{ARC Review} Every Move by Ellie Marney

Title: Every Move

Series: Every #3

Author: Ellie Marney

Published: 1st March 2015

Age Group: Young Adult

Genre: Urban Mystery Romance

Source: Paperback ARC provided by publisher for fair & honest review

Rating: 5/5

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BLURB:

The sequel to Every Breath and Every Word.After the dramatic events of London, a road trip back to her old home in Five Mile sounds good (in theory) to Rachel Watts, with her brother Mike in the driving seat. But when Mike picks up his old buddy – the wildly unreliable Harris Derwent – things start to go south. Back in Melbourne, Rachel’s ‘partner in crime’, James Mycroft, clashes with Harris, and then a series of murders suggest that the mysterious Mr Wild – Mycroft’s own personal Moriarty – is hot on their tail. When tragedy strikes, Rachel and Mycroft realise they’ll have to recruit Harris and take matters into their own hands…

A Sherlock inspired, urban crime thriller with realistic characters and a passionate romance, what's not to love?!

REVIEW:

The story:

In this dramatic climax to this action packed series, Mycroft and Watts (Wattscroft) are back and ready to solve the mystery of Myscoft's parent's deaths once and for all. But their investigation will be anything but easy. Rachel is struggling to deal with their near death experience in London. Plagued with nightmares and unable to cope with being hugged, it's clear Rachel's fears stem from PTS. Her response is completely natural, as was Mycroft's, who blames himself for dragging Rachel into this mess. He hates seeing her in pain and struggles with his fear of something bad happening to her. And things are only getting more dangerous for these two. Mr Wild is closing in on them, and even the Police can't track him down. Wattscroft are joined by Rachel's brother Mike and his friend Harris as they try to outsmart the elusive criminal. In a heart pounding series conclusion, can these teenagers outmanoeuvre the twisted mastermind of 'Moriarty'?

The characters:

Rachel Watts is the kind of female heroine YA needs more of. She's strong and selfless, but she's not unrealistically invincible. After all the things she's gone through in the past few months she she struggles to deal with everything, and has to dig deep to overcome her fears. I previously said I wanted to be best friends with Rachel, but I've changed my mind, I want to BE Rachel.

Mycroft has always been good at compartmentalising. He's usually so focused on solving the mystery in front of him, that all the 'real life' stuff doesn't really register. But we see a new side to Mycroft, a more vulnerable side, and it was beautiful to see him learn to deal with new and unfamiliar emotions, especially when it came to Rachel. He's trying to understand his feelings for her and protect her at the same time. Simply put, I love him.

The romance:

The romance between Mycroft and Rachel is one of my favourite in all YA books. Their relationship started out sweet and innocent and has grown into something deep and passionate. We get to see them take their romance further and yes there are some little sexy times to be hand - which Marney handled just beautify with the perfect mix of awkward, sweet and sexy.

The writing:

I have loved the writing in all three books in this series, but in this last book Marney's writing was flawless. All the characters have their own individual voices, with Rachel's country slang shining through. The prose was just stunning, with such beautiful language;

"It's about five am, when the night still cups the world gently In its hands and the air feels cold and damp, like the insides of clouds."

"...we have no more permanence than water, and I am just one of the many animals absorbed by the minutiae of my life under the cold finger of the moon."

"There's a glow beyond the windows: sunrise here is like a miles-distant explosion, radiant pink and orange bleeding over the sky."

I also loved how Marney has taken a realistic approach to her characters' behaviour, in particular Rachel's struggles with PTS. So often we see so called 'normal' teenage characters go through traumatic experiences only to come out the other side all happy and unaffected. To see both Mycroft and Rachel deal with their fears was refreshing and gave a raw honesty to the story.

FINAL WORD:

This is one of my all time favourite series and I just love that it's by an Aussie author and set in Australia too! A Sherlock inspired, urban crime thriller with realistic characters and a passionate romance, what's not to love?! Every Move is the perfect conclusion to this stunning YA series!

CONTENT:

Sexuality: medium-strong / discussions of sex, fade to black sex scene

Violence: medium-strong / descriptions of dead bodies, autopsies, gun violence and murder

Language: medium / several f words

Drugs & alcohol: medium / main character is a smoker, some underage drinking