Deadly Animals - I wanted to love this book. The cover, the title, the description BUT this book was very very slow. There was a lot of banter that really did not go anywhere. I really wanted some twists but it was just very very slow.

Someone is killing kids. When 14 year old Ava finds a body, she makes an anonymous call to the police which brings detectives to her small town. How hard can it be for them to find the killer? Apparently, harder than they thought.

While Ava's POV chapter are interesting, the adult POV chapters are super boring. It's such a weird imbalance. Unfortunately, this caused me to lose interest really fast. I feel like if this would have been a Goonies-esque story featuring only the children, it would have been so much better, After that the killer is so predictable. I feel like mysteries shouldn't be wildly predictable. Yes, there should be clues but also things to lead you astray. Plus, I don't think we should be able to figure out the killer pretty early in the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ALC. Olivia Dowd was a great narrator, but this book just wasn't for me.

Thank you Macmillan Audio and Henry Holt Books for the ALC and copy.

Such a unique and wonderful debut. I listened to the audio and with the narrator I was transported to England in the 1980’s.
🖤80s Nostalgia
🖤Disturbing, Dark and Twisted
🖤Police Procedural
🖤Serial Killer
Ava is a young teen who has an usual hobby of studying roadkill. One day, she comes across the body of a dead boy. She forms a bond with Seth, the lead detective and helps with the investigation when multiple boys bodies start showing up. The POVS alternate between Ava and Seth. A thriller/police procedural that is additive, different, dark and horrifying. Check any trigger warnings.

*Finding a dead body is not normal.* Ava Bonney’s story is anything but ordinary, and *[Insert Book Title]* had me hooked from page one. This chilling mystery masterfully blends Ava’s morbid curiosity with the urgent danger facing her community. The juxtaposition of Ava’s tender age and her macabre obsession creates a uniquely compelling protagonist, while the escalating tension keeps the pages turning. The small-town setting is rich with atmosphere, and the characters feel deeply human—flawed, brave, and hauntingly real. The twists were shocking yet believable, and Ava’s courage in confronting both her own secrets and a lurking predator was deeply satisfying. Dark, gripping, and utterly unforgettable—5 stars!

A detective story unlike any I’ve read, although I did figure out who the killer was pretty early on the journey to get there in the story was still so interesting the way they pieced it together and all of the different elements of the case. The psychology in this book was very intriguing and makes me want to do my own research into the subject presented in this book. I want to follow the life of Ave, she’s so interesting at such a young age and I love her weirdness. Would love more books following her into adulthood.

Ava is a peculiar but perfect character to narrate this mystery. I appreciate that the author has taken us back in time for this mystery as I find the solving of the case much more satisfying without the use of cellphones and the internet. This story is well though out and well done.

This book was GOOD. It was well written and interesting. It kept me on my toes, and I had to work really hard to try to keep track of who was who and play detective myself. At times I wished I had written down names and connections, maybe then I would have figured things out sooner. The last many chapters of the book had me as stressed as watching a thriller would have me (I rarely watch them.)

My one qualm was that it was LONG. I don't think it was too long, but I just realized that I've gotten soft when it comes to long books. 😅

I overall thought this book was very interesting. Not exactly engaging but did go through quite a bit of facts and learning opportunities for me.
The main character “Lady A” is pretty awesome. She’s bright, intelligent and curious. Just not exactly sure her character and personality match a 14 yr old.
The story is set in 1981 and definitely resonates with growing up in the 80s and being “free” to explore and the craziness that happened a lot in that decade with missing children.
Definitely an interesting and different story which was a nice change in plots.

Ava isn’t a normal teenager. Intrigued by death and the world around her, Ava latest enterprise is her roadside den, where she brings roadkill to monitor the rate of decomposition. When she stumbles upon the very real boy of a town boy who has been missing, Ava knows her hobbies could put her in an uncomfortable position and reports the body anonymously. As Detective Seth Delahaye begins his investigation, he’ll get help

Set in the early 80s and told primarily through Ava and Detective Delahaye’s POVs, Deadly Animals, the story is also broken up into parts, though I won’t say how to avoid potential spoilers. The extra POVs were a nice way to break up the story while also adding extra context and an additional layer of mystery to the plot.

Finding Ava to be odd, I didn’t immediately click with this story. For me it had a very slow reading pace, but I ended up finding Ava to be such an interesting character. She is quietly brilliant, and I enjoyed getting into her mind throughout the story. She was such an asset to the investigation and though she seems morbid at first meeting, her respect of living things and her morals are unmatched. She is such a fascinating character and original character, especially for a 14year old girl. I kind of hope we get a sequel to continue following Ava.

As the 2024 winner of the Val McDermid debut award, Deadly Animals is a dark, macabre, and extremely well written debut. It definitely won’t be for everyone and certainly touches on some darker topics and themes (TW: child death, animal death). While it’s being listed as a Horror novel, it’s more gruesome and darker theme wise than scary. Overall, this was a fantastic literary mystery that I strongly recommend.


Deadly Animals comes out November 12, 2024. Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. for my advanced copy in exchange for my review. If you liked this review, please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof.books.

Wow what a great story! I loved the suspense and mystery of the story! Ava was a phenomenal character! I still can’t believe she is only 13 years old. I was very surprised with the ending and love it! I highly recommend this book! Thank you Marie Tierney for allowing me to read your debut book and I’m so looking forward to the next Ava story!
Also thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for choosing me to listen to an ARC copy of Deadly Animals.

"Deadly Animals" offers a fun and quirky twist on a police procedural, thanks to main character Ava, a fourteen-year-old who just happens to have a fascination with animal bones and decomposition. When searching for roadkill to study one night, she instead comes across the body of one of her classmates. He is, unfortunately, only the first teen to be targeted in a string of murders, and as the police continue to struggle to solve the crimes, Ava feels compelled to secretly lend her unique insight.

While this theme of "dense adults need teen help" does scream "young adult novel," I found that Ava's maturity for her age helped bring some maturity to the tone of the plot as well. She's a sophisticated and quirky character that was fun to spend time with — I would have enjoyed more time in her head. While she's fascinated in dark topics, she's not wicked, and Tierney did a great job of weaving in enough compassion and emotion to make Ava three dimensional.. I'm often not a big fan of police procedurals, but found this engrossing throughout. The mystery was not complicated to solve, so some readers may find it a little transparent, but the motive doesn't fully flesh out until the end. The audio prodution and narration effectively kept me engaged in the action.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio, NetGalley, and Marie Tierney for providing an advance copy for my honest review.

[TW/CW: Gory scenes, blood, graphic sexual abuse, toxic family relationships, underage sexual abuse]

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:
Fourteen-year-old Ava Bonney is unlike other children. She has an obsessive interest in the rate at which dead animals decompose. The motorway she lives by regularly offers up roadkill, and in the dead of night, Ava likes nothing more than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den and record her findings.

One night, she stumbles across the body of her classmate Mickey Grant, and fearing that her secret ritual could be revealed, she makes an anonymous call to the police. When Detective Seth Delahaye is given the case, Ava won’t step back—not when teenagers in her sleepy South Birmingham town are going missing.
Release Date: November 12th, 2024
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 368
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. Cover is pretty
2. Lots of in-depth character development
3. Some parts of book interesting

What I Didn't Like:
1. Boring
2. So unbelievably slow
3. Found myself not caring about characters

Final Thoughts:
Perhaps the problem with this book lies with me. I found this book very slow and boring. I found myself wondering about other things as I was reading it. There's a lot to digest in this book and I think I stopped carrying 20% into it. The characters have a lot of in-depth descriptions and I never felt like they were underwritten, but I just didn't care about who did it or why they did it, which if you don't care about those things then the book's not for you.

There is a lot of sensitive subject matter in this book such as sexual assault of minors that really is just kind of joked about at certain points in the book. Those parts made me feel uncomfortable. I don't think two PC Detectives would be making jokes of a situation of this matter

I got 50% into this book before I decided it wasn't for me and I was just going to dnf it.

IG | Blog

Thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt and Co for the ebook & thanks to Macmillan Audio for the audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
9 likes

I am so conflicted about this book. I loved the characters. I loved the uniqueness of the voices the author, not to mention the narrator, gave to them. I am conflicted about the descriptions of animal death and cruelty. With all of that, the book should have flown by. Instead it seemed to drag at points, making me force myself to push through them. Overall, I'd read about these people again.

Ava knows she’s different and she’s okay with that. She enjoys studying roadkill and records her findings in her red notebook. She obsesses over this and has experiments she conducted on the roadkill.

During one search, she finds the body of a missing child. This missing, now dead child, is the first of many. Ava finds herself trying to connecting the dots with what is going on.

This story also gives POV from Seth, the detective in charge of the missing children case. He was a likable character but the chapters from Ava’s POV were my favorite because I loved her obsessive and unique mind. Neurodivergent representation - yes !

Very impressive as a debut ! Audiobook narration - 5 stars !! Loved a lot of the scenes, one of my favorites at the very beginning when Ava calls in the body discovery to the police and disguises her voice. Great work.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review. Out 11/12/24

This is a slow, quiet, dark book. Don't go in expecting anything in your face. It actually took me a bit to become emotionally into, but this turned out to be worth the wait. I just had to get in the right headspace. That said, it does feel like something is lacking for me, that ineffable thing, that would make this a five star read. I'm not sure what it is, I just know that it's not there.

We have two main characters here, although the author disagrees with me (there is an interview between her and the audio narrator at the end of the audiobook). One is Ava, a precocious and morbid thirteen year old girl living in 1981 Birmingham who is interested in all things biology and science, and who has her own body farm where she collects roadkill and documents the rates of decay and other sciencey stuff (like they do on real body farms). It's on one of these excursions in the middle of the night that she finds the body of a local boy who has been missing for over two weeks. She calls the body in anonymously, but because of her curiosity, becomes involved in the investigation anyway, developing a really cute bond with the detective working the case, who I think is the second main character. He treats her with respect and sort of allows her leeway to be curious in a way other adults don't. It's adorable, in the midst of something really dark.

The mystery itself is fascinating, and I actually managed to call the murderer, totally by accident. I have no idea how I did that, or even what triggered it. The author is extremely good at stuffing the book full of red herrings, so you really have to think about what's going on, and it's very engaging. The audio narrator is also excellent, and they made sure to get one who grew up in Birmingham so gets the accents exactly right.

The author is working on a sequel right now where Ava is 17-18 years old, and I will definitley be checking it out.

"Ava didn't HAVE to call the police but she DID have to: it was only right."
____

Ava is a 14 year old girl who’s a young forensic pathologist in the making, due to her fascination with bones and decomposing bodies. She snags roadkill and keeps them in her own little ‘body farm’ to study the rate of decay and the effect of the elements on the body. When she discovers the body of a school mate, her predilection for studying dead bodies allows her to make some instant conclusions and she decides she must help investigate his death.

I liked Ava TREMENDOUSLY! I could relate to her insatiable appetite for knowledge, keen worldly observations, and awareness that as a “child” most adults won’t take her seriously or listen to her. The Detective in charge of the investigation, Seth, dealt with Ava in a way that made him instantly endearing. When another child goes missing, Seth doesn’t hesitate to use ALL resources available, even Ava.

I knew almost right away who the culprit was, but I think that was the point. The reader is in the know while the characters aren’t, creating a taut atmosphere. The subject matter is dark, involving crimes against children and there is animal harm/death, but nothing overly graphic and mostly mentioned in a forensic manner.

Oliva Dowd’s narration was fabulous. Her inflections and modulation were spot on, and so were the voices! After all, Ava is skilled at impressions. I loved the British accents of folks from different locations and the interview with Marie Tierney afterwards!

By the end, Ava’s interests have shifted and I could see her becoming a criminal profiler. I’d LOVE to see more novels with Ava (and Seth) at the center of an investigation. DEADLY ANIMALS is at heart a tense police procedural, that oozes a sense of dread and foreboding. As the ending approached, the intensity increased, culminating in an exciting and action packed conclusion!
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Thank you Henry Holt Books & Macmillan Audio for the gifted book & audiobook. All opinions are mine.
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Potential spoiler content warnings below.





























⚠️Content warnings: mild language, bullying, gore, violence, child death, Mention of: dementia, child abuse, pedophilia, domestic abuse, animal harm/death, strangulation

Solid 3.5 starts... was a good book but did take me a minute to get wrapped into, it was a bit more of a procedural. But after I got involved it was great!

A young teenager who knows she a bit different than everyone else. She enjoys studying roadkill and the time it takes to decompose. While documenting her latest roadside victim, she stumbles upon the body of a missing child- who’s now no longer missing, but dead. As more children go missing in her town, she finds herself at the middle of an investigation that is far from reality, but enjoyable just the same. The story comes full circle and is well told. The premise and building suspense kept me wanting more. While not necessarily believable, the story doesn’t stray far from potential truth- She’s definitely a uniquely developed character that really makes the story. It is a slower paced read so be prepared to sit with it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this audiobook.
Lots of trigger warnings and very graphic at times, but this book is so very good!
And the narrator was excellent!

Macmillan Audio ALC
This is a slow burn British legal mystery that was overall intriguing. I really liked the character of Ava. She was such an interesting 14 year old to spend time with. I love a unique protagonist, and it really anchored this story. I did struggle with the amount of characters at times and keeping them all straight. Sometimes I felt a bit lost until I figured out who was who every time the POV changed. But I liked the horror elements added here. It created depth in the mystery and left me guessing on what exactly was going on.

Engaging, entertaining, and well-narrated. A recommended purchase in all formats for collections where crime and thrillers are popular.