I didn’t have a clue what to expect from The Appeal, but almost from the outset I could tell it was going to be right up my street.

Newcomers Sam and Kel Greenwood - both nurses recently returned from doing humanitarian work in Africa - join drama group the Fairway Players, urged on by Sam’s new colleague Isabel. When the little granddaughter of Martin and Helen Hayward - the group’s leading lights and local alpha family - is diagnosed with cancer, an appeal is launched to raise funds for lifesaving treatment. We know this story will end with someone in prison, possibly wrongly convicted. But who, and why?

The story emerges only through a plethora of documentation - mainly emails - and we know from the start that these documents hide truths which young law trainees Femi and Charlotte are tasked to unravel, in the hope of finding evidence to support an appeal. The format, therefore, consists of all the available emails, messages, etc, interspersed with occasional comments and discussion between the two researchers and their supervisor.

The clues are there - for the reader, as well as the researchers - though I can’t claim to have picked up on most of them.

I loved the way this is written - it’s remarkable how quickly and clearly the different personalities emerge, as much through the tone of their emails as what they say (or others say about them).

Is Sam - from whom we never hear directly, and who is only known through what others say to and about her - a fearless whistleblower or a misguided troublemaker? Is Helen - who ironically remains entirely offstage as far as the narrative goes - the revered person she appears to those around her?

Many people and situations are not what they seem...

The title has an obvious double meaning which took me a while to notice.

The Appeal is a really cleverly, skilfully written story which presents an intriguing puzzle for the reader, and a truly excellent debut novel from Janice Hallett. There’s a lot going on, and you do need to keep your wits about you – luckily Femi and Charlotte are helpful in providing occasional recaps and theories. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy, but unfortunately the formatting of this didn’t always work - text was occasionally jumbled, and I’m not sure what the blank post-it notes were about or whether there was meant to be anything on them. This didn’t really interfere with my ability to follow the story, though.

Incredible!! This book is astonishing! I was hooked on the unusual concept but at the beginning was not sure how it would work. The book was so easy to read however that I flew through it.

I loved the characterisation, especially of Issy. Not having any correspondence from Sam or Kel added an extra mystery to the book.

I adored the twists and turns, the multilayered deceptions. I worked out some of the answer but not all of it and am
not entirely sure we even know the whole truth by the end!!

A brilliant book that will keep the pages turning and your mind spinning.

The Appeal is an innovative multi-character thriller that has you bubbling away with suspect as the suspense filled storyline unravels with the use of various writing formats, including emails and messages. At first, I felt that this unique concept would be difficult to navigate in regards to keeping tabs on the characters, but with time you, as the reader, become accustomed by each individuals voice, you don't need to check who the sender of an email is because the mannerisms are so differentiated from the rest. The way Janice has orchestrated this gripping, nail chewing crime thriller is outstanding, her attention to detail and the carefully calculated cracks that develop not only between the drama group but also the the facade of some individuals. There are several plot threads ribboned through this novel, ones that the author has paid attention to in order not to miss tying it up, risking a fraud edge amongst the plaiting of the storyline. There are no chapters, but rather communications, each one threatening to unearth a secret, uncovers a gasping truth that lay under a rock for safe keeping. Although I couldn't really bring myself to fully like any of the characters, they all perfectly served their purpose and were developed really well. Everything that Janice wrote was brilliant, craftily executed and goosebumpingly gripping.

'The Appeal' is the story of an amateur dramatics group who are raising money for the cancer treatment of little Poppy Reswick. In the lead up to their final show, there is reason to suspect the money hasn't been used for its intended purpose. When one of the members ends up dead, another is imprisoned for their murder... but has the right person been punished for the crime?

The whole story is told through a series of emails, text messages and newspaper articles. I found this a little hard to get into at first, but I don't think it helped reading it on an eReader. Some of the documents didn't display well on screen, so I would highly recommend reading a hardcopy version. I liked the fact that the reader almost plays the role of detective, because you're presented with all the raw documents and can try and solve the crime yourselves. Unfortunately I'm not intelligent enough to figure out the outcome 😂 Ultimately, I think I prefer it when books have the odd letter or email dotted throughout rather than the whole story being told via various correspondence.

There are SOOO many characters. I found it a little hard to keep up with how they were all related,  despite being given a list of their relationships twice throughout the book! Although some of the secondary characters had quite entertaining roles (i.e. Jackie Marsh's badly spelt voice-to-text emails) I reckon you could cut half of them and it wouldn't lose its 'appeal'.

I found the story a little slow at first. It was 65% of the way through the book before the death even takes place. However, I appreciated how this built up the list of possible suspects and how it set the reader up for a bucketload of twists and turns in the end.

Overall, I thought this was an impressive debut from Janice Hallett... very original and I have never read anything like it before. I was getting a little bored of thrillers, but this one has reignited my love for them.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book should come with a warning - Highly Addictive!

I haven’t imagined that a crime thriller could be so much fun. In the market, saturated by all sorts of stories in the genre, The Appeal is a breath of fresh air - so different but also very good.
Written as a collection of emails, letters and messages, it is interesting, original and totally gripping. The plot is clever and intriguing, as gradually the secrets are uncovered, skeletons are revealed and nothing’s as it originally appeared. The characters are realistic and very well drawn out, which is a testament to the author’s talent, as all we have to go by are pieces of correspondence. She has given each character a unique, easily distinguished style. There’s also some subtle humour comes through and some exchanges made me laugh out loud whilst the others were so typical, they made me chuckle in recognition.
I haven’t I enjoyed a book so much in a long time and I do hope Janice Hallett writes another one, although The Appeal would be a hard act to follow.
Bravo!

I really liked the idea of a murder mystery set in a local amateur dramatics club, and I think the author did a great job of building a sense of suspense and uncertainty in such a seemingly innocuous setting. The whole story is revealed to us almost entirely through primary sources - emails and text messages sent between the key players in the story in the days leading up to the murder. I thought this part of the novel worked really well, and the author did a great job of building each voice. It allows the reader to play detective as you try to filter through what's just local gossip and what is actually relevant to the case. The later part of the book switches to a WhatsApp conversation between two law students who have been tasked with reading through the same correspondence as the reader, with the detective in charge of the case hoping they'll bring a fresh perspective. I found this part didn't flow so naturally and so I do think the first part was stronger. But it is such an ambitious and unusual approach and by and large, it pays off. The plot is also clever and complex enough that it would stand up just as well in a conventional novel format, so this definitely isn't a gimmick. Really interesting idea.

There are so many revolving parts in this storyline that it is quite easy to get really, really confused. I think the story overall was a good one, but for most of it you are reading a collection of emails with no discernible reason why -and I struggled to care about this as a story without the framework narrative elements that it doesn't have. This is a really quick and interesting read. Some of the reveals were more obvious than others and some of them were just flat out shocking, so overall I found this a very mixed bag. The structure of the novel being ecorrespondence is fine but the reader is almost placed in the role of paralegal without many check in and I struggled with that.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Serpent’s Tail / Profile Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Well..... hello!!! What a little cracker of a book! Initially intrigued by the synopsis, the format of the story hooked me pretty quickly. I love me a little bit of guess work, whodunnit and all round mystery, so when a book presents itself as an actual puzzle to try and crack, you aren’t seeing me for a few days.

The story presents itself as a series of emails and text correspondence between the main characters of the Fairway Players, an amateur drama group run by the Martin Hayward and his family. QC Tanner believes a member of this group has erroneously been convicted for a brutal murder, and is appealing their case. He has brought in the support of two law students (and you, the reader) to go through the presented evidence and clues to solve the case of who the real killer is.

Alongside this appeal, is the charity appeal being staged by the Fairway Players with their rendition of All My Sons for little Poppy Reswick, the granddaughter of Martin Hayward.

The first bulk of the book gives you background correspondence leading up to the day of the murder and the latter part discusses the evidence and reveals the real killer hiding among the Fairview Players.

I found the pace of this book just right (I was a little slow in reading it as I was actively working through it to crack the case - I didn’t, by the way...). It flowed well, and was an easy read. The correspondence was presented with just the right level of detail, plenty of naughty red herrings and an importance of reading between the lines. I really got a feel for the characters’ personalities through their correspondence with each other; some I liked, some not so much, all I suspected at one point or another.

The suspense picked up speed towards the latter half, with twists around every corner. I managed to solve one of the twists but the ending took me by complete surprise (I love cracking the mystery before the big reveal, but relish a humdinger at the end that send me spinning).

I will absolutely be following Janice Hallett as an author. Great writing, original, suspenseful... Utter genius.

Oh I bloody LOVED this book! A whodunit with a difference

Two Law students are tasked with piecing together to story of The Appeal through a series of emails, text messages and various other documents. They have no other information about what happened and who the people involved actually are, their only advantage being that the documents are presented to them in chronological order.  Our role as the reader is to be a 3rd pair of eyes to read along and investigate with them, and its just SO. MUCH. FUN.

I must congratulate the author on her ability to carve out such complex characters, given that she uses no traditional dialogue or prose, its so easy to get the idea of each personality from their words and the way they are used, in some cases with as little as a single sentence.

This books was so entertaining, highly recommended.

Thanks so much for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

An unusual whodunnit where the story is recounted in the form of a record of communications including emails, messages or police interview records. Whilst this format conveys the necessary information and builds the tension, it doesn’t have the ambiance of a particular setting. An enjoyable enough read but somewhat lacking in the nuance of character development and the descriptive environmental background, so only a three-star rating. With thanks to NetGalley and the author for a preview copy for review purposes.

The Appeal is unlike anything you will have read before. Instead of telling a story through a straightforward narrative that doesn’t allow much time for you to think about where it’s heading before it gets there, Janice Hallett encourages you to play detective and attempt to piece together a fragmented series of letters, emails, and instant messages to see if you can predict its conclusions.

Told through a collection of documents rather than in a story format, it took me a while to find my pace with this book at the start as I was thinking too much about what I should be looking out for. But once I got stuck into it properly, my mind started racing and the theories started pouring in. Soon enough, I didn’t want to put it down.

And although there isn’t a detailed narrative to help you relate to the characters, the selection of conversations still allows you to get to know them all in-depth. You can see their individual personalities through their communication skills, begin to understand their motives through how they talk about each other when not face-to-face, and start to piece together their backgrounds through various rumours and gossip. While I didn’t like many of the characters in the beginning, I soon started to figure out who to trust and who to question, so finding where your loyalties lie really gets you to engage more.

I buddy read this book with Sarah and we had so much fun trying to figure it all out together. There were some things that we pieced together and we also had many far-out theories that were getting close to the truth, but there was still so much that shocked us at the same time, leaving us gasping for breath in the closing pages. What I loved most is that, just like an Agatha Christie novel, you can see it all there quite obviously when you look back on it. We were certainly both super impressed.

As such an interactive book, I really recommend you grab a friend a read this with them to get properly stuck into it. But even if you read it on your own, it will really get your brain ticking and your heart racing. This is definitely a book that I’m going to be thinking about for a long time.

And if you haven’t watched The Retreat which Janice co-wrote, go give it a watch. It’s such an under-appreciated sci-fi film with a brilliant cast.

Seems I am in the minority with this one as well. I just couldn't get into this book, not sure if it was the way the book was written entirely in emails and text messages or the pace of the book. It was a slow start and alot of repetitiveness in the story from different angles.

Not for me I am afraid. Great concept but just not my cup of tea

Thanks Viper and Netgalley for my advanced copy of this book to read.

Dear Reader - enclosed are all the documents you need to solve a case. It starts with the arrival of two mysterious newcomers to the small town of Lockwood, and ends with a tragic death.

Someone has already been convicted of this brutal murder and is currently in prison, but we suspect they are innocent. What's more, we believe far darker secrets have yet to be revealed.

Throughout the Fairway Players' staging of All My Sons and the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick's life-saving medical treatment, the murderer hid in plain sight. Yet we believe they gave themselves away. In writing. The evidence is all here, between the lines, waiting to be discovered.

Will you accept the challenge? Can you uncover the truth?

Firstly, I have to be honest. When I initially picked up this book and saw it was all email and text message format, I thought I was going to really struggle with it. However, I was so wrong. The format of the book only added to the dramatisation of the book and making you want to solve the crime!

I read this as a book buddy read with Charlie and she was the perfect book buddy. We discussed our theories throughout and we got most of them right!

The book is super addictive and extremely hard to put down.

I’ve never read something so original in its format

Thank you to the publisher for including me in this readalong.

I can’t wait for the authors next book!!

I think this would be a perfect book for any Cara hunter fans!

Easily ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ from me!

The Appeal by Janice Hallett is fantastic. It is such an original and refreshing way of telling the story via correspondence between the characters. It is full of twists and turns. It had my attention from the opening pages and kept me hooked right up to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Someone has been convicted of murder and is currently in prison. But there is suspicion they are innocent. Roderick Tanner QC, who was in charge of the case is not convinced the conviction was a right one. He passes on all the evidence and transcripts to Femi and Charlotte to review with fresh eyes. This is the first appeal.

The second appeal is a fundraising one for a young girl called Poppy, who has a rare form of cancer. They believe that raising money for treatment in the U.S. is the best chance of her survival. But as we read on we see that not every member of the fundraising group are genuine, and they begin to show their true colours.

Now, the real kicker for this book is that it is all written in the show of emails, texts, and transcripts. It’s not like a book I’ve ever read before and was really refreshing to read something a bit different from the bog standard format of a normal book. And it was great seeing all the evidence as the reader and trying to work out who is guilty of what.

A great read, would recommend.

I loved this book! It's such an original concept - the story is told by correspondence, mostly between the people involved in an amateur dramatic society. There are a lot of characters, but you do soon get a feel for each of them. We know that someone has died & someone has been jailed for their murder, but are they the one that committed the crime? I was totally surprised at the outcome - I never guessed it! This was such an enjoyable read!

This was such an extraordinary read! I really enjoyed the different dynamics of the book, with the first 2/3 consisting of an exchange of messages between the different characters. I loved the format of this, which provided the opportunity to get to know some characters really well and others not well at all! The format did seem to change at the 2/3 mark and the pace slowed, however I still thought it was a real original and will follow this author from now on.

I was drawn to this book by the synopsis and although I had no other knowledge of either the author or book itself I felt I just had to know more. This is a great fun concept and is refreshing after reading plenty of enjoyable but more recognisable formats. All the evidence and correspondence are offered to the reader in forms of emails, texts and crime reports. Lots of characters and suspects but fairly easy to follow considering.

Someone has already been convicted of a brutal murder and is currently in prison, but it is suspected they are innocent. Young Poppy Reswick requires life saving medical treatment and the Fairway Players are staging a charity appeal with their rendition of All My Sons. Throughout the preparation for the play correspondence is written which supplies clues and evidence required to discover the murderer.

I really enjoyed this book especially the second half once the narrative discussing the evidence begins. The suspense is raised little by little and I was drawn more and more into this mystery. It is so hard to believe this is a debut novel and will surely be difficult for the author to follow.

Highly recommended to all mystery crime readers.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Serpent’s Tail, Profile books for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is a highly unusual format but utterly compelling, I kept thinking about it between reading it as it really hooked me. We find out about the lives of the people involved in The Fairway Players amateur dramatics group through the format of emails, text messages and other messages. supplied to some legal assistants tasked with assisting a QC although it’s not initially made clear as to what the purpose of their research is. I found myself questioning everything about the characters the more I read, I found it made me very suspicious about most and very eager to see how this continues. My only niggle was the QC drip feeding parts of information but otherwise it’s a very solid read which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I am so grateful for the copy of this book and also for such a refreshingly different book.
This is just so engaging and you feel part of the process which really really intrigued me and hooked me in.
I felt like the team of 2 became 3 and was thinking and processing in the same way.
Never read a book like this and I think it’s extremely clever, absolute genius and I could not have enjoyed it more.
Loved reading this book and am extremely grateful to net galley, publisher and author for
A wonderful read.