Heidi has been shot dead, Linc is on his knees manacled, Char has the gun; she is also live streaming this to The Hive, asking “Linc: #live or #die?” The Hive community has been following champion boxer Linc for years, and over the last few months they delighted in and applauded his relationship with his new girlfriend, Charlotte; jeered when he dumped her unexpectedly; delighted in and applauded his relationship with his new girlfriend, Heidi. Some of the more thoughtful watchers wondered at the speed and the reasons, but mostly they just watched. The most obvious scenario is that Char is deranged and flipped into madness when he left her for another. However, the real story is much more complex and much, much, darker.
Char is one of a group of four, late twenties, friends, inseparable since meeting at school. When the traumatic events surrounding the split happen, they all gather round to support her, but she is in a very dark place, dwelling on the past, on what might have been. At first, just hating Heidi, she slowly comes to realise that the traumatic split must have been engineered by Heidi. Sure that Linc will understand if she can only talk to him (an NDA and a threatened restraining order notwithstanding), she eventually realises that he must have been part of Heidi’s plot and so equally culpable. Close to suicidal, she conceives a scheme that will lead to the live-streaming event that started the book, confessions will out and she will have her revenge.
In many ways this is a brilliant, disquieting, debut novel; certainly the events are unusual and the characters are well drawn – if a little caricaturish. It is billed as a revenge thriller, although the reveal at the beginning dilutes that aspect – we might wonder what will happen after the killing, but we won’t really worry until we catch up. There is a fair attempt to get inside Char’s head, so something of a psychological thriller – certainly her descent into the deranged mass she becomes is quite well handled. It has also been billed as a feminist-sisterhood story, but I think that is going too far, although the friendship of the four girls is certainly a strong feature of the plot. The writing is a bit erratic, prolix, over descriptive, repetitive, and could do with tightening up. I find repeating metaphors annoying, e.g. copper/penny for the taste of blood, bile rising – but maybe that’s just me. As for a rating, I’m a bit conflicted. Thinking of it holistically, it’s clever and I found it a good read; thinking of it as a piece of writing I’m not happy. That gives me a 4 and a 3, average 3.5 which has to be shown as 4. A bit over generous, but I think the author is on a learning curve so maybe an extra 0.5 for promise.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bonnier Books UK for this early edition in exchange for a review.

I really liked the sound of what this book was promising, unfortunately I found the story a little unhinged and repetitive.

From the start, I found Charlotte's relationship with Lincoln to be toxic amd unstable, and couldn't understand why she stuck around. Then the whole story just seemed to get more farfetched and spiralling.

I also found myself really starting to dislike the main character and that she just kept repeating the same things over and over to try and justify the way her actions were headed.

This book started so strong, and while there wasn't anything wrong with it in my opinion, it just wasn't a book for me.

Honestly I went into this book with high expectations but I never managed to finish it.
I went back to it a few times after taking a few breaks but it just didn't click for me.
I may try it again but for now I'm going to focus on books I know I'll enjoy.

I was looking forward to this one, but ended up giving it a 2.5-3 star rating. I was enjoying at first, I liked the social media side of things, seeing the tweets and comments. It also made me see how easy it is for people to jump on the bandwagon so to speak, people were commenting and ‘hitting die for the bants’. The friendship between the girls was obviously a good close one, and you can tell that throughout, but the story got to the point where it was just not believable, and rather over the top. I thought the ending wasn’t great, but what I think bugged me the most was how easy it was to figure out.

I struggled with this book on a few levels. Possible slight spoilers - Charlotte is treated horribly but morphs from a slightly naive new girlfriend you can relate to into someone with no grasp on reality at all, even within the context of her trauma. There are a lot of misused words. And the story is mostly linear but we have a character realising someone is responsible for her pain but then speaking to a therapist as if she's no idea a few pages later.

A great premise and I did finish but fell flat for me.

Nope. This wasn’t the one for me…I’ve gone with a 1 because I did indeed finish it but it was a push. Read for bookclub.

It was unbelievable and the characters were unlikeable.

Will post a group roundup of this on my blog at the end of the month!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Hive in return for an honest review.

Charlotte is happy with her life. She also loves Instagram. Her first mistake is sending Linc a friend request. Then everything spirals out of control and The relationship takes an alarming turn. Charlotte hits rock bottom. But when you’re at your lowest point, is there a way back?

I absolutely LOVED this book! Read the whole thing in only 4 days, which is fast for me! I did guess a couple of the twists, but not the one at the end! Very sad that it’s over as it is one of my reads of the year!

Lincoln Jackson brightened Charlotte's life - and then destroyed it. Now she has nothing, and is struggling. Her close friends are trying to support her, but Charlotte falls deeper in despair. Then she comes up with a plan for revenge. She'll let the insta community decide Lincoln's fate, once they've heard the full story. Live or die... they'll decide.

This is a new author to me, and what a fantastic first read from them it was! The importance of sisterhood and friendship, lies and secrets - and revenge. This is all compact amazingly in this book.

It's an emotional book - I had various emotions the full way through. The author showed Charlotte's pain and hurt so vividly, it almost felt like it was radiating from the words.

Brilliant book.

The Hive gripped me from the beginning. Embracing today's society's usage of social media and incorporating it in the character's plot to murder someone was bloody genius! This revenge thriller had me hooked until the very end! The twists had my jaw dropping to the floor in shock! Although I thought it was brilliant, there was a point in the story where it lost me a little when talking about things that happened in the past. Later on, there were scenes that were vagued up, glossed over, but I really wish they had been elaborated on. I struggled a little with liking the characters (I didn't agree with some of the things they did), but you can't like everyone. Charlotte, the main character, was very unhinged and I really pitied her in regards to her feelings towards her ex, Lincoln, but Lord did I sympathise with the events that unfolded. #votedie Although there was a couple of negatives, I still thought it was an absolutely brilliant debut novel from Scarlett Brade and I'm excited to read more from her.

I found this to be quite an easy read, I blitzed through it. However, I thought it would be a lot more drama and action packed.

It started off really well, made me want to know how it got to the point where Charlotte killed on Instagram live. But then it fell flat, the plot could've been executed a lot better. It's a shame because the synopsis sounded so good, right up my street!

Charlotte is live on instagram, she’s murdered her ex’s new fiancée and now she is asking the world whether he should live or die.

I wanted to love this book so much, so many elements were close to great and then fell flat. Charlotte and her friends were complicated characters but not enough was put in to make them likeable.

The tragedy that sets the murder in action was horrific but Charlotte didn’t seem to have grasped that there wasn’t going to be a reconciliation.

Unfortunately things got ridiculous at the end and I was so sad as there was truly so much promise. I would definitely read another novel by the author because she will definitely get it right!

A good idea for a novel in the current world of lives lived in social media. However, the story, pacing and narrative failed to keep me interested.

This just sounded so up my street, but fell a little flat when I got round to reading it.

Unfortunately it seemed to have so much filler and faff that had little to do with the actual plot, that I found myself losing the main threads as I read.

The characters weren't likeable and I felt the main ones were just a bit depressing and nasty.

Overall, disappointed but it did have some good points - I'd happily read another book by this author :)

There has been a lot of hype surrounding this book. I was very excited to dive into it
Unfortunately, the book fell quite flat for me
There was a lot packed into this book that at times I didn’t really know what was going on.
There were four females with a fair few back stories.
I did read the book at a quick pace, but not because I was hooked
The ending was very unbelievable and felt almost like the girls would never have pulled it off
This unfortunately was not for me

Four friends get involved in a terrible situation which leads to violence and death. In a world of social media and riches it’s all online. Sadly I wasn’t overwhelmed with this and although I whizzed through it I can’t say it was a great read. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to love this - the synopsis and premise sounded right up by street. The book started off great, however as the story moves on there seems to be a real disconnect in what is important in this book, the author at points much over describes very insignificant things such as outfits or imagery but doesn't clearly explain parts of the story which are very important.

It unfortunately fell flat and it not well-executed at all - which is a real shame as it had so much potential.

After reading the blurb for The Hive I was looking forward to reading such a fresh and unique premise that had great potential.
The book began strong with an intense opening having me immediately hooked on the storyline.
I found I was unable to connect with the protagonist after their negativity became repetitive and slightly boring. I found myself willing the story to move along. I think being unable to relate to their story and experiences affected this.
I found that the epilogue was slightly farfetched which left me disappointed but overall a great storyline that could have been executed better.
I've definitely not been put off reading anything from Scarlett again.

Thank you Bonnier Books UK and NetGalley for access to this book for an honest review.

This sounded really exciting. Murders online! Plots! Scheming! And the first part was brilliant. Charlotte murders someone, confesses online, tells us she doesn't have long to tell her story...

...and then goes back over a year and starts telling a confusing, convuluted story that occasionally goes back even further, paints her and all her friends as terrible people, and seems mostly unnecessary to be honest.

I didn't enjoy it anything like I'd hoped I would. That's not to say others won't. It's a very clever idea, putting a murder and justification on social media, and the story even notes there have been copycats afterwards. I liked the inserts of social media comments - they seemed very plausible!

Overall, though, I'm afraid I didn't enjoy this as much as I hoped. I hope other readers do.

The moment I heard this book being compared to Clickbait, I was hooked! The comparison is very true given the ambiguity of the moral decisions made and the compelling storyline. A wonderful yet scary read.

Ok it took me a little bit of time to get into this book. But once I did and the story progressed. It was actually quite a good read.