When Martin and Helen Hayward's granddaughter Poppy is diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer, the members of the Fairway Players, a community theatre group that they lead, rally together to raise money for the experimental treatment Poppy requires. Through email correspondence, the reader gets a glimpse into the lives of this small community and its members, and although they seem close knit and friendly, we soon learn that not everything is as it seems.

This was a murder mystery told uniquely through email correspondence, texts and various documents. A little overwhelming with 15 characters to keep track of and weighed down by the sheer volume of information, the pace was slow. Until about 50-100 pages from the end when the reader receives this massive information dump. This was where the actual story came together. It's up to you to decide whether to hang on or not.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for providing a digital copy in return for an honest, unbiased review.

A uniquely designed murder mystery set within a community's theater group. The story is complicated by the illness of a child and the fund raising for her treatment. MONEY is one of the most typical motives for murder, but with this many suspects.......

Now, the unique. The story is told through the review of documents and records by two law students who have been assigned the review. Using documents from every source, the clues are well distributed and disguised, so read carefully. This was a welcome change from the usual whodunit. 5 easy stars.

To keep this as neutral as possible, I have decided to give it a 3-star rating. The Appeal was not the book for me. I found it to be incredibly dull. So, unfortunately, I had to dnf it. Since I did not finish the book, I do not want to give it a low rating.

The story itself was okay, nothing special. I love the format when emails, texts, or letters are used. It makes the mystery feel real. But this one just didn't do it justice. I had no desire to find out who was the real killer. I didn't even bother to look for a spoiler review to check. Because I didn't care enough.

I wish I had liked this book. The synopsis seemed like my kind of book, but ultimately the writing was just not for me.

Unfortunately I DNF’ed this title at about 50% in. I didn’t feel like the story was going anywhere but it may have just been the format I struggled with.

This was 10/10 pure fun and joy! I loved every single minute of it, it has a vibe of a friend telling an unhinged story about people they know and I didn't stop reading it! The mystery was fun, but these characters were phenomenal!

There are so many characters in this one! After a while though, I did get a hang of who is who. Loved how the story is told (texts, emails, and other communication tools). I recommend reading the physical with the audio for full effect.

I really liked the premise of this book and was looking forward to it being an epistolary novel (one which is told through letters, texts, emails, etc.) as I thought I would find that fun but the reality fell short for me. It felt very long winded and I felt like it was way too far into the story before the murder happened (for a mystery novel).

It has a really large cast of characters which took a bit to get to grips with and I’m not sure they were all necessary to the story. I felt it became repetitive and overall I was just a bit bored to be honest. I enjoyed the end where everything wrapped up but also wasn’t sure how believable I felt the ending was. I’m sure some people will really love this one but afraid it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my e-ARC.

This was a bit slow for me but I will definitely check more out by this author.

I really enjoyed this- a good friend of mine told me I had to read it right away, and I blew through it in a day! It is cleverly constructed, a truly new form of epistolary novel that was by turns funny and cringe-worthy. You become very close to the characters as you are hearing their innermost thoughts via email, text, and note, and although I wasn't completely surprised by the ending I was totally entertained the whole way through. A murder mystery where you don't know who died until most of the way through- and it's perfectly fine that that is the case? Sign me up! I can't wait to read Hallett's newer books.

What a very interesting and out of the ordinary book! I would recommend reading it in one sitting but it was a fun book to read. Thank you for writing such an interesting book!

⭐⭐

𝘼 𝙢𝙪𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙨 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙—𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙖 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮, 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙨𝙪𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩.

📍 Read if you like:
• Epistolary Novels
• Murder Mysteries
• Multiple Suspects
• Unique Stories

Listen… I really wanted to love this one - I really did - but I honestly was so underwhelmed with it. While I get why many people enjoyed it, it just was not for me.

I will say this book is extremely unique and it's formatted in such an interesting way with emails, texts, letters, and essays. I found myself flying through the book because of the way it was written. There were also a bunch of characters. There is a character reference at the beginning of the book, but I found myself looking back so many times - I got so confused at times, especially since there were different names with the play element.

I didn’t really care for any of the characters or found them interesting. There were probably two or so that had a bit of an interesting vibe, but overall most of them felt bland IMO.

The overall mystery felt so underwhelming. I was expecting myself to go into it as a detective trying to piece everything together - and while I did predict the ending, it just felt so off. I get why it’s revealed that way, but the motive wasn’t my favorite.

Also, this may just be me being super picky, but I didn’t understand why the characters kept emailing each other as if they were texts. There were times when they were in the same room and still emailing, it just felt weird to read about.

Overall, I get why this book was written and I get why it’s so loved by most who have read it. It’s definitely super unique and I want to read more epistolary novels in the future, this one just didn’t work for me.

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for the gifted book in exchange for my honest review, all thoughts are my own!

The Appeal is an extremely clever and unique way to tell the story of a crime. A small theater group, The Fairway Players, is run by Martin Hayward and his wife, Helen. However, the community is shocked when Martin explains why they have been out of touch. Their granddaughter, Poppy, has been diagnosed with cancer and needs expensive life-saving treatment. The money required is exorbitant and the drama group pulls together to appeal to the community to raise funds.
However, there is some suspicion around the appeal and the various players. When someone is killed, young lawyers are asked to review all the correspondence, mainly emails, to discover the truth. This is a unique way of laying out the background, and having the reader try to piece together the mystery. The epistolary style is a fresh way to write the story.
I truly enjoyed this debut novel and I look forward to more from this author. It will keep you guessing!

The book is a bit odd, it starts with a note transmitting a case file to two of his employees. He says it is better if they nothing about the case, but should learn about it from reading the documents in the file. These consist of texts and emails exchanged among members of an theatrical company. The texts and emails are written so it gives each character his or her own voice but confusing. They are supposed to find out who committed a murder from reading the documents in the file. The author's use of emails and texts to tell the story was different but it throws you off. You have to read it through non stop in order to avoid confusion. Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the advance ecopy.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Appeal, which was written in a fresh and different sytle! The book is presented in a series of emails between members of a local theater group. There are a lot of characters, but I found they had distinct personalities, and one in particular made me giggle every time I read her un-self aware comments.

Martin Hayward and his wife Helen lead the Fairway Players in the small town where they also own the country club. Martin directs, and his wife Helen almost always plays the lead. But tragedy has struck. Their young granddaughter Poppy has been diagnosed with cancer. The theater group bands together to help, and decides to raise money for Poppy's hospital bills, which includes gaining access to an experimental drug from America.

The story with all its complications slowly unfolds through the series of emails. Eventually there will be a murder,, but it takes a while to happen. However we know from almost the beginning that someone has been murdered. I found this a fun book to read. There are clues a plenty and it's fun trying to guess the outcome.

I listened to the audio, and that was a bit difficult because I got tired of hearing the dates and the email server that was read before each snippet. If one was actually reading I think you would skim these, but when listening, you can't. Therefore, I would prefer to actually read, rather than listen, to this book.

Overall I got great enjoyment from this and would rate it a 4.5 stars. I'm rounding up to 5.

I loved The Appeal--what a fantastic suspense thriller! The twists kept me involved and guessing what would come next, and the writing style was so easy to connect with.

Described as an Agatha Christie type of mystery, I thought this would be a cozy mystery type of read.

I was surprised to find instead, a slow burn mystery in which the story unfolds by reading through mounds and mounds of emails, letters, texts, etc which contain a ton of information that doesn't pertain to the crime or the mystery and from all different types of characters about two separate mysteries.

So many details about things that don't matter and don't move the story forward. I didn't enjoy this one.

The Appeal
by : Janice Hallett
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
( rounded up on GR & Netgalley toa 4 ⭐️ )
genre : mystery, crime

unsure what I just read…the first 80% of the book I was focused on the sick child , if she was really sick, and if the family and doctor were in cahoots with eachother just to get money…

THEN BAM 💥 SOMEONE IS DEAD!!!

and yet I would have never guessed who was going to die…

what I liked
👍🏻 my theory in the first 13% of the book was correct. But even though I was correct, I didn’t feel like that theory was the most I port one..
👍🏻 I was engrossed in this book and absolutely loved the format of it..e-mails and text of others? Sign me and my nosey self up!
👍🏻 the convos between the two lawyers working the case. I felt like after 20% or so when their convos came up, that I was working on this case right along side of them

what I disliked
🫣 there were A LOT of characters. However, the author did a great job at explaining who each were but I sometimes had to stop and think how they were connected when it wasn’t the main characters correspondence
🫣 the lawyer explanations were very boring and it was as if they were recapping what was just read. ALSO, I did feel that the lawyers kinda pulled these conclusions out of their ass…either that or I just didn’t focus on the right info. It just kinda made me feel that I wasn’t able to properly form a theory because I felt like the correspondence wasn’t anything too incriminating.

My crime junkie, nosey nelly heart was very satisfied and I do think if I did a reread of this book knowing the hints I should be aware of, I may be able to see where the conclusion of the case came from. Either way, I would definitely recommend reading and if you do, expect the unexpected and assume everyone is guilty.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

I was approved for this galley ages ago and I'm so mad at myself for sleeping on it. I read it in one weekend - no small feat with 3 young kids at home! I adore epistolary novels and this one was amazing! I love all the media (text, email, transcripts, articles) that were used to tell the story. I already have the authors next book checked out from the library. I can't wait to get into it! Honestly my brain doesn't understand how authors can be so adept at developing characters and plot through an epistolary format - well done!

Thank you so much for this ARC!

While most readers enjoyed the presentation of this book - it was just not for me. Too confusing and hard to follow along.

Honestly, I put off reading this because the premise felt too complex to even understand. So I’ll cut right to the chase: it is so much fun to read emails and text messages and follow several mysteries (who’s lying? Who’s exaggerating for their own social standing?).
Local community theater, cancer treatment fundraising, and social standing all are at the forefront.
I recommend it if you’re nosy and like unreliable narrators. P