A very real warning up front: if you do not care for epistolary novels (stories told primarily in the form of letters, emails, and other documents), you will absolutely not like this book.

On the other hand, if you're a fan of, or at least welcome to, the epistolary novel, as I am, and have the patience to keep track of all the characters and the details of the story itself, you will be well rewarded by an outstanding debut novel that is almost perfect.

The setting is a small town in England, and the story begins with a legal team introducing documents, so we know we are are actually closer to the end of the story than the beginning. We then dive into the tale, where a small theater troupe is about to cast and present a play. One of the members, however, has gone MIA, and several people are emailing wondering what's happening.

The truth is sad: his granddaughter has been diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of cancer. There is a very new and experimental treatment the family wants to try, but it's very expensive. There is some fundraising, but also people skeptical of this treatment. Eventually, someone winds up dead, and that's when the book ramps up.

I won't go further into details about the plot from there, as it's much too easy to get into spoilers. I will name the one quibble I have with the book: someone presenting documents of a case is expected to weed out the things that are not particularly relevant to the incident under investigation, and there are a few too many of those still left in that don't add anything to the story.

Beyond that, it's a twisting, surprising case, and well worth a read.

A solid four out of five stars.

Expected publication date: January 25, 2022

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for the reading copy.

OMG!! You have seen the quote on this cover, that says its addictive? Well ladies and gentlemen, they aren’t lying! Holy cow people!! THE APPEAL blew my mind, totally screwed with my head, and then blew my mind once again! It was that good! Someone has already been convicted of a brutal murder and is currently in prison, but it is suspected that they are not the killer. Two legal assistants are given the job of reading through pages and pages of emails and text message transcripts on the case and the reader is taken along for the ride. All while I was reading, I totally had it figured out only to be wrong over and over again! I love when an author keeps me guessing.

THE APPEAL had me yelling at the characters in the book over and over again! My emotions were all over the place and just when I thought I had it all figured out, Janice Hallett showed me just how wrong I was. Does a story get any better than this? THE APPEAL is a well written novel that hooked me from the very first page. I do not want to tell too much because I don’t want to give anything away, but while reading, I felt every possible emotion I could think of and loved every minute of it! There is so much going on in this story, but Janice does a wonderful job of weaving all the pieces together.

The twists and turns in THE APPEAL are going to keep you up late into the night trying to figure it out. One minute you believe you know what happened and who did it and the next you are sitting there shaking your head, wondering what the heck just happened. I had my suspicions, I had it all figured out, or so I thought, and BAM…….wrong again! Once you start reading, trust me, you aren’t going to be able to stop! When the truth finally comes out you will be shocked!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Atria through Netgalley. All opinions expressed are my own and were voluntarily given.

A cleverly constructed, well written novel about a murder in a small English town. Written mostly in emails and texts, we, along with two legal assistants must decide who is guilty and why. Like them I changed my mind multiple times and came finally to the correct conclusion. It’s a sign of a great writer and not a gimmick that you can begin to know the sender of one email over another, by the tone, grammar and style of their communication. Absorbing and immersive book.

4.5 stars, rounded up
It can be difficult to read a book that uses an unconventional narrative form. In The Appeal, everything is told as texts, emails, post it notes, crime reports and legal documents. But the book grabbed my attention immediately. Someone has been murdered and someone else found guilty. The idea being that the reader, like the young law students, can read the documents to suss out what exactly happened and whether their client is innocent.
I went into this book blindly, which I recommend. What I could tell is that an amateur drama group is getting ready to put on Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. Then, the cast gets the news that the director’s two year old granddaughter has an aggressive form of brain cancer. The group kicks into gear to raise the $350,000 necessary to pay for an experimental treatment.
The characters are a diverse lot. The family of the little girl are all involved in the play as directors and stars, some secondary talents and a couple of newbies. A lot of the documents are from Izzy, a clingy, ditzy single woman that puts herself into the center of everything. She also attaches herself like a leech to the new female recruit. She’s the kind of character I love, but would hate to have to deal with in real life.
Some of the correspondence does provide for comic relief. Not just tactless comments, but how info gets twisted and gossip gets passed around.
It seems odd to say that reading a bunch of emails, etc. would lead to a feeling of such suspense, but it did. I don’t want to say more for fear of giving up any plot points, which are best discovered by the reader. Suffice it to say that Hallet has written a well thought out, deliciously convoluted tale.
My thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for an advance copy of this book.

While I usually love passages of emails or texts in books, this was a little difficult because it was the majority of the book. But it did have an air of modern Agatha Christie about it, and that was kind of cool.

"A wholly modern take on the epistolary novel" - oh yeah! And how! I give The Appeal FIVE stars simply for the format, which is amazing. Told mostly through emails and text messages between the characters, and from texts between two law students and lawyer, the fact that Ms. Hallett accomplishes a successful story is absolutely amazing. I was blown away by the story line and the red herrings thrown our way. Bravo! Don't miss this one, it's not what you think!

P. S. Thanks to Atria Marketing for the advance reader copy.

This is not only a tricky book to read but a tricky book to review. 🤔

Make sure to have your thinking cap on while reading this debut novel by Janice Hallett.

All you know in the beginning is that someone was murdered, someone was sent to prison, and it's up to you, the reader, to figure out the who, what, when, where, and how. 🕵️‍♀️

This book is like reading 400 pages of an email chain and all the while you are trying to put the puzzle pieces together. It's an ingenious idea making for a compelling read. I'll admit to some confusion amongst the characters as there are many players involved and I did have a hard time keeping them all straight. While the style of this novel did work for me I can see other readers struggling with it. This won't be for everyone but I do have to commend Hallett for putting her own spin on the mystery novel. One of my suspicions was proved correct but there were other little and some bigger surprises along the way making my reading experience a worthwhile one. This book did start to get drawn out at the end. Maybe some editing here or there would have benefited this book. Still, I am so happy to have read this for the unusual journey it brought me on. 4 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for my complimentary copy.

A dazzling mystery a unique format told through emails &dms.I enjoyed this book from first page to last.The cast of characters come alive .I highly recommend this engrossing thriller and I will be following the author.#netgalley#atriabooks

Incredibly clever, extra riveting with its unique writing style! This book provides us such a long character list consisted of bunch of peculiar townies! Backstabbing, mind traps, lies, betrayal, political games inserted inside entertaining clue game: you read bunch of documents, examining the character list and trying to guess whodunnit by connecting the dots! I had so much fun to force my brain cells for extra exercise!

The story starts with Olufemi Hassan and Charlotte Holrody’s assignment to examine several correspondences of local theater team members including text messages, emails, newspaper clippings that are arranged chronologically by Tanner& Dewey LLP. At first we don’t understand why those people are hired and why they should dig out a bunch of townies’ private correspondences.

We just dig through several emails, text messages and list of crowded group members to designate who’s who like regular opening of Christie novels introducing us character names and their brief attributes.

It seems like the local theater production team focuses on a new play and producers are wealthy local family who is at the top place of social hierarchy. Martin and Helen: the head couple inform their theater group that their two years old granddaughter Poppy was diagnosed with brain cancer. American drug combination which may cure their granddaughter costs $ 350K ! They plan to start crowdfunding page , asking their friends, families, colleagues to share the link to raise more awareness.

It seems like the family is tight lipped about the drug therapy and other details which is suspicious a little and when we add murder into equation, things get juicer and more complex!

The beginning was a little slow! To learn more about characters, their motives, their secrets, you have to read a lot of paper work!

It was interesting and absolutely intelligent idea to tell the entire story, inserting small clues via correspondences.

Even though it started slow, it picks up in the middle so you gotta keep your patience and it’s fully worth it!

I loved the unique storytelling! The number of characters was a lot which slowed me down to turn back to remember who was who, but it was still enjoyable to chase the clues to find the perpetrator!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books/ Simon & Schuster for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

I just couldn't get into this book, unfortunately, the format of emails, etc. made it incredibly difficult to follow. I gave up a third of the way through.

The Appeal by Janice Hallett is a mixed media novel that incorporated letters and documents to solve a case surrounding a small community. The novel starts with the arrival of two mysterious newcomers to the small town of Lockwood, and ends with a tragic death. Someone has already been convicted of this brutal murder and is currently in prison, but the main lawyer suspects they are innocent. What's more, the lawyer believe far darker secrets have yet to be revealed. Throughout the Fairway Players' staging of All My Sons and the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick's life-saving medical treatment, the murderer hid in plain sight. Yet the lawyer believe the culprit gave themselves away. In writing. The evidence is all here, between the lines, waiting to be discovered.

This is definitely a new favorite for me. I thought it was so creatively written and had so many twists that all came together for me to make so much sense. Even if you guess some of the twists, there are more that will leave you shocked. This is such an engaging read that lets the reader play detective. I highly recommend this book and can't wait to read more from this author.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a most unusual mystery. An appeals Attorney in Britain gives his interns a host of emails and texts from the period surrounding the murder and the chore of determining who looks like the guilty party. Readers work along side of them and make their own decisions. It is slow going at first. Reading emails tends to drag, however soon readers will find themselves speeding through them because they want to learn what goes next and what is or isn’t true! Thanks to Net Galley and Simon & Schuster for an ARC for an honest review.

Reading this felt a bit like going through a Hunt-a-Killer style mystery/subscription box and I thought it was a lot of fun for that same reason! As the reader, you're left to sift through the conspiracies & crimes of a small English town through the lens of a pair of legal assistants who are investigating where the initial case might've gone wrong, and whether or not someone in the character cast has been wrongfully imprisoned.

The book is told through emails, texts, police records, 911 calls, and other transcribed snippets, and I'm always down for a book with mixed media/non-traditional formats. This was an interesting experience to go through and although there are quite a few names and roles to keep up with, once you've settled in and gotten pulled into the real mysteries, you want to keep going until you have all the answers for yourself.

No spoilers here, but I appreciated that the twists/answers were neither completely obvious or totally out of the blue, and you can see exactly what you did (or didn't!) miss by the time you get to them, which is a tricky balance for a book like this to find. It was well-crafted and the character voices were distinct, which really helped track the plot.

If you're looking for a fun, character-centric mystery you should pick this one up! Out in the US in January, out in the UK now :)

How do you please true crime and thriller lovers? By giving them a case as collection of evidences instead of a story starts with "here is the deal". You give them everything to sort out relationships, figure out personalities, and build out timelines. Then every so often, you give them a recap to confirm their suspicions or throw a bone at them to look for other things they might have missed. You let them pull their corkboards and red strings. You give them a book like this that they cannot put down because I'm sure they can write the story on their own.

The structure of this book reminds me so much of hunt-a-killer boxes that me and my friend received when we were in lock down. You are given bunch of email correspondence and newspapers clips to make up your own story. Technically, there are two investigators looking into same things as you do and their conversations give you clarity when you need it.

We are talking about a close knit community that is the very willing to accept outsiders into their circle. There is one family that everyone admires and this family also runs an amateur theater company to keep their circle engaged. When "tragedy" hits this family, we start to see how loyalties align, who protects who, how long would it take to people be suspicious of things, and how far they would go to hide things.

This was a unique thriller that kept me guessing along the way! I was shocked with some twists while others I had figured out. The pacing was a bit slow but honestly I enjoyed this story!

Don’t even know how to review, it’s so stinking hard to even try to come up with adequate things to say! So, I’m just going to say it’s unlike any other whodunnit I’ve read, and you absolutely do not want to miss it. Perfectly written, with perfect character development! Highly, highly recommend this absolutely one of a kind read!

If you're looking for a uniquely formatted mystery that'll keep you guessing until the end, then this is the book for you!

When I say I could not stop reading this book, I truly mean it! Although we only gain a partial sight via emails and texts of the cast of characters, it was just enough to keep me wondering what was really going on behind the keyboards, who was telling lies and why, and why we the reader, along side 2 graduate law students, were digging through these correspondence.

It was so fun trying to peice things together, and while there were a couple of twists I figured out myself, there were plenty of others I never saw coming!

I very much look forward to picking up a physical copy of this book, and any future works by the author in the future!

5⭐
I was just approved for a netgalley copy today, but I actually already bought this book and read it last month. This is one of my new favorite books of the year.
In The Appeal we are following 2 law students, Charolette and Femi. They are asked by their boss to review a case, and figure out who was falsley imprisoned, who really murdered the victim, and why.
This was such a unique reading experience. The story is told mainly through emails between the drama club members, IMs between the law students, and a few other documents. You are trying to solve the mystery as you are reading. I cannot wait to read more from this author.
Thank you to Netgalley for a ebook on exchange for a review.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S THE APPEAL ABOUT?
The setup is basically this: a pair of law students have been given a stack of documents—emails, texts, voicemail transcripts, letters, and so on. They're to read through this stack and be prepared to work out what crime(s) happened in what's documented and who did what (and maybe why).

The correspondence focuses on a period of March-July in the lives of people in The Fairway Players or their associates. The Fairway Players are a local amateur theater group from a small community. As the group starts to plan their next play, the director makes a horrible announcement: his granddaughter, Poppy, has just been diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. He's going to have to step back for a while, and Poppy's uncle will be stepping up to direct, etc. There's an experimental drug from the U.S. that's her best shot at a cure, but it's expensive and the family's trying to crowdfund the treatment.

The Players are galvanized into action—individually and as a whole. People do charity runs, have a fundraising gala, a raffle, direct contributions, and so on—and, of course, all the proceeds from The Fairway Players' next play will go to the Fund.

The stack of documents chronicles the messages about this fundraising appeal, the emails of support, and a lot of the behind-the-scenes work at the appeal and the play, and assorted tangential matters. There's a lot of gossip, backstabbing, emotional manipulation, and...well, you start to get the idea that not everything is on the up-and-up with the appeal, the treatment, and some of the people involved. The more you start to piece together the picture these emails, etc. are painting, the more you're pretty sure you're missing something big. Maybe a few somethings. A crime has been committed, one or two may be in progress, and there may be more on the way.

The only way to find out is to see what the next email has to say.

ISABEL BECK
When it comes to sheer word count, we hear more from Isabel Beck than any of the other characters. This doesn't necessarily mean that we know more about her than some of the others—we just get more input from her about what's going on. Or at least what she says is going on.

Issy is clearly a lonely person. Until she recruits a couple of new colleagues, she's the newest member of The Fairway Players and isn't really liked by most (and, in fact, the people she brings in are quickly more welcome than she is). She's described as "mousy," "drippy," who "latches on to" people—and some things not as complimentary. Between her emails and what others say about her, you really start to pity Issy.

And that feeling just grows—like just about every person in the book, she does some truly lousy things. But unlike just about every person in the book, I only felt bad for her. I really hoped for a heaping dose of comeuppance to be given to everyone else but kept hoping something good would happen for Issy.

If I liked nothing else about The Appeal, Isabel Beck would be enough for me to tell you to go read this book. I'm so glad I met this character, one of the best of 2021.

THE STROKE OF GENIUS
The law students, Femi and Charlotte, communicate with each other via WhatsApp about these documents as they read—as you read, too. They get exactly the same information as the reader does when the reader does. As they write back and forth, it's like you're a part of the conversation with them. Instead of texting/messaging your friend(s) as you read the same novel, in this case, you're reading along with a couple of the characters.

In mysteries, as the reader, you're always looking back at things, seeing what happened. Even if the narration is in the present tense, it's going through things that have already happened. Which is the case here, too. But you're with Femi and Charlotte in the trenches—it feels very "now"—while you and those two are looking towards the future, what documents are going to be coming? As they start to put things together, you do, too (sometimes faster than them, sometimes a beat or two behind them). It's a fun—and brilliant—layer on top of what's already a great book that kicks it up a notch or two of cleverness.

LINGERING QUESTIONS
One of the downsides/advantages (depending on your point of view) of this type of storytelling is that you don't have an omniscient narrator—or even a first person—to tie up all the loose ends.

I have several lingering questions about some of the events of the book, many of which can't even make a decent guess about the answer for. If Connelly, Rankin, Holten, Goldberg, or anyone else had left this much hanging—you can believe I'd be jumping up and down shouting my objections to the heavens. But I'm oddly at peace with this. I have been and am going to be spending some time chewing on my questions, make no mistake, but I'm fine with Hallett not tieing everything up in a nice bow.

I should stress that all the important questions, the ones that keep the reader turning pages for, are answered in definitive ways.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE APPEAL?
I ordered this book as soon as I read Noelle Holten's post about it in July. Then listening to Hallet on The Blood Brothers Podcast just made me anticipate it more. So when I saw this on NetGalley, I had to jump—who wants to wait until January for the US release?

I am so glad that I didn't wait.

As I read this, I kept saying to myself things like, "oh, this is clever;" "this is great;" "oohh, impressive;" and so on. And then 30-60 minutes later, I'd say the same thing again, but mean it more. And then again 30-minutes later. Right up to the final paragraphs, this kept getting better and better—and it started off great.

Now that I've said such grandiose things that no book can possibly live up to them, I'm not sure there's a whole lot left to say.

The Appeal is a funny, thought-provoking, and suspenseful novel full of great, believable characters—not a whole lot of likable characters, but believable and interesting, sure—with a multi-layered plot that will keep you guessing and thinking as it pushes you to keep going; all presented in a format that you've seen rarely (if ever) in a mystery novel. If the execution isn't flawless, it's close enough that you won't notice.

One of the best of the year. Period.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Atria via NetGalley in exchange for this post and my honest opinion—thanks to both for this.

"A dazzingly clever modern Agatha Christie," quotes The Sunday Times on the cover of The Appeal by Janice Hallett. Any fan of mystery would probably be keen to pick this book up because of that. I certainly was. Many thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for making it available to me to share my opinion on.

In a small town in the UK, a youngster in a prominent local family has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called medulloblastoma. The local community, including several people who participate in a theatre group controlled by the same family, rally around the youngster by creating a fundraising appeal to help pay for a potentially lifesaving, expensive medical drug regimen that can only be purchased in the United States. But everything and everyone are not as they seem, and one ends up murdered.

I cannot compliment the author enough on the mystery portion of this story! There were numerous suspects. I legitimately was unsure right up until the guilty party was fed to me on a platter. The characters do all have their virtues and flaws and some potentially have some "issues". Any of these people could've been behind the murder, as several had potential motives as well. It was a really fantastically written mystery in that respect.

Although I was unable to guess the murderer and think very highly of that aspect of the book, there were a few things that just weren't for me personally. The book is told in an epistolary format. Text messages, emails, fliers, etc. Because the book is written this way and because there is a plethora of characters, I didn't feel the connection I crave with the characters in the books I read. Many of the communications are emails and are written with more of a professional than personable tone. This causes the book to feel dry and a touch stagnant at times. If I'd been able to connect better with the characters, I wouldn't have minded the slow build so much.

Overall, I would highly recommend this to mystery fans, especially those of you who enjoy Agatha Christie. It does have a touch of modern-day Christie. I wasn't even sure who had been murdered until around halfway through the story! And so many potential suspects made trying to figure out whodunit more pleasurable. Still snapping my fingers and tutting at myself for not succeeding!