This is a really hard book to rate and review. There were some aspects of this book that I really liked and there were some that I really did not. At its heart this book is a mystery novel with Lo the main character trying to solve the murder of her best friend Lilly.

West does an amazing job of highlighting what it can be like living in a small Australian town, you get a really feel for how dangerous it can be to be different. I am not sure if I was West if I would ever go back to Kiama.

The story and the mystery within the novel are quite good. I really wanted to know what happened and why it happened. What I did not appreciate was the ending of the novel, it really dulled the rest of the novel for me, I am however sure there are many people out there that will love that ending.

There are some really important issues in this book such as mental health, suicide and homophobia and I didn't always appreciate how they were dealt with. Ultimately this book was not for me. I am keen to see what West does for her next novel.

Many thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Catch the Foxes starts with a bang but ends with a bit of a whimper. It's a well-written, compelling story propelled along at great speed by twists and turns as characters are revealed to be something different to what they originally seemed. The small-town Australia setting is fabulous and the story itself had great potential but eventually all those twists and turns knot themselves into something less than believable with plot points that seem thrown in just for the sake of providing more confusion and more red herrings. It remains an enjoyable read but felt like it might have been something more.

It’s very hard to write a review of this book without giving too much away. You can read the blurb to get the general gist, but this story diverges from a normal murder mystery in that the “detective” is literally handed the answer to her friend’s death in the first act. Or so it seems.

I must admit, I was enjoying the book thoroughly up to this point. Though ambitious, Marlowe isn’t that unlikeable. Her position of local cop’s daughter puts her in an interesting place in the web of rumour and lies she discovers beneath the touristy veneer of her small town.

But when she was given what appeared to be all the answers very early, I had to wonder; “where does the plot go from here?” The answer: some very twisty places, where nothing is as it seems and a horrifying alternative reality becomes apparent.

West manages to keep the reader on their toes, and the atmosphere is suitably off-kilter throughout. Lo diligently tries to find answers, but can the people helping her be trusted?

This would have been a solid four-star read for me if not for the ending. There is more than one twist and honestly I went back and read the last few pages to make sure I read it right. It kind of left me gasping, to be honest and I’ve deducted a star because I don’t think it served the story, and also felt like a kind of slap in the face to the reader. Others may like it, but it just made me annoyed.

I’d recommend this to anyone who loves Aussie crime with a young protagonist, it is a little Twin Peaks though as the blurb says, not sure if that makes it gothic but there are definitely creepy vibes.

Catch Us the Foxes has a great main character and a plot that keeps you gripped until the final pages.

This book was shaping up to be a solid 4 or 5 star read for me. Until the epilogue. I've been mulling my thoughts over on this novel for a while, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm disappointed and kind of upset. I wish that I didn't read that last chapter. All I can think of is that lady from Bob's Burgers yelling "a lie is not a twist!!" I feel almost betrayed. There's a very big difference between a straight-up lie, and an unreliable narrator leaving things out or two narrators disagreeing on events.

Either the MC was not at all who I expected, or she suddenly seems so very out of character in those last few pages.

Catch Us the Foxes is a novel in a novel. Lo, the main character, is about to do an interview talking about her new foundation and her true crime book, The Showgirls Murder.

The thing is that the bulk of the novel, the Showgirls Murder, was mostly brilliant. It was paced well, with amazing suspense, keeping the reader guessing. The scenery was beautifully written. The MC was compelling. But things kept pulling me out of it: the censoring of homophobic slurs (yes they are uncomfortable, but they're in the novel for a good reason, so why censor them?), and the fact that this supposed true crime novel was written like a crime thriller fiction.

The Showgirls Murder is a BRILLIANT crime thriller fiction. The prologue and epilogue were just unnecessary and absolutely destroyed the rest of the novel for me.

With that said, I'd probably read another Nicola West novel because the writing was stunning, and I'd be feeling wary but at least prepared for an ending that I didn't like. I'd even suggest that people read this and forget about the prologue and epilogue.

When Marlowe finds the body of her friend, Lily, at the show grounds, she’s determined to find out who murdered her, especially when her father, the chief of police, orders her not to reveal something important about the body. After an old acquaintance hands her Lily’s diaries, she starts to unravel a mystery that goes deeper than she first realised.

The storyline to this book was...ok. I do enjoy books with lots of twists, but twists that move back and forwards between ‘yes, that’s what happened! Ha, no it didn’t!’ and back again get a little tiring for me. The mystery was interesting and I quite liked Marlowe as a character. I was definitely intrigued by how the story would play out and it was never clear who was trustworthy, which always keeps me hooked, but there were many parts of this book that just weren’t for me.

I’m not usually easily offended, but the way sensitive topics were dealt with here felt like it belonged back in the 90’s. There were some pretty crappy comments about suicide, self harm, a lot of awful slurs towards two gay characters, from other characters, and the description of a particular pagan religious holiday as being used for evil child sacrifice rituals (a myth that really doesn’t need further perpetuating). Although there was a spiel about societies perception of, and the difficulties faced, with mental illness toward the end of the book, it felt a little like lip service, after calling people with a mental illness ‘nutjob’s’ a few chapters before. I think this could have done with a bit more of a sensitivity edit.

Disclaimer: I was provided an advanced readers copy of 'Catch us The Foxes' in exchange for an honest review.

I'm just going to say it - I didn't like this. I feel like watching 'Riverdale' on netflix gives me a better idea of what the vibe of this book is trying to provide, versus actually reading this book.

My major gripe is with the commencement of the book and what it sets up - a regarded author, being ushered onto stage for a 'ted talk' type presentation. Queue the flashback music and Lo's back in the town of Kiama, when her supposed best friend just died and she's snapping away on her camera to keep photos for posterity.

So, I didn't expect 'Catch us the Foxes' to be a few pages, and 'The Showgirl's Secret' to be the main event. Why set it up as a retrospective review of a historical event in the characters life, if you're not going to follow through with that premise? By the end of the book I'd almost forgotten how it started.

Perhaps its a big of cognitive dissonance in response to the manner in which crime is lauded about as being sexy at the moment, at the expense of the victims of said crimes that I've got a gripe with. Even though it was fictional, I just couldn't imagine the best friend acting the way that Lo did. And if we're meant to be empathetic towards Lo, her clinical nature of decoding her 'best friend's' murder just wasn't doing it for me.

So I'll stick to watching Riverdale as I think it's a better example of what this book was trying to go for.

Marlowe and Lily are aspiring journalists. When Lily is murdered, Marlowe believes there is a cover up and sets about trying to find the truth.

I’m a bit on the fence reviewing this book. It was certainly a quick, easy read. It was well written enough to keep me interested even when it frustrated me. It used a couple of well worn tools: the gaslighting narrative (Who is telling the truth? Who is delusional?) and the book within a book. We start the novel with Marlowe in Sydney Opera House being interviewed about the book she wrote, which we then read before returning to the interview. This didn’t work for me as the inner book did not read like an autobiography/memoir of the issue. It read like someone trying to write a thriller. Which, hmm, on the one hand given the ending I guess it maybe works, but it just didn’t feel plausible.

The other thing that really made it difficult to read was censoring of words. There were story lines around homophobia (which kept being referred to as xenophobia instead) and when there was dialogue related to this, it would be written as f*ggot, p*offer or q*eer. Firstly, I don’t get this. I get that the words can be offensive, but it really jarred the reading experience. I feel like if the author wasn’t comfortable using the words where needed for narrative, maybe she should have picked a different story line.

I didn’t hate the book. It was indeed suspenseful and kept me interested. However I can’t say I liked it, and I don’t think I’d recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Catch Us The Foxes was a lovely surprise. Totally captivating and thrilling - I couldn’t put it down. The Australianisms made it even more enjoyable and relatable. This debut novel is unlike anything I’ve read before. Great characters, suspenseful storyline and a great twist at the very end. Well done Nicola West! I thoroughly recommend this book as a great read.

Hmmm. I think I have to ruminate on this one for a while.

Lily is crowned Showgirl and found murdered the same night. Marlowe isn't her best friend, but they have an understanding, one that they've had since childhood. Marlowe is the one that finds her, and lucky for us readers Marlowe is a budding journalist hoping to blow this case wide open. Being the daughter of the local cop in a small coastal town is hampering things a bit though, until someone gifts her Lily's journals.

Perhaps Marlowe doesn't understand what's really going on here. Unreliable narrator being gaslit by adults or suffering PTSD? Who can she trust?

Can't say I'm a huge fan of the ending. It really was a twisty & turny sort of book where the reader was left hanging for ages and ages (the plot waxes and wanes in pacing between thrilling speed and pedestrian plodding along) waiting to find out who was telling the truth and what really happened to Lily. I really don't like the unreliable narrator diversion/schtick.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!
First up, I’ll say, this was actually a DNF. I got to about chapter 6 and couldn’t find the enthusiasm to continue reading. This book just wasn’t doing it for me. I wouldn’t consider it the next dry. Hope others readers find it more enjoyable than I did.

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for a free E Arc in return for a voluntary review.

This is Nicola West’s debut novel, and it does not disappoint. I can see her writing improving from here, and will be keeping my eye out for up coming Novels.
The book reads as a book within a book. Marlowe, known as Lo, recaptures the novel she has written seven years earlier on a talk show hosted at the Sydney Opera house. We begin to read her novel, The Show Girl, a different approach to present day, past and ending again in present day. I enjoyed the story line, it was quiet disturbing in its content of why her friend Lily had been killed. Lo found the body.
A very worth while read, and hard to put down, as you want to get to the truth as much as Lo does. You won’t be disappointed, but you will be shocked.

Marlow is a small town girl with aspirations to be a big time journalist. When she reluctantly agrees to cover her hometowns annual show, she finds the mutilated body of her best friend, Lily, in the stables. On Lily’s back 7 strange symbols have been carved. Marlowes father is the local cop and upon arriving at the scene he immediately pulls Lily’s top down to cover the symbols and forbids Marlow (Lo) to say anything.
When Lily’s murder makes headlines around the country, Lo decides to investigate further and make a name for herself. She soon discovers the town has a lot of secrets and a lot of influential people want to silence her investigation.
Although the premise of the story was good, I felt the story just somehow missed its mark and parts just didn’t seem to work. Definitely an author to watch tho.
#netgalley #catchusthefoxes

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Australia for the Arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, this book was an average read for me, it was well written however I found many of the characters annoying or dull. I did find the name of the town an interesting choice considering it’s a real place in NSW and I kept picturing the real place while reading this book. Trigger warning for this book is mental health distress, so if you are a person who is triggered by this, I would avoid this book. The twist and turns throughout the story were done well and the ending was done well, and I wish Nicola all the best for her debut novel.

Another one I was excited to read but it has been archived weeks before the release date and I hadn't downloaded it yet. I usually download when I'm ready to read, not when I'm approved. Shame I'll no longer be able to review this both here and on bookstagram.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Australia for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

All I can say is - wow. It's been a heck of a long time since I read a thriller. I also can't ever say I've read an Aussie thriller so this ticked a lot of boxes for me. I simply lapped this up!

I had zero theories as I was reading this - zero. I was happy with the false ending and then shell shocked by the true one.

Small town, cult-mystery, action, breath-holding suspense, complex plot twists. I couldn't ask for much more. I think West has pulled off something really special with Catch us the Foxes.

Thank you to NetGalley & Simon & Schuster Australia for giving me the chance to read and review this debut novel by Nicola West.

Eerie and atmospheric murder mystery in a small town consumed by secrets and lies in New South Wales, Australia.

Marlowe, a journalist and daughter of the local police chief is trying to solve the murder of her best friend, Lily. An intriguing premise, but I found “Lo” wasn’t very likeable, making it hard to really invest in the story.

That being said, I would definitely read more by Nicola West.

Nicola West’s debut, Catch Us the Foxes set in a regional coastal town south of Sydney, is a strange, potentially potent brew of ideas. Never sure what it wants to be it presents a true crime memoir within a novel for reasons that only become obvious late in the piece. The memoir itself is ostensibly the investigation of a murder but dips very quickly what might be an Australian gothic horror story or could be just the multiplied factor of mental illness and trauma. This melange might be interesting but sometimes just comes across as a young writer with a grudge to work out against a small town upbringing.
When Catch Us the Foxes opens, Marlowe ‘Lo’ Robertson is taking the stage at the Sydney Opera House in front of a crowd of adoring fans promoting something called The Lily Foundation. Marlowe has become famous for a book about the death of her friend Lily Williams 7 years before called The Showgirl’s Secret and it seems, as a result, she has become locked into playing the role that she had back in 2008, when Lily was killed. Most of the rest of Catch Us the Foxes is the text of The Showgirl’s Secret, a book about how Lily was killed at the annual agricultural show and then how Marlowe, the daughter of the local policeman, investigated. Marlowe spurred on by Lily’s journals, given to her by outsider Jarrah, which point to the existence of a bizarre local cult run by the local elite which apparently dress children as foxes and hunt them through the local rainforest. As her investigation progresses, Lo becomes more and more convinced of the existence of the cult even as her own mental health begins to deteriorate. It is only when the narrative finally loops back around its framing story that all of its secrets are revealed.
Catch Us the Foxes is, in the end, a kind of light gothic horror dressed up as crime fiction. When Marlowe finds Lily she has symbols carved into her back, and most of the narrative, including a lengthy passage in the rainforest, is Marlowe’s investigation of Lily’s allegations around the cult. This investigation is also fuelled by Marlowe’s own strange visions and possibly repressed memories. So that the solution to the crime, when it comes, is more than a little underwhelming. More critically, given the full suite of revelations about Lily’s mental state among other things, it is unclear why this book within the book was written in the first place.
The one thing Catch Us the Foxes does well is capture a stultifying and small town attitude with a particularly strong streak of homophobia. The only escapee from that life, Jarrah, was essentially exiled due to his difference so much so that Marlowe’s best friend hides his sexuality from the world. When an “outsider” is suspected of Lily’s murder the whole town turns out with stones and Molotov cocktails. The only problem being that Kiama, the town that is not only named but painstakingly described in the text is not an isolated rural community. Only two hours from Sydney it is almost part of the greater metropolitan region of New South Wales. Given the way The Showgirl’s Secret treats the townspeople and their attitudes it feels like not only Marlowe but possibly West herself has an axe to grind with the town.
In the end, though, for all of its setting and atmospherics, the premise of Catch Us the Foxes makes little if any sense. Both from the point of view of Marlowe as a damaged amateur detective, to her motives for writing the book for which she has become famous, to the series of twists that are designed to make the reader rethink the narrative but are more likely to make them feel cheated.

"While Kiama was a tourist town, the show was predominantly attended by locals. It was our way of reclaiming our home after spending the summer holidays being swamped by strangers." Marlowe "Lo" Robertson lives in small-town Kiama. This is something Nicola West will not let you forget throughout the course of her debut novel, Catch Us The Foxes.

While I like Australian novels that focus on landscape sand settings I am intimately familiar with, I don't think the writer painted much of a picture of Kiama. Instead West focuses in on divisive small-town mindsets and xenophobic attitudes that contribute to me feeling less enthused about travelling there again: The tourist/local divide was always in full effect, with locals retreating to hidden hole-in-the-wall establishments over the flashy yet overpriced tourist traps." You catch a real undercurrent of resentment from the writer, perhaps relating to her own small-town, "suffocatingly boring" upbringing: "The main street of Kiama scrolled past my window – desolate and decaying – a ghost town in the making." The only thing West hates more than Kiama, are the tourists silly enough to visit it: "I picked up the bar's menu and began scanning the list of cocktails. They all had cheesy local names that the tourists no doubt found charming."

While the writer builds tension and paces the novel well, West throws this all away in the conclusion. I don't find mental health tropes particularly compelling - it's lazy to write off people's actions as stemming from mental ill-health. Descriptive phrases in this area also need some work, like the writer's description of suicidal ideation: "People say that suicide is a coward's way to die, but that decision was never mine. It was like a parasitic entity had reached its tendrils into my mind and affixed itself to my brain stem."

Good novels build towards a conclusion that makes earlier parts of the novel make more sense, rather than just exposing the lead protagonist as an unreliable narrator, as a liar if you'd prefer. One of Lo's excuses for lying in the novel is: "The real story fuckin' sucked, so I just – I dunno – made up a better one?" Perhaps I would have liked Catch Us The Foxes More if the author had followed Lo's advice...

This book covers a lot of unusual ground and mental health is a focus.
I believe this important subject should be discussed and investigated on many levels.

Marlowe is given conflicting information around the murder of her friend and nemesis Lily.
She believes she can solve what occurred without being able to trust anyone in her town, including her policeman father.
She jumps to quite a lot of conclusions and the story concludes with the reader still guessing what is true.
I didn't love this book as too many backflips had me very confused.

I had mixed feelings about this book, but in the end I am glad I persevered. Initially enthusiastic as the book was located in a coastal town in NSW, Australia, and set against a backdrop of the annual country show (carnival), something from my childhood which I remember fondly, I was curious to see what would transpire.

The book starts in the present, with the lead character, Marlowe (“Lo”) presenting her new book “The Showgirl’s Secret”, based on her experiences - then we fade back to earlier times in her life to live the book.

I did find the dark tones of the storyline a little unappealing, but that is my personal view, others may not. While the story jumped around a bit and seemed to digress from the main thread, eventually it came together well, with an unexpected ending which was worth the wait. The book definitely did have some very Australian flavours (but do we have faucets in Australia??) - will be interesting to see how it accepted in the overseas markets.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced e-copy of this book in return for my unbiased review.