating the books. For me I much enjoy the pro books from the outside perspective not from Hastings being like I just didn't really connect to any of the kind of characters in this book that we met. When I think of the last one I read which was Peril at End House I really enjoyed reading from a lot of those characters. I thought they were really interesting characters. I thought the character group had a really interesting character dynamic. But I found myself forgetting who all these people were and how they were all connected and relating to each other. And I do draw the line at even if this is the 1920s and you know your cousins. I mean it's just your cousin. I don't care. But I did like the end reveal. I thought the end reveal was really good and I enjoyed it and I think it's one of the first ones from Agatha Christie that I've read like this. So I enjoyed the ending. That was it really. I thought the end reveal was good. The last like 40 pages I was into it but for basically the whole rest of that second half from when I last checked in with you last night I was kind of checked out. I was kind of just like I don't care. You know me and Christie, me and Agatha have a mixed relationship. Five stars, one star. I've given her everything in between basically. I've just been trying to figure out what I should read today. Obviously it's quite late and when I woke up this morning I was like I've had enough of reading because I have to read a lot before this video as well in order to get my last one up. But now I'm like oh I don't know the evening's upon us. I'm in the mood. But I need to be realistic with myself. I found this which looks tiny. It is. But I feel like it might be more for me today because I realised there's no rules that I can't start another book today if I finish one. There's We're gonna read An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good. So I think that's we figured out what the seven books are because we've yeah we spoke about all of them. This was recommended to me by one of my patrons. We're following Maud who's an 88 year old woman and I believe this is a series of short stories actually about like her dealing with like murder and ----. So I need to do some cooking tonight, some stuff that I can listen to the audiobook with. The audiobook is only three hours long. So I'm probably gonna do a mix of I'll start it off with the audiobook and then I'll read it physically along with the audiobook afterwards. But yeah I think I'm gonna start with this because it's late. I'm feeling a little bit tired. I want to go to bed early so that I can like smash it tomorrow with this Agatha Christie video. A lot of this video I'm not going to be doing a lot of my life because I'm just trying to get this Agatha Christie video done. I'm not going to be doing exciting things for you in this seven books in seven days. It's quite late. I need to talk quietly because all my family are asleep. It's 20 past 10 and I'm just doing some skincare and I just finished the book. I thought I'd chat to you about it. So I finished An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good. I was deceived. I have been deceived. I don't know if telling you what this is is a spoiler. No on their back it says Maud has no qualms about a little murder. That's putting it lightly. Like this is a series of short stories and this also gives us like the last short story. But I had such a fun time reading this book. I had the most fun. A Little Bit of Murder is so much fun. It's so much fun. Yeah I'm gonna give this four stars. I loved this. I really did enjoy it. It is such a short little cute collection of short stories about this little old woman who definitely has no qualms about committing a little murder and honestly like I love women having hobbies. Apologies we can hear my candle by the way. I'm making sure it doesn't tunnel so I'm still burning it. Yeah I really enjoyed all the short stories in this. I was gagged. I didn't know where this book was gonna go because I hadn't read the back properly and I was gagged and gooped. I was all over the place. I really enjoyed it. I loved the writing. The writing itself. I think this author is Swedish and I hope I'm correct in saying that author of Beartown is Swedish and the writing felt very similar to me. Perhaps it's how Swedish is translated to English and how that that linguistically feels because their writing felt very similar in a good way. I really enjoyed the writing. It was just fun. It was just a ******* barrel of laughs. Murder is a barrel of laughs. I just love I love reading about old people as well. Listen Maud's living her life. She's doing what she gotta do. She's doing you know perhaps a little bit delusional. Perhaps a bit paranoid but girly. She does what she needs to do. Girl boss. Yeah there's not much for me to say to you about it because I don't want to spoil anything more than what I've already told you. Again I feel you know I feel like I haven't told you anything that's not in the back. You know really if I'd bothered to read this properly would have been a problemo. The audiobook was really good as well. I really really enjoyed the audiobook. I listened to all of it via the audiobook and read along I'd say for the second half and the narrator was really really good and this is a series. There is a second one. I'm debating whether I am actually going to get the physical version or whether I just listened to audiobook for the second one. I'll definitely finish the series off this year um but yeah I don't know if I will just get the audiobook. I don't like having an incomplete series so maybe I will. I'll get the second one physically as well. Two books down my loves. One no not one to go five to go. What we read tomorrow is going to depend on strategically how the day goes. So I'm going to wake up. I'm going to script the Agatha Christie video. I'm going to film the Agatha Christie video. Then I decide is it a better use of my time to read a longer book like let's read the woman in the library tomorrow. I have got reading sprints at five with my patrons or is it a better use of time to try and edit as much of the uh the video the Agatha Christie video tomorrow. Like say if I finish filming like 12 I'm gonna edit. In which case we would probably read six stories tomorrow. I don't know we'll see which of these we read tomorrow. It'll be one of these two I would imagine. I feel like I keep saying I'm gonna read this and keep paying it off because I am so excited to read it. I'm scared what if it doesn't live up and I want to make it the perfect condition. Okay hi. So I just finished filming the Agatha Christie disappearance video. It's almost five o'clock. It's taken me the whole day to script and film that. The script for it was almost 4,000 words long. That's me cutting down from like a document that's about 12,000 words of research. Then making the timeline for myself and then scripting it. So I'm pretty pretty tired. Get your ass up and work. But I have got reading sprints and I feel like none of the books fit the length of time I have to read. Like I don't want to. I'm tired. But I have got reading sprints but I have got to wash my hair tonight and that's I mean I wash it every other night. It's an Olympic sport washing my hair. Okay if I'm being honest with you I am torn between two of the books I'm most excited to read. Which oh ----. Which are Women in the Library and Six Stories. The pro about Six Stories is I have an audiobook and it's a full cast audiobook and I've heard such wonderful things about this audiobook. It's like a podcast. So part of me is thinking that but then part of me is just thinking let's just get into Women in the Library. If I don't finish it today like it's not the end of the world because as long as I read seven books in seven days I would like to keep it to a book a day. But like if I read Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered that's just too quick for today. We don't have a super quick book but I've done all the middle of the road books. I'm impatient like that. Do I go with this or do I go with the No we're gonna go with Women in the Library. I've got a fair amount of time to read today. It's only almost five o'clock so I'm gonna go with this even though I don't have the audiobook. This is one of the books I'm most excited to read and it's not long it's 250 pages although the font isn't large. Okay right let's go. I'm gonna pop out in the garden for a second get some fresh air and then this prince will start and I will start this. Um it's really late. It's like nine o'clock. Oh you can see my pyjamas and my clothes my exercise clothes. Anyways I you know everyone has clothes that you've only worn for like an hour and they're still clean. That's where they go. Anyways it's nine o'clock and I'm about to have a bath. I need to wash my hair. I'm gonna wash my hair. It's taken me a bit longer to do the sprints and eat. I just ate. I just ate for ages but I am halfway through Women in the Library so I haven't done badly. Even if I don't finish this tonight I reckon I'll get at least like halfway through the next half. So I'll get I reckon at least three quarters of the way through. I'm really enjoying this. Let me try and give you the simple- I'm not even gonna try and get deep into the synopsis. I'm gonna give you the simplest explanation. We have got a character writing letters to their author friend. Okay that's plot number one. They're writing letters. That author friend is a famous author. They are sending back chapters of their current work in progress to the first character. So they're like sending them a chapter and then at the end of the chapter we have a letter from that first character going oh that's so great this is what I think about x y and z. And in that book that she's sending chapters of the character is writing a book. Let's just get our heads around that for a second. Everyone just sit in silence and think about that because it's a lot. But I'm really enjoying it. And so in the chapters that's where the main plot is happening. Like the the chapters that are being sent. In the first chapter I think a group of characters are at this library table and they hear a scream and it turns out someone was murdered. And we find out at the end of that chapter that one of the people sitting at that table was the murderer. But how did they do that when they were sitting there? And I think the the murder was like blunt force trauma to the head. It wasn't like poisoning or something. So what's the trill? I'm just enjoying it. It's fun. It's ridiculous. It's campy. It's over the top. The inception of like reading the chapter and the author. The author in the chapters is writing a book about the other characters in the chapter. Like inspired by them. It is so much. And I'm having a lot of fun reading the chapter and then getting the letter from the friend saying oh it's so interesting. I think the murderer is this. This murderer is this. Because it's making me kind of pick up on things I didn't think about. Or making me theorize more. It's also fun knowing one of these four characters the murderer because you're looking at everything they do in great detail. I feel like at the moment there's an obvious choice and it's not gonna be that person. It's not gonna be that person. I can see why this hasn't got the best reviews. It's got like a 3.5. I think this is marmite to the heavens. Like it is so you're gonna love it or hate it. You know? It's a very interesting style of writing because the book is written. I think if I read a book that was the chapters which is the main portion of the book. It was just a book like that. The writing would piss me off. Because the writing is kind of pretentious and like self-aware. But because of this whole concept of like the author is a character. And the author is conversing with this person in the emails. Are you still with me? It makes it fun. It makes it interesting. Like stuff is starting to happen that is just ridiculous. So it's like the metaness. If I read a book of this I wouldn't vibe. Oh that's what I was gonna say to you. I was mistaken because I thought the whole book was gonna be them sat at that table in the library. That's only the first chapter. I thought they were gonna be like no one can leave. You have to sit here. And it's just gonna be through like conversations. That kind of maybe would have been boring. But just through like conversations with each other that we figure it out. But no this is like over the period of weeks and weeks and weeks. But yeah I'm having fun. I don't think this is gonna be a five star. But I've been excited to read this for a long time. Not because I thought it was gonna be a five star. But because I like modern murder mysteries that take the genre and twist it. And do something interesting and different and new with it. And this is new. I mean it's difficult. I don't even know if you guys have the foggiest as to what I've just explained. As soon as you read it you get it. But like trying to explain it is like a book within a book within a book. But I've made really good progress. And like I said I'll probably get at least three quarters of the way through. Because once you get into this this is a super quick read. Okay so you may be thinking Megan a day's missing. And you'd be correct. I did finish The Woman in the Library last night. But I finished it at like 11 30. So I did read across two days. That's okay. We can read two books today. Or at least try to. Let me not make promises. Final thoughts on this bad boy. I'm gonna give it a four. Maybe it's a 3.75. But I think a four. I think it's a really fun book. Like I was saying before I just loved the new take on a murder mystery this was taking. The letters that Leo the friend is writing to her at the end of each chapter start getting a bit bad vibes. And I really liked that. And I thought it was interesting. It was both a pro and a con. Like seeing the character of her who we never really see. The author. The character of the author. Kind of bleed into the book. The chapters that we're reading. And sometimes I liked that. And sometimes I thought okay it's getting in the way of this being a great book now. Do you know what I mean? I'm not sure what the balance of that was. I had a super fun time reading it on the whole. But I would say I have a few too many. It's been a long day guys. I spent. Okay yesterday I spent. We'll get into critiques in a second. I spent the whole of yesterday editing this Agatha Christie vlog. And then I've only just finished now. And it's like half three. Usually a video. Like a non-vlog video would take me a day's worth of work to plan, film, edit. This. If you count up me doing the research months ago. It's at least like five days of work to make this video. I'm really happy with it. I'm really proud of it. I'm so happy I've finally done it because I've wanted to do it for ages. So now we're finally free. I'm feeling more like a human again. And we're ready to do the rest of this vlog. So anyways what was I saying? Yeah a few critiques I have of it is I did feel like the ending was really rushed. It was making me a bit anxious. Like we were like 16 pages from the end. I was like how is this gonna end? Clap if you have anxiety. I do appreciate an ending that doesn't have loads of unnecessary stuff at the end. Like when you've- the ending is happening and you still like 40 pages of the book is totally unnecessary. But in this I was like okay. And then the ending just kind of happened. And I didn't feel like we had a good build up to the ending. It felt like we were kind of on the same level. Same level. And then suddenly it ends. Do you know what I mean? It didn't feel like we really built the ending. And I will say you know that one of these- well really three characters. So you have the protagonist in the story and then three friends. And you know it's one of those friends who is the murderer. And so it's this really tight pool of people to suspect. And then one of the characters is kind of like the obvious suspect. And so I obviously didn't suspect them. So that leaves like two people. And so then when the murder is revealed you're like yeah I knew that guys. Knew that. Because you've kind of- having so few characters to theorise as to their motivations and why they did it and how they did it leaves you with very little options. You know what I mean? I always say with a good murder mystery you want like six suspects. Five suspects. Being left with really I would say only two was like it's obvious. So that kind of drew- was a drawback for me. At the end I was like I know who it's gonna be. I know how it's gonna happen. But I will give it a four because I thought it was such a fun book. You know? Such a fun imaginative book. But I am a little bit disappointed because this was like a five star prediction. It wasn't bad. And I can see, like I said before, why so many people haven't enjoyed this because of the style of writing. Because it's kind of like everything's in on the joke. It's not a joke but you know everything is like in this concept and everything is fed through the lens of this concept. I can see why people don't love it. So plan for today. I have actually just started as I was getting ready. Speak Megan. I feel like I've been like this editing little gremlin for the past couple days and I've forgotten how to speak. I just started this The Murder Game by Tom Hindle. I don't know much about it. I can't tell you much yet. So I'll check in with you and I'm about halfway through this. And then if we do have time we'll read Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village tonight. But we can also double up with this on Friday or Saturday. Do you know what I mean? It doesn't have to happen today. So we're definitely gonna read this today and this will be the book that we read when we read two books in one day over the next couple days. I'm gonna go read some of this. I'll let you know what I think when I'm about halfway through. I just stumbled across a strange moment on the audiobook. Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay um I am so bored. So bored. Bored shitless. Okay let me tell you the plot. Basically what you need to know is we've got these characters from this small town going to this New Year's Eve party that is... I've got this annoying hair in my face. Okay. That is like a 1920s murder mystery party. They all kind of know each other. There's this drama with this lighthouse that someone's converting. There's secrets from the past. There seems to be multiple secrets in the past. I don't really know what's going on there. That's all you need to know. And I'm just bored. I think there's something about Tom Hindle's books that just don't do it for me. If this doesn't pick up I'm not gonna pick up another Tom Hindle. I'm just not gonna do it to myself. But neither of his books are bad, right? This and The Fatal Crossing, which I read last year, they're not bad. I just don't care. Do you know what I mean? I'm not reading it going, oh this writing's bad or whatever. I just feel like his characters... actually I think that's what it is. His characters feel so anonymous. I couldn't even tell you who half these people are. There's too many of them and they're all... I don't give a ****. They have no characterization and so I just don't care. His books are just boring. I can't root for, oh I hope it's not this person or I hope it's that person or I think it's this person if I don't know who any of them are. I'm just feeling bored. I'm not loving the audiobook narrator. I'm still gonna listen to it via the audiobook because I don't think not listening to it via the audiobook would help much. But the audiobook narrator is being posh for a moment but it's trying to put on like a London accent for some of the characters. Particularly like for a rich character but it's like a bruv. I'm trying to find, I need to, I can't do it. The two of you have some history. I can't, no I can't, that's not it. But like putting on like a kind of rougher London accent for this like posh character and I'm like, does that make any sense? We're halfway through and the murder has only just happened and you're telling me, you're setting this a 1920s murder mystery party, like that's the hook. But that doesn't happen. Like because the murder happens right as he's giving them the opening speech of this murder mystery party. So no one's gonna be concerned about figuring out the clues. I thought we could... I was angry. I was angry. The idea of a murder mystery party, like my, oh gosh, it's so camp, so fun. But you've lured me in and it might as well not been there because it just wasn't happening. It could be any other New Year's Eve party because guess what, the murder mystery thing doesn't happen at all. No one gets into characters, no one looks for some clues, so much potential wasted. Like there could have been a murder halfway through the murder mystery party and people trying to figure out if it's a real murder or if it's not, like see a murder and then is that something for the, like for the clues or is, and like one of the characters has gone missing and were they in on the plot of the murder mystery party or has it been an actual murder? I can't even get my words out because I'm excited. Think of the possibilities, think of the drama, think of the range. And we're not getting any of that. I'm just gonna go ahead and finish it. I think it's, it seems big but listening at my normal like reading with the book pace, it's only gonna take me like an hour and a half of reading to finish this. So I'm just gonna get it done and it's done. I'm really sad. This was the only 2023 murder mystery that I own that's come out that I wanted to read so far that I haven't already read and it's disappointing. I am not kidding. Uh when I tell you, I'm debating giving this one star. I think I'm gonna give it one star. I, I know I was saying in the last clip, I don't think Tom Hindle's books are bad. I don't think I have anything good to say about this book. I don't, here's the thing, right. I don't think, it's not the worst writing I've ever read, although we'll get onto that, but I just think it's a crime for a murder mystery with this fun of sounding premise to be this boring. Like you actually have to go out of your way, in my opinion, to make it this boring. Like you gave me nothing, nothing. Nothing was bought, nothing was given. I kept getting so annoyed with how these characters are acting. You know when a character like acts in the most stupid freaking way possible just to help the story and what the author, and make it more convenient? Like there's a policewoman in this who ends up turning up and firstly she does stupid stuff throughout the book. But when she starts like accusing people, it's fairly obvious that that person is being framed. Like they have a clean alibi for the murder. Like it's literally not possible and she's like, it's you. And I'm just like, you are pissing me off. And this, this person is obviously in deep, just a very anxious person, deep distress. And she's like being meaner and meaner to them. And it really annoyed me. If I'm being honest, I'm a bit pissed off about it. A book hasn't irritated me like this in a long time. I feel like my time has been wasted. My money has been wasted. I'm going to give it one star. Usually I reserve one star to books that I think are like offensive. There's nothing offensive in this, but I, I am angry. I don't know what to tell you. Like it's pissed me off. This whole book has pissed me off. And it's more just the fact that it is so boring. Like nothing happened. I thought the dialogue was pretty bad. The characters, I couldn't tell you any of these people are, they are all boring. They all have no characterisation. The reveal of who it is, okay, yeah, a little bit of a gag, but not really. Like boring, boring, tomato, tomato. I just, I'm upset. I don't have anything else to say to you. I don't, I want to pretend this didn't happen. Can we all do that? Just the way these characters would talk. It was so fake. No one speaks like this. That is something I can't forgive in a book. When it just feels cringe. Cringe. Cringe and boring. That's kind of unforgivable for a man of mystery in my book. I can't believe I've given that a one star. That might be my first one star of the year. Anyways, so two days to read the three books remaining. We can do this. I think I'm going to save Death Beside the Seaside and Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered for tomorrow. And it's about, what time is it? It's almost four o'clock. I'm going to focus on reading six stories this afternoon and evening. I don't really know much about this, so I'll give you the plot synopsis when I'm about halfway through. But my God, anything is better than what I've just read. I am fuming, fuming. All right, good morning. So I finished off six stories this morning. I read most of it last night, but I finished it off this morning. And you'd be thinking, Megan, you didn't check in halfway. That's because I, for most of reading this book, I didn't know how I was feeling about it. And to be honest, I still don't know how I was feeling about it. Anyways, I'm going to do my skincare and chat to you, and then I'll tell you about our plans for today, because obviously it's our last day. So six stories is basically about a boy whose body was found in the 1990s. My mouth is open. I did that because I was talking. I'm not very good at multitasking. I should learn this by now. I can't redo these two things at once. Yeah, his body was found in the 1990s, and it is a podcaster going back and doing interviews with a lot of the people who knew him. He was kind of part of this nature group with these adults and kids. So it's really just adults and kids from that group being interviewed and trying to kind of get to the bottom of what happened. That's basically all you need to know. It's not like, where all the interviews are kind of like mixed in together. Each interview is separate. And I think that was the sticking point for me. I think I'm going to give this three stars. It wasn't bad, but I just didn't love it. Like, I feel like a lot of people have been loving it. And I think it's because each of those interviews being separate, it felt like there was no tension. Each of them were like 40 pages long, and it kind of just felt like they dragged on. And I didn't feel like there was any tension being built, or just being told the same story kind of over and over again with little new nuggets being revealed, which were interesting. I didn't dislike this, but I was just kind of like, okay. You know what I mean? I didn't, I don't know. It didn't do for me what I feel like it's doing for a lot of people. You see the snail slime? Yes, I am putting snail slime on my face. So I don't really have, I feel like I don't have much to say to you. It was kind of just fine. Like, I just read it and I was like, okay. Like, I'm not going to remember this going forward. I'm not going to continue on with the series. There's like six books in the series. I'm okay. I'm good. I don't need more. I don't think it was bad, but I think maybe there's just something about the writing that I didn't personally click with. That's kind of, I don't know what to say to you. The characters were fine, but I didn't feel like any of them were like, I don't know, there was one called Anya? Anyu? And she was kind of my favourite character. She was the fifth interview, but by then I was just like, not super interested. There's just these few small scenes that we heard about over and over again, and they just weren't that interesting to me. So that's that on that. Don't mind me, I'm just putting my eye cream on, but I just realised I need to hold stuff up to talk to you. Okay, so we've got two days. No, we've got one day left. We need to read two books today, and oh, I've got to hold stuff up. Quickly, eye cream. I'm definitely going to read Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village tonight. I'm going out for a walk today, most of the day, with Tom's family, and probably have dinner around there, so I'll try and read that when I get home. But I was supposed to be reading Death Beside the Seaside by T.E. Kinsey today, but I'm just not feeling it. That's fairly long. It's a fairly long Lady Hardcastle, and I'm just feeling, like, read out, you know? The trouble with these videos, like, I'm always happy after I've done them because I've read seven books in seven days, but I just don't think I read this much. Actually, no, here's the thing. I wouldn't feel like this. I wouldn't feel like, oh, I've read so much, I'm kind of, like, my brain is kind of read out if I had read, like, one or two books with the same amount of pages as I've read. But it's, I think it's for me consuming so many different stories. I've read a lot of shorter books, and I've consumed so many characters, so many plots, so many information that it's kind of too much. If it had just been, like, two books with the same amount of page lengths, I wouldn't feel like this, but it's the consuming of so many stories. So I love the Lady Hardcastle mysteries, and I just don't want to read this while I'm in that kind of mood. So I was asking some of my patrons, I was like, what should I read? Does anyone have any short murder mystery recommendations? And we were kind of struggling to come up with anything, and I was like, I don't know, maybe I'll read the next in the L.D. Lady series, the one that I read earlier in the week, but it's not really a murder mystery. I would be kind of, like, breaking the rules a bit. The rules don't apply. And part of me was like, I'm okay breaking the rules, so I was gonna do that. And then one of my patrons, was it Sophie? I feel like it was Sophie. Let me check on the discord. Yeah, Sophie recommended A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell. Looked up the audiobook and it's only an hour long, so it's easy to do, but I'm like, okay. So this is like a play or a short story by Susan Glaspell. I'm gonna be honest, I don't know anything about it. Is that really bad? Is she a really famous feminist OG author from back in the day? I think this was published in the 60s? That is not correct. But yeah, it's just like this short story about these two women who tried to solve a murder that this detective can't. And I'm all for, what? I haven't got a spot on my chin. Guys, I never get spots and recently I've just been breaking out loads and I don't know why. Maybe it's something, maybe one item of skincare I'm using doesn't agree with me, but I don't know how to discern what. I never get spots and suddenly we're breaking out. I don't know if you've noticed the past couple weeks. Yeah, I'm all for reading a book that I knew nothing about. One of my favourite books and series, A Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, I picked up the audiobook on a whim. I've never heard about it. It was because I needed, I think, a murder mystery for a video and I didn't have any more and I just looked around and I picked that up. So yeah, I'm just going to do my makeup and then I'm going to make some food and I'm going to listen to Drew of Her Peers, which is going to take me like half an hour, which is great. I'll see you in a bit. Hopefully I can chat to you before we go out on the walk and then we'll go out on the walk and then I'll come home and I will read You Guys Are Not Getting Murdered Tonight. We're just about to go out for a walk. Can you see me? Yeah, you can. Just about to go for the walk, but I just finished that short story. So I thought I'd tell you about it as I packed up my bag. It's literally like 40 pages long. I don't know why I told you it was written in 19... what did I tell you? 1960s? Yeah, 1917. Is it 1-7? Basically, all you need to know about this is that a woman's husband has been murdered and she's accused of killing him. It's kind of in this rural town where everyone knows each other and the sheriff and like the... I can't remember. There's these men, these detectives, who have gone to the house to try and find clues as to what's happened. These women have gone with them. One, I think, is the sheriff's wife. One's maybe the farmer's wife. I'm not sure, but they've both gone there and they're kind of tasked with going through her stuff while they look for the proper clues and it ends up being a book where, you know, the detectives think they're the good guys and they're trying to find justice when really it's the women who are finding justice through their knowledge of what women are like and through looking through this woman's things and I really enjoyed it. I'm giving it four stars. I think this is a great little short story and I also think for the time it was written it's fairly radical in what it's saying and I don't want to spoil anything but listen, they're here for the women. Women protecting each other. Women like... I loved it and I loved how it showed the detectives thinking they were the ones who were helping and they were the ones who were going to solve this but it was the women. It was the women. So yeah, I think for what it was saying in 1917 about good versus bad, good versus evil, what justice is, what is justice, what is... yeah, what justice should be brought on someone for their actions when you take in a full picture, I thought was great. I really enjoyed it and I can't believe this was written in 1917. So thank you Sophie for the recommendation because it didn't take me long to read. I just read it, listened to the audiobook while I was making and eating lunch and I really enjoyed it. So woohoo, we're gonna read Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered after I come back from the walk and from around Tom's house. So I'll see you this evening. Bye! I just finished Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper and I'm gonna give this five stars. For what it is, I knew I'd be obsessed with this and I am obsessed with it. It's basically just taking the mick out of people, events and locations in both the village of a Quaint English Village and the manor house in a Quaint English Village and just making kind of the murder mystery genre in general and I just thought it was so fun. I loved it. Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular. I loved the illustrations, I loved the sense of humour, I thought it was really funny. There was like a lot of good like referencing throughout the book, there was common strands of thought and of reference, like there was a lot about the vicar again and again or like when we're in the manor there was a lot of references to the characters we had there and how they were all intertwined. I thought it was just really fun and in the pictures there'd often be anything that was like a murder weapon would be coloured red and I thought that was just like a really fun little thing. Otherwise it was black and white but there'd be little murder weapons with like red on them and I thought that was really fun. Oh my god, also, height of camp. There was quizzes. At the end there's like two sections in this, the village and the manor, and at the end each of them is like a quiz to see whether you'd survive. It's just so fun, it's so fun. Like putting what you've just read to the test, I was like oh my god I love this, I feel like I'm the top student. I loved it, I knew I would love this, I think this is something that's just gonna be really fun to reread now and then. Again like I love the sense of humour, I thought it was really funny, really humorous. The quizzes were a nice little added special touch. I mean there's not much I can say to you because it literally took me maybe 20 minutes to read but I'm obsessed. I loved it. Maureen Johnson, Jay Cooper, please come out with more. I would like have 20 of these, I'm not even kidding, it's so much fun. That brings this to the end. I read seven books in seven days, we did it, even if it- I'm lucky I did not read Lady Hardcastle Day because I would not have had time. This wasn't the most successful vlog, I don't think. It wasn't bad when you think of it but we did have some duds and we had like a few like three stars so let me rank these. This is my ranking of the books that we read with the short story um was it again? I can't remember. Jury of Her Peers. I would say maybe for what it was I would say above Woman in the Library because I didn't really have any problems with the short story. I thought it was great for what it was whereas I did have problems with that so I put it in there so a lot of shorter things worked for me. The more you think about it perhaps a one star for this is harsh but it's just how I feel in my bones. I don't think I've ever given out a one star like that, it's always a book that's like offended me personally I would give a one star but like being this boring has offended me personally so that is me done with Tom Hindle. I'm sad I didn't love this more but I still had a really fun time. This was kind of the big most anticipated book that I was reading in this vlog. I wish I'd loved it a little bit more but I still think it was really fun and out of all of what we read probably the most unique with what it was doing. I've never read another book like this and the layers that this had so yeah those were the books that we read. I'm ready to like not read for a day just to refresh my life. I'm gonna have a bath for now and play some Cozy Grove. It's been weeks I haven't I've been so busy with what I've had to read for videos the past couple weeks I haven't played Cozy Grove in weeks weeks! So that's my evening but thank you guys for watching this video um I had a lot of fun making it it's always a struggle reading seven books in seven days but I had a lot of fun. I have a few more of these planned throughout the year I think we've got at least two more coming throughout the rest of the year so I hope you guys enjoy them I think they're always a bit of fun even if they are kind of torture for me to do that's like part of the fun and yeah if you got to the end comment a magnifying glass emoji down below and I love you and I'll see you very soon bye