At the beginning of The Appeal, we meet two young lawyers whose boss has assigned them the monumental task of sifting through piles of correspondence. Through those communications -- e-mails, text messages, letters -- we are introduced to Poppy, a two-year-old girl diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the local theater company and community members who rally around her family and begin a crowdfunding appeal to pay for a life-saving treatment. Within this correspondence, the lawyers are told, lie clues to the identity of a murderer -- but the wrong person may have been convicted of the crime.

I had so much fun reading The Appeal. The epistolary format is not a style that appeals (ha) to everyone, but I've always enjoyed novels written this way. With such snort snippets of text, The Appeal is compulsively readable and incredibly engaging. But be sure you pay close attention even as you're flying through the messages; Janice Hallett hides plenty of clues, deceptions, secrets, and red herrings -- and a few laugh-out-loud moments -- within them.

The large cast of characters is a bit overwhelming at first, but it didn't take me long to settle in and start learning about these people through their written communication. And there are definitely some characters here! Busybodies and addicts and fraudsters and people suffering from mental illness, people with motivations that are impure at best, sinister at worst. As we try to figure out the mystery along with the lawyers, we learn that everyone has something to hide, and no one can be trusted. The conclusion, when it comes, is a bit drawn out, but still ultimately satisfying.

This must have been such a complex novel to craft, and it truly impressed me. The Appeal is an intriguing, original, and thoroughly modern take on the epistolary novel, and I definitely recommend it for anyone who enjoys stories told this way, or any amateur sleuth readers who want a front seat at helping to solve a crime. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book -- thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for my digital copy.

Poppy Reswick, the granddaughter of the leaders of the Fairway Players, is in need of a great deal of money to fund an experimental cancer therapy, and the other members of the troupe are doing their best to support the parents, also part of the group, and grandparents by continuing with the show. A new couple, friends of Issy, a nurse in geriatrics, has joined, and seems to be fitting in well. However, cracks are appearing in the close relationships between troupe members, and questions are being raised as to exactly where the money raised for Poppy’s treatment is going. Oh, and there’s also a suspicious death, resulting in the imprisonment of another troupe member.

Told through texts, letters, and e-mails, The Appeal was difficult for me to follow. There are way too many characters, I wasn’t a fan of the format, and honestly, by the time everything came out, I didn’t really care any longer.

This was a really interesting read. I loved the unique way that it was told and I enjoyed the mystery. Parts of the story were really slow for me though and hard to get through.

The Appeal grabbed me from the start and I was immediately telling so many of friends and fellow attorneys about it! Told through various texts and email threads, notes, and other snippets collected in preparation for a trial (and subsequent appeal), you will absolutely fall into this story and not stop until you know what happened. This is a one-sitting read because you will not be able to put it down.

5/5 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher for this gifted copy! This book was easy to keep those pages turning! A classic who done it tale written entirely in case notes, flyers, emails, and text messages. Some unlikeable characters, but not unbearable enough to make you stop reading. Just goes to show you never really know people and know who to trust. I really did enjoy the different approach on how this book was written.

3.5 stars rounded up - Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for this digital ARC of The Appeal!

The Appeal has such an interesting format - it is told completely through emails, text messages and articles, which makes for a very unique reading experience. The reader has to rely a lot on their imagination to piece together what’s going on.

I lost a lot of the characterization that I love to have in a murder mystery via dialogue and descriptive writing. Although it took me awhile, once I got used to this style of writing, I really enjoyed trying to piece everything together. If you enjoy multiple suspects and murder mysteries, don’t miss The Appeal!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e ARC of this book.
Interesting epistolary novel told strictly through emails, texts and written reports.. I found it strange at first but once I got into the story, I couldn't put it down. . Intriguing concept with twists and turns that I didn't guess. I found it interesting how much one could glean about the characters from emails and texts.

The Appeal is a fascinating read especially for a well seasoned crime fiction reader. There is a lot of information provided through emails, letters, texts and essays. It’s complex and told in an epistolary style. May attention to all the details! What a clever and unique reading experience!

A closed door mystery in all epistolary style set in a small English town. Two detectives are asked to help solve a murder but all they have are some email exchanges and text messages between a small community theater group.

Additionally, there is a second mystery, which really feels very predominant of “The Appeal” for Poppy, a two year old girl diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. When the community learns of this girls diagnosis they get together to help raise the vast amount of money that the family needs to import drugs from the United States, but not every thing feels quite kosher with this.

This very much felt like any episode of Midsomer Murders. Very quaint, and involving a finite number of characters and suspects. The author is really great at giving absolutely nothing away. In fact, you do not even know who was murdered until the last quarter of this book.

I could not put this book down. It moves very quick because of the epistolary form. There are a ton of characters, but I found it very easy to understand each of their roles in this savvy story. Very fun book, that you will not want to miss.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

This book was a major let down. The book was way too long and the characters were awful. None of them I liked. The back and forth with the emails got really boring at some points and I was tired of Issy even if she did play a major role in the book. The only reason I’m not rating it a 1 is because I never figured out who did it until it was revealed. The way it was written reminds me of Love, Rosie so not an entirely unique idea.

Thank you to Atria, Janice Hallett, and Netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Appeal, Janice Hallett's debut, is a crime mystery written in the form of an epistolary novel, which is just a fancy word for a book that's in the form of letters, emails, texts, diary entries, documents, etc.

The story opens with two junior lawyers being instructed to read through the evidence of a case - emails, texts, messages, etc. The senior lawyer wants to see what, if anything they find in the documents.

In a small town in the UK, live husband and wife, Martin and Helen Hayward, their grown children and their families. The Haywards own a country club and are the center of the local theater group of the community.

Parts have just been cast for a new play when the Hayward family announces that their little granddaughter Poppy has a rare form of cancer. The play will go on, Helen will still star, though Martin will no longer direct. The family is working with a doctor to get Poppy an experimental "miracle cure" from the USA since it'll take too long for the drug to be available in the UK. Crowdfunding will need to start as they need to raise $350k to buy a dose of the lifesaving cure. On the night of dress rehearsal, someone dies and someone is arrested for murder. Who's guilty? Who's innocent? What exactly is going on here?

I greatly enjoyed this novel, but I don't think it will be for everyone. I think some will be instantly put off by the book's format. I didn't mind the format at all. I got a perfect feel for all the characters and their personalities. I knew who liked who and who hated who. And I knew exactly what was going on in the story. I think the format added to the book because it provided a way to add little extra funny bits here and there to story that otherwise wouldn't have been there.

The story provides the reader a chance to play detective and figure out what's going on. You're given the cast of characters, told that something fishy might be happening and someone dies. And while the cast of characters is large at first glance, once you're a couple chapters in its easy to see that only about six are central to the plot, the rest are just supporting characters who float in and out of the story.

4 stars
Recommended for fans of: mystery, crime fiction, general fiction, thrillers, suspense, women's fiction, British novels, Richard Osman.

I love epistolatory novels - or really kind of mixed media/unconventional formatting, really. This story unfolds mostly over the course of emails and texts - but also a few newspaper articles, and notes. It all makes the reader feel a part of it. Two sets of fresh eyes at a law office are tasked with going over these materials that are laid out mostly chronologically from the end of February through July. Samantha and Kel are nurses recently returned from Africa after a decade spent doing medical aid work there. Isabel, a nurse who works directly with Sam, soon seems quite focused on her and convinces the couple to join her in the local theatre group, The Fairway Players. This local establishment is helmed by the Heyward family. Not long into the emails, the direction shifts to focus largely on a financial appeal made to the larger community to raise funds for the youngest Hayward, Poppy, to receive specialized medicine from overseas for her rare form of cancer. The Players all flock around the family to raise the money as quickly as possible.

While the cast size is fairly large, Hallett lists the players twice, offering a nice reference point to keep marked. After the emails end in July, the title then references a second appeal - one in regards to a murder. Then the two sets of fresh eyes are tasked with sussing out the real plots beneath the emails. This section is a bit redundant, and probably could stand to be pared down as there are a lot of theories thrown out - some of them quite surprised me. Though this stands to further engage the reader - sort of like the book coming with its own mini-built-in book club. More emails emerge after and soon, the plot becomes clear.

I must say that I knew absolutely nothing about this one going in. other than the description that accompanied my invitation to read it. I didn't expect it to keep me up all hours of the night to finish it, that's for sure! I genuinely couldn't put this one down! The unconventional format really makes this fun and while the frame does at times make things feel redundant, I am sure that readers who don't skip out on sleeping will appreciate some of the reminders here that are built in. And I think this would make for a great choice for a book club or discussion group. Though, really, this almost feels like the novel equivalent of dinner theatre that brings the audience right into it. There are some parts of the plot that I guessed at earlier on, but there are also some real surprises, too! I really enjoyed reading this! What a strong debut novel!! I am definitely excited to read more from Hallett in the future!

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022 and giving a neutral rating because I unfortunately not finish this. Over the past 3 days I've spent 1 total hour reading this and it has felt like so much longer. The way this book is written is via email and text messages which intrigued me but there are so many character and it does flow very well because of this format. Not to mention I feel like absolutely nothing has happened and I feel like I. Just following the everyday life of suburban thespians and all of the characters are kinda unlikable and sketchy.

Books with mixed media make me so happy! I enjoyed that this whole book was told through emails, texts, and letters. Through the mixed media aspects we learn about the events as they happen and what is going on behind the scenes.

The book focuses on a bunch of people in a play run by this one main family. A member of this family is a young girl who is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. It involves a large charity that is taking place so this young girl and get treatment.

The fact that there were so many characters is usually daunting but this book gave such a comprehensive run down of each one it was very easy to follow. It does mainly focus around the comings and goings of one "popular" family and the texts and emails throughout let you know how the others' actually feel about them and each other. It was hard to trust any characters or their motives, there were so many agendas behind the scenes.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this one and thought it had a solid storyline. There were a lot of twists and turns, many I didn't see coming. I loved that there was also a comprehensive run down of all theories going on in the detectives minds. I highly recommend this to lovers of psychological thrillers.

I went and snagged this on netgalley immediately after a friend posted it saying everyone should read it. I didn’t check synopsis, I just took her word for it. This was a rollercoaster. Sometimes I felt it dragged out a bit and other times I was sucked in and couldn’t put it down.

I usually have a hard time with too many characters so I resigned to that fact in the beginning and really didn’t try to keep them straight until I started to get to know the main characters. I had to refer back to the cast list near the front to remember who was related to who.

I only correctly predicted one tiny detail about the final verdict but it involves my favorite weirdo character so I’ll take the win. By favorite I really mean the most interesting but that’s a matter of opinion.

I find British humor and phrases quite amusing so I really tend to enjoy British books. Where as I might say someone is so gentle they “wouldn’t hurt a fly,” a character in this book said another “wouldn’t say boo to a goose” which actually made me laugh out loud.

This is my first time reading anything like this and while I had to suspend a little belief for how often people communicate by email in real life, I found the end result very unique and entertaining.

Interesting Premise. Novel Concept. Quite Verbose. This was a book that had an interesting premise for a story and a novel concept for storytelling - particularly with its emphasis on more modern communication methods - but ultimately was just. too. long. There are so very many characters here that few of them truly get fleshed out and many of them become very hard to keep distinct even in a mind normally attuned to doing just that. And so very many extraneous details that while enhancing the epistolary feel, really drag the overall narrative to the speed of a human baby just beginning to learn to crawl. But other than these two points, the story was quite good and the overall concept is something I'd like to see done better, either in future works from this author or by other authors generally. Recommended.

I loved the format of this book! Reading only the emails and messages from the characters made this a fun who-done it, can we solve it type of mystery thriller and we only had minimal insights into the characters so this was a fun approach we don't see too often. While it did take a while to get to the murder, this was a fun ride and great for mystery and thriller lovers that like a slower burn and guessing along the way who would die and who did it!

Thank you Atria for the gifted copy of this book.

This book is told completely through emails and text messages. We have someone dead (but don’t know who) and someone arrested for their murder (don’t know that either), and we read along with two detectives as they try to piece together what really happened and if the correct person is behind bars.

There are a LOT of characters to keep straight in this story, and I kept getting them confused. Other than that, I really enjoyed this book. I liked the little bits of information they'd feed you, then back track and tell you more, and so on. It all wrapped up in the end, but it was twisty along the way.

I thought it was a bit predictable as far as WHO was wrongly arrested for the murder, and who was the dead person. But as the story unravels it's engaging and kept my interest. I don't think I would have correctly guessed the actual culprit and all the reasons why.

3.5 stars.

This book was absolutely gripping and full of drama. It gave me Big Little Lies vibes, if that dramatic community emailed frequently. I did have my doubts pretty early on about whether or not Poppy was actually ill, but I will admit my opinion on things did flounder from time to time. Issy was pretty obviously always unreliable but I did not suspect for a moment that Lauren was a complete figment of her imagination. I was absolutely captivated reading all these emails, and even though it was so much toxic drama, I was hooked! What a rollercoaster.

I really wanted to love The Appeal, but a few things kept that from happening.

My thought:
-LOVED the format. it was my first time reading epistolary fiction and it made me feel like a detective trying to solve the crime/victim as I read
-there were SO many characters to keep track of and I found them all to be obnoxious with no redeeming qualities
-quite a bit repetitive
-in the end, everything came together & the amount of characters paid off making it worth the read

I believe fans of true crime podcasts and documentaries will love this book, but my main recommendation would be reading this in physical form. Following along to letters and emails on my Kindle proved a struggle at times when I wanted to be able to flip back through pages and refresh my memory.