Rich and Mia move away from it all to Spain after inheriting his mums house. The story starts off digging for an elderly lady’s lost bones of her mum, killed years ago, however, they find a freshly buried murder victim, similar to an experience in Mia’s past. The move may not be the safe haven Mia needed. Mia and Rich’s pasts are revealed. It starts and end with a body. Bit of a slow burner.

Easy reading psychological thriller, with enough reasons built up in the first half of the book to lay the field open as to which one of our narrators has caused the death of the body found in the prologue.
There is a nice sense of place - it was actually the author’s article in the times about his time in a similar Spanish eco-village (without murder!) that drew me to this book, and that comes through successfully. I’d have been much more interested in a story that focused more on unearthing the civil war dead - after parallel mothers at the cinema earlier this year I want more of this in books and films that use it as a jumping off point!
One common trope I can’t always get past with first person narratives - why are they narrating? It’s one thing to get character thoughts from first person narrative, but who are they”expositioning” at? I realise this is a convention, but when a book is completely absorbing me I don’t worry about it, and in this case it still bugged me towards the end.
Flawed, but entertaining and easy reading. I didn’t see the end coming, although how much of this had really been seeded earlier I’m not sure! Would take a reread to check if the clues were there in plain sight…

This was a great read. I really enjoyed it and raced through it as I wanted to find out what happened in the end. Another new author which I love and I will look for more by this author in the future. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Five Strangers, E.V. Adamson’s debut (debut under that pen name, cause author Andrew Wilson had proved his worth more than enough with his other works under his real name), was such a fantastic and tense psychological thriller with one of the most shocking openings I’ve ever read, so when I saw announced Murder Grove, his latest book, I jumped for joy! And best of all, it is set in my country!

The story follows Mia and Rich, a couple in their 30s who decide to leave their lives in London and move to an eco village in Almería, Spain. Val Verde seems like the perfect place until a body is discovered, buried in an olive grove, and with several similarities to an event in Mia’s tragic past.

The story is told in dual perspectives from both Mia and Rich’s POVs. While both of them turn out to be pretty unreliable narrators, all the sympathy I had for Mia, was loathing for Rich. What a pr*ck! The first person narrations really helped me create a bond with the characters, making my reaction to them much more stronger.

A few day ago I wrote in another review how much I like stories set in Spain written by foreign authors, cause that’s a great way to find out how they see us, and in Murder Grove it was clear the author has first hand knowledge about living in Spain. The countryside descriptions were fantastic, but even more those about the Spanish characters and their homes. I could perfectly see in my mind the objets described, as they were exactly what you would expect to find in a house in the Spanish countryside.

I liked how the story brought to light some of the atrocities that happened during the Spanish civil war that, although well known here, maybe are not so well known outside of Spain.

The plot was tight, the chapters quite short, and the characters unreliable enough for me to keep turning pages like mad. There were moments with quite a haunting atmosphere that made of Murder Grove a very gripping read.

And those last few lines! They gave me goosebumps!

Solid psychological thriller with an interesting setting and a taut plot that I seriously recommend. E.V. Adamson a.k.a. Andrew Wilson can write under whatever name he wants, I will read it anyway.

Thanks to the NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for an advance copy of Murder Grove, a stand-alone psychological thriller set in Val Verde, near Almería.

Mia Banner and her partner Rich Ellis move to a house he inherited from his mother in Spain, but it’s not the fresh start they were looking for. A body is discovered in a shallow grave and Mia begins to feel that Val Verde, where no one locks their door, isn’t as safe as she has been led to believe.

I enjoyed Murder Grove to a point as it is tense with a good mystery and plenty of twists, pity it’s marred by deeply unappealing characters.

The novel opens with the discovery of a body, whose body isn’t mentioned and the reader only knows it isn’t Mia because she’s there. It then steps back 6 months to their arrival in Spain and gradually teases out a story of domestic strife and a general uneasiness on Mia’s part of her neighbours. Entwined in this are Mia and Rich’s histories. It’s a lot to unpack but it reads well and is addictive. It is told alternately between Mia and Rich’s points of view, giving the reader two perspectives on events and, more interestingly, an evolving take on the characters, which basically boils down to not judging a book by its cover or more pertinently not judging the surface of a character.

The characters are described as bobo, which is a new one to me but apparently means bourgeois bohemian. Unfortunately their attitudes don’t live up to their apparent wokeness. I couldn’t identify with their lifestyle, values or characters and found them uniformly unlikeable, with Mia emerging as the best of a bad bunch.

Murder Grove is a good read that I can recommend.

Haunting, Atmospheric…
What connects two crimes, two bodies, thirty years apart? Mia and Rich make a move to an idyllic eco village, Val Verde, in Spain. This new start for them is hugely anticipated but is soon to be dashed when a murder occurs in an olive grove. This village is clearly not what they thought it would be- it’s not safe. Told in alternating time periods and from differing perspectives this haunting, atmospheric mystery is beautifully done and set against a perfectly depicted backdrop. Tautly plotted and littered with twists aplenty and with a credible, well drawn cast of characters. An immersive and compelling read from the author of Five Strangers and the wonderful Agatha Christie Detective mysteries (as Andrew Wilson).

Murder grove - the complex mystery kept me guessing right up to the last page.I thoroughly enjoyed this immersive story.

A completely gripping read that I read in one sitting, I couldn't put it down. It was twisty and unpredictable and I was left on the edge of my seat for most of the book. I loved it.

Murder Grove | E.V. Adamson
Genre: Thriller, psychological suspense, murder mystery
Pub Date: 31/07/22

Murder Grove is the latest standalone thriller by author, E.V. Adamson. I chose this one based on the strength of Adamson’s previous thriller, Five Strangers which I really loved.

The story follows Mia and Rich, a 30something couple who moves to a small village in Spain after which a body is found in the grove with eerie similarities to a traumatic event from Mia’s past.

Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I enjoyed the alternating POV between Mia and Rich, however the first-person style made it a little unclear at times whose chapter. I did enjoy the differing perspectives of events this offered. Mia was my favorite character.

The Spanish setting was a great part of this book and you can really tell the author knows what they are talking about. This gave a unique cultural aspect to the story which made it a little more interesting.
The chapters were very short which added to the pace of the book and kept you turning page after page. I enjoyed how the book linked two crimes, one in the present and one in the past. The character’s past was really haunting and the chapters devoted to this were really engaging to read.

Overall, this was a solid entertaining thriller which would appeal to fans of psychological mysteries and domestic thrillers.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this book.

#MurderGrove #NetGalley
MIND NUMBING.
A woman’s body is found brutally murdered in the woods, and next to it, a shallow grave hiding a terrified young girl. When Mia and Rich move to an eco-village in Spain, they’re looking for a new start. Val Verde is everything they wished for – at least to begin with. But when someone is murdered in an olive grove, Mia realises the village isn’t the safe haven she was hoping for… There’s a killer in the village – and they’ll stop at nothing until they get revenge…
I LOVED IT. I really enjoyed reading this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK Harper Fiction for giving me an advance copy.