This book was absolutely fantastic! I really enjoyed this read. Ava Thorn is really having a rubbish time of her life. A year ago she was involved in a horrible accident in which it left her parents dead, she's lost her house because of this and the local mean girl has moved in and now there's lots of spooky goings on in Burden Falls.

When her main school rival is found murdered and Ava looks like she is in the running for it - life just gets worse for her and her remaining family. I really enjoyed this young adult book. It had all the makings of a great story, great characters, a great plot, modern high school themes. Growing up in a small town where everyone knows everybody can be hard and this was really put across well.

I enjoyed the who-dun-it aspect of this book too and i really didn't guess it until quite near the reveal. It ended perfectly too. Full of creepiness as well i just couldn't put this book down. Is my first book by Kat Ellis but it definitely wont be my last - it was utterly fantastic!

I absolutely loved this book. I’m a big fan of young adult thrillers; they are probably some of my favourite books, and a twisty turny one where there’s the possibility of the paranormal but the body count starts regardless? I’m. So. In.

Ava as a character is likeable in how complicated her relationship with herself is, and how that reflects outwards to the dynamics she has with those around her. She has two close girlfriends, but her closest friend, Ford, treats her like rubbish, justifying his trashy behaviour in really awful ways to undermine her judgements about him, and always persuading her to laugh it off – until it reaches the point he does something so bad, she doesn’t know if she can ever forgive him.

All the while the police are zooming in on Ava as a prime suspect for the murders, especially as they start around the anniversary of the car crash that injured her and killed her parents. And Ava is seeing things, everywhere she goes; Dead Eyed Sadie can’t possible be real… can she?

This was a great read, I read it over the course of a weekend and barely put it down (only to have a power nap, because I’m a proper grown up), jumping every time some noise happened outside or someone even said my name. Well constructed, well paced, and well spooky, this is a must read this summer.

Thoroughly enjoyed this story! I was captivated right from the start!
The writing and the storyline was fantastic. And I thought the plot twists were great!
Full review will be on my blog!

Another tense thriller from Kat Ellis, set in a small American town (called BURDEN FALLS, which is the US title) full of creepy stories and family feuds.

If this was a movie, and it would translate well, I think, it would be a more psychological thriller with horror elements than jump-scare-y spooky beings. WICKED LITTLE DEEDS really plays into the "what's real and what's not?" idea, with a lot of the uneasy happenings reminding me of the first Nolan <em>Batman Begins</em> movie when people can't trust their minds. The ending is very action packed and hyper lucid in some ways, the truth in some ways worse than the uncertainty of whether Ava can trust her mind before.

People will vary on whether they think this book is horror or thriller. As someone who doesn't believe in ghosts and all that, I fall firmly on the thriller side. I read the things she saw as PTSD from seeing her parents die and then the dead bodies, rather than anything supernatural.<

There was actually a rational explanation for what had happened, and I liked it. It explains it well for those like me who don't believe in all that, but also leaves room for those who do. Personally, I just don't like non-fantasy/speculative books that try to give a paranormal explanation as it undercuts the tension and believability for me. I want the villain to be human, because that makes it feel more grounded.

I hadn't solved the mystery when the reveal came, and it didn't feel like a twist for shock factor. I mean, it was a shock, but in a satisfying way. I'm usually quite good at picking up clues to who the villain is, so out of the blue often feels like the author didn't want to make it obvious so didn't do it.

Ava Thorn lived in the Manor, built by her ancestors and lived in by the family ever since. On the land was a bridge over a waterfall with a local legend of Sadie haunting this, a ghost whose eyes had been gouged out.
One evening on the way back from an evening out with her parents, they are involved in an accident with their car being driven off the road by another. The driver was Madoc Miller, father to Freya and Dominic, who had crossed paths with Ava to their mutual dislike.
The crash killed both parents leaving Ava in the guardianship of her Uncle Ty, just 10 years older. He had uncovered just how precarious the family business was and had to sell the Manor, moving himself, his wife and Ava to a smaller cottage still within the village.
But Ava is shocked when she discovers who the new owners of the Manor are, and then her peers start to die - killed with their eyes gouged out. Can a ghost do this?
Ava becomes closely involved, partly from her knowledge of the Manor’s grounds, partly because she was there and discovered one body and helped rescue the other. She feels she is a suspect and is determined to uncover the real killer. But her nightmares and flashbacks are sending her unstable as she is still grieving and unwilling to forgive those she holds responsible, all the while trying to secure a place on a university art course up against Freya.
The marketing on this book must have been enticing as it’s not my usual book choice as too frightening for me. But once started I had to find out what happened and just who was committing these wicked little deeds.

This review will go live on 17 August:

Hi and welcome to my review of Wicked Little Deeds. Huge thanks to Dave @ TheWriteReads for organising this mahoosive blogtour and inviting me to join, and to Penguin and NetGalley for the eARC.

I had made myself promise not to accept any blogtour invites but when I got a whiff of Wicked Little Deeds it was simply impossible to walk away, I had such a great time with Kat Ellis’ Harrow Lake last year I could not pass up the opportunity to get my hands on her new novel ASAP. My breaking my promise to myself turned out to be a great decision because I ended up having a brilliant time with Wicked Little Deeds!

I knew from the get-go this would be a good fit for me. I love those teenage thriller/ drama / horror shows like Pretty Little Liars and Riverdale and, although it’s been ages, The Vampire Diaries, and what I enjoy most about those shows is the setting in these rather creepy, small towns, rife with superstition and legends of their own. It’s that vibe that Kat Ellis knows how to create, it’s just perfection.

In the town of Burden Falls, named for its waterfall, the Thorn family have been living up in Thorn Manor for generations. They have an apple orchard and a distillery where they manufacture Thorn’s Blood Apple Sour.

Ava is the youngest Thorn and life as she’s always known it is coming to an end: she and what remains of her family are forced to sell the manor and move to a cottage in town. And to add insult to injury, the family buying the manor is the family with whom the Thorns have had a feud for generations. Ava is trying to come to terms with that, while also still recovering from the terrible shock she suffered a year ago, when she ends up somewhere she shouldn’t be and stumbles across a murdered girl. The girl’s eyes have been bashed in and she was made to look like Dead-Eyed Sadie, the town’s resident ghost / mascot and its version of the Black-Eyed Kids legend.

Now if there’s one urban legend that creeps me out completely, it’s Black-Eyed Kids. For me, they’re right up there with spiders and clowns. So if Wicked Little Deeds was meant to unsettle me, Sadie did the trick quite nicely. As the line between reality and the supernatural blurs, Ava doesn’t know which way is up, and frankly neither did I… And I loved it!

Typical of the abovementioned teenage shows is the fact that the police always seem pretty clueless, and sooner or later it’s up to the teenagers to figure out what’s what. Wicked Little Deeds takes that notion and runs with it. Once again: I loved it!

Ava is a great protagonist and I was rooting for her all the way. She’s tough but in a way I found realistic. There’s a bit of a love interest that seemed quite obvious but who even cares if it is, it works.

I may have said goodbye to my own teenage years longer ago then I care to share, but stories like Wicked Little Deeds still work like a wicked little charm on me. Thrills and chills, Wicked Little Deeds has them in spades. A sprinkling of dry humour, check. A shocking twist, consider that box ticked as well: there is a reveal, I was shocked, I had not seen it coming and it pissed me off (in a good way). In hindsight, all the clues were there, I just didn’t know where to look for them.

In short: I had an excellent time with Wicked Little Deeds. It’s entertaining and fun and atmospheric and I could read stories like this one all day long. Whatever Kat Ellis comes up with next, I wanna be on the blogtour! Recommended.

Wicked Little Deeds is out now in digital formats, paperback and audio.