A nice mystery break from my normal British police procedurals, this was the first book I’ve read in the series when I obtained an Advance Readers copy thanks to NetGalley and the publisher. There were mentions made of things that Annalise and Alec had gone through in earlier books, and some of those were behind their travel to New Zealand in this book, but enough details were provided to make reading this as a stand-alone enjoyable.
As a sheep owner myself the details of their care added authenticity to the story as suspicious deaths begin to happen shortly after Annalise arrives on a friends New Zealand sheep station. With a family full of possible suspects, I didn’t see the twist at the end coming. Annalise and Alec both have their issues, and their thoughts and emotions make them very real and relatable, the author did a great job in making me root for their relationship.
I’m definitely looking forward to reading more in this series.

When I first began taking on ARCs to review, just over a year ago now, I remember that a previous book in this series was one of the very first that I reviewed. At that time, I was very excited to put my passion for reading to good use and support authors in the process, so this book appealed to me partly for nostalgic reasons. I remembered reading the previous book in the series and wanted to know what happened next for the characters.

I found that I could only remember parts of what happened in the previous book, but when I began reading this, I immediately recalled the characters with some level of fondness. I felt that the author created an escape for the reader, and as I read on, both the setting and characters came to life for me. The characters felt very real to me - I began to feel as almost though Annalisse and Alec could be personal friends of mine, and their relationship warmed my heart.

This was an intriguing mystery that I found comforting to read, and it was light enough to read in one sitting. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy to review.

This book is a perfect addition to the series. There is just enough detail about the background to catch you up without boring you.
I, however, have not read the rest of the series so I had to work a little harder to get attached. I did enjoy "Sutton" and how that was handled.
The characters are great, the settings are cool, and we have some unrealistic romance to tie it all together. Fantastic.