Grave Expectations: The hilarious and gripping BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick for 2023

Product Information

Claire can see ghosts from the time her dead friend started making appearances ever since they were teenagers. When she discovers a ghost that has some unfinished business at the party house, Claire decides to solve the murder. And so she, Sophie, Basher (an excop) and Alex set about on a wild goose chase to unravel the mystery. Basher and Alex belong to the family that invited Claire to perform a seance and perhaps the only two normal people from that clan. As the story goes on, I found it so difficult to stay connected to the characters. I started to find everyone annoying, especially the protagonist and her ghost friend. I also thought the plot was very good. The fact that they don’t actually know who has been murdered makes solving the mystery much more difficult, and there are red-herrings and distractions galore. I really loved it.

Clever,unpredictableand agenuinely humorousmodern day country house murder mystery which left me guessing.” A very funny, entertaining, twisted take on the country house murder mystery. Wonderful.' -- S J Bennett

Comments

Claire and Sophie are best friends, inseparable you might say. Unfortunately that’s because Sophie is a ghost & she’s been haunting Claire since her murder at 17. Claire can now see & speak to a multitude of ghosts, and is trying to earn a living as a professional medium carrying out seances. This is a mystery with a paranormal twist as several ghosts help out along the way. Claire & Sophie are still best friends even though one of them is dead & some of their conversations are like those conducted between slightly exasperated siblings. The mystery itself is rather thin, there's not a great deal of actual detecting even though Claire is a self-confessed crime show addict. There were one or two laugh out loud bits though - I particularly liked the misheard Spice Girls lyrics one. Yes, it lost its way a little in the middle but overall it was a nice little paranormal mystery with a humorous edge. 3.5 stars (rounded up) I really liked all the characters, especially Claire, Sophie and Alex. They all felt completely realistic even with their various eccentricities and there were some parts that made me genuinely laugh out loud. Although the story is primarily a mystery, it is very character driven and we spend a lot of time with the characters as their relationships develop. This slowed the pace down a bit, but also added an extra dimension and helped me to be more invested in the outcome.

This really reminded me of the Glass Onion series of films, which I watched recently and loved. A central character, Claire, full of fun and wit, embroiled in a classic ‘whodunnit’ with a small mix of suspects tied together by familial bonds and secrecy. The premise of Claire being a medium and talking to ghosts sounds completely ridiculous, but turned out to be really fun. The ghosts she communicates with are sassy, sarcastic and funny, with their own quirky personalities and behaviours. Particularly the ghost of 17-year-old Sophie, Claire’s childhood friend, who follows Claire around like a shadow providing witty commentary as she goes. It was very enjoyable.” About the author

Featured Reviews

The idea and the first few chapters were appealing to me. Yet it seems that the mystery is put on hold whenever the manhunt for the culprit gets serious. This book was a true gem, witty and amusing with likable characters. I adored Claire, a millennial, and Sophie, an everlasting teen. Bash grudgingly follows along with Alex’s cool, collected approach to everything as their passion for the inquiry spreads. I enjoyed all the characters, and it was entertaining and kept me on my toes. This could be just up your alley if you enjoy the idea of a contemporary take on the country home murder. Tune in to the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show to hear the live feature on Thursday 29 June. You can also listen to the full-length interview on BBC Sounds. Claire and Sophie team up with self-assured teenager Alex and sceptical ex-police officer Bash to try and work out who has died and who killed them. Furthermore, the pop-culture references and dialogues seemed to be targeted at an audience that is younger than 40 years of age. I'm not saying people over 40 might not enjoy the book, but the dialogues might grate a bit. Mash together Knives Out and Midsomer Murders, add in some supernatural elements and some referential millennial humour and you've got Grave Expectations. Claire is a slightly crap medium—not because she's not actually psychic but because she's bad at making a living from it—who's invited to do a gig at the big crumbling country pile of a fairly frightful family of English toffs. Soon there's a death, and Claire finds herself determined to figure out what happened at the Cloisters, in the company of her dead best friend Sophie and toff family members Basher and Alex.

A clever and playful contemporary cosy mystery by Cobh-based debut author, the talented Alice Bell. Think Ghosts meets Knives Out. -- Catherine Kirwan I had stated before tha Charlie and Lincoln return to London to find two supernaturals have been murdered, and Charlie might be next. As if that wasn't bad enough, the man who adopted her has escaped from prison, and the committee members have just learned some news that infuriates them. Now there's talk of sending Charlie away again. Far away.Book four takes you for an emotional roller coaster that you will both love and hate. Just when you think things are going great, the rug gets pulled out from underneath Charlie (very much how it sometime goes in real life.) If you’ve read the series up to this point and are invested in the characters, this book will infuriate you, but it is still worth the read. I won’t say too much about this book as it would give away the good parts, but I will say that the characters are so well written and described that I was actually mad at one of them (in my opinion if an author can make you love or hate somebody, they clearly did their job.) I can’t wait till I find out what happens in the next book “Ashes To Ashes.” Planning to buy Grave Expectations for your group? Buy books from Hive or from Bookshop.org and support The Reading Agency and local bookshops at no extra cost to you.

Alice Bell grew up in South West England, in the sort of middle-of-nowhere where teenagers spend their weekends drinking Smirnoff Ice in a field that also has at least one horse in it. A clever and playful contemporary cosy mystery by Cobh-based debut author, the talented Alice Bell. Think Ghosts meets Knives Out." - Catherine Kirwan This book positively lit up my weekends with its cosy, affectionate, funny, awkward brand of ghostly crime-solving. Perfect for fans of BBC's Ghosts, Alice Bell has a keen eye for characterisation and the ridiculous, creating a story that will both send chills down your spine and wrap you up in a hug. -- Ally WIlkes, author of All the White Spaces When the pair arrive at The Cloisters it's clear this family is hiding more than just the good china, as Claire realizes someone has recently met an untimely end at the house. Teaming up with the least unbearable members of the Wellington-Forge family - depressive ex-cop Basher and teenage reactionary Alex - Claire and Sophie determine to figure out not just whodunnit, but who they killed, why and when.

Then guess what he does, sends her away to a school to become a lady. My OTP were finally together and then they just aren't together and I was devastated. It’s a really great mystery novel, a good story and all ends are neatly tied off and it was really funny and I want more of Claire and Sophie and Basher and Alex and really I want to know what happened to make Sophie a ghost. Witty, addictive, andbreathes some much needed (undead) life into the cosy crimemurder mystery genre.” Grave Expectations” is the fourth book in “The Ministry of Curiosities” series. Again, I would like to give fair warning that this series has some dark content and I would recommend it for mature audiences, preferably whom are not too squeamish. The story continues from the previous book “Beyond The Grave. “