The Murder at World’s End by Ross Montgomery.

Cornwall, 1910. On a remote tidal island, the Viscount of Tithe Hall is absorbed in feverish preparations for what he believes will be the apocalypse.

The Hall must be sealed from top to bottom, but what the foolish Viscount has failed to take into account is the danger that lies within… By morning, he will be dead in his sealed study, murdered by his own ancestral crossbow.

All eyes turn to Stephen Pike, the newest member of staff. Fresh out of Borstal for a crime he didn’t commit, he is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. His unlikely ally? Miss Decima Stockingham, the fearless, foul-mouthed, eighty-year-old matriarch who relishes chaos and puzzles alike. A murder is just the thrill she’s been waiting for.

Together, this mismatched duo must navigate secret passages, buried grudges and rising terror to unmask the killer before it’s too late…

I quite liked this book. Got off to a weird start, but the murder kicked in pretty quick, the other murders were a surprise, and the Scotland Yard inspector was so incredibly stupid it was as if he was Inspector Clouseau. A bumbling fool of an idiot.

Miss Decima was the spunky 80-something year old aunt of the deceased, and got to work solving the crime and putting the dumb-ass inspector in his place. Until he too ends up dead.

This ended up being quite the story, with a weird side twist of Halley’s Comet and the stupid fears uneducated ignoramouses gaslit the world with. 

Typical men!

The one thing that annoyed me, was they had the lead male, Stephen, constantly excusing himself for swearing in his thoughts. It was annyoing. For a twenty-year-old boy who had just come out of a two-year stint in prison, he started off fairly useless. But that could be because his gran, who pretty much raised him, was gone, and all he had of her was the one and only photo she allowed anyone to take. He had no role models, no one to help him any longer. Until Aunt Decima, who he leaves to work with at the end of the book.

The smartest person in the book was Aunt Decima. Woo, go girl!

I gave this book 8/10.

The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke (pen name for authors V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke)

It’s the perfect plot. All it needs is a killer ending.

Six authors. One private island. Seventy-two hours to write the ending.

World-famous author Arthur Fletch is dead. His final novel, the most anticipated book in history, remains unfinished. But the ending won’t write itself.

When six struggling authors are invited to Fletch’s private Scottish island and presented with the opportunity of a lifetime, the plot thickens: whoever writes a worthy ending will receive a game-changing book deal and two million dollars.

Why have they been chosen to attend? Who is behind the invitation? And just how far would they go to secure a place on the bestseller list?

They have just seventy-two hours, a typewriter and a blank page. All they have to do is write…

Starting is often the hardest part. But getting to the end could be murder.

I’ve read a few “authors running off to a writing retreat” books in the last year, and I see there are even more coming. Clearly the pub houses all started demanding their authors write them to cash in, but let me tell you, good books with good characters are hard to come by.

Unfortunately, they’re all just the same premise. Authors invited to a retreat, sometimes an island, and then 75-90% of them are killed off.

I’m sick of it, and it’s boring. The trope is boring.

I’ve read The Writer’s Retreat by Julia Bartz, You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego, and now this one.

I know there are many, many, MANY more out there all with the same boring ass characters and story.

Out of the three, Fatally Invited was the best. This was second.

I wish Sienna had’ve lived to have her divorce. And Millie to have her time in the sun. All but one died, and one was not an author.

While this book ripped into the publishing industry and how authors are treated, it’s all well and good to come from authors with contracts, while the rest of us struggle. It kind of null and voids the issue. No wonder so many turn to self-publishing.

I gave it 7/10.