Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the free audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Ava is a very smart 13 year old who likes to conduct experiments on the decay and anatomy of roadkill animals for her own edification. She's very smart, lovable, and a bid odd which is ok. When young boys start to go missing in her town, she starts investigating along with the police to figure out who the killer is.

There is a lot of good in this dark and macabre novel: there are close friendships and general kindness offsetting the darkness. I did enjoy the friendship between Ava and Detective Delahaye. Heed the trigger warnings but I did not find this overly gruesome. Recommend!

Deadly Animals (audio): with bonus author interview at the end
3⭐️

Overall I liked the story and would recommend to others who enjoy thriller with a splash of horror (tw: animal and children deaths). This was a rare instance where I think I would have liked the ebook version over audiobook. Nothing against the narrator! She did a fabulous job. But I found it difficult to focus for this one. I struggled to keep some of the secondary/minor characters straight due to my lack of focus, but if I were reading it I could back track and double check things easier. I think I would have really liked this as a short story.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this audio ARC. This review will be shared on NetGalley, Goodreads, and Amazon.

Audio Pub Date Nov 12 2024

While the premise of a teen with a morbid hobby who finds a dead body was interesting, I just couldn’t get absorbed into the story and wasn’t motivated enough to finish the story. The author does a good job with the Birmingham setting in the 80s but other than that I wasn’t engaged.

“When everything was drenched in sleep, Ava knew it was time.”

TW: death involving children and animals

💀 murder mystery
🐺 teen sleuths
💀 police procedural
🐺 multiple POVs

Set in the 1980s in Birmingham, England, this book follows 13-year old Ava, who has a fascination with the rate of which animals decompose. One night while sneaking out to conduct research on one of her roadkill projects, she stumbles across the body of a fellow classmate. Not one to sit idly by, Ava is determined to discover who is behind the multiple child murders that plagues her community.

From the first chapter, Ava, gave me young Temperance Brennan from “Bones” vibes, which I loved. As a true crime girl, I loved all the true crime references as well.

I suspected early on who I thought the killer was and was right. However, there were times when I thought things were going paranormal, but I was wrong on that front. Overall, I loved this book and look forward to reading more books from Tierney.

If you love teen sleuth books like A Good Girls Guide to Murder, The Naturals, or Truly Devious, then this book is right up your alley.

Huge thank you to @netgalley & @MacmillanAudio for this ALC in exchange for an honest review! 🫶🏽

I really liked the start of this one, I liked the main character, Ava, and the descriptions of things really put you in her world through her eyes. But there was something about her being a tween that threw me off. Maybe because the writing was so high level and she was doing very adult things, I think maybe I wished she was an adult as well? I think the plot was lacking a little bit as I struggled to listen to it and found myself drifting a few times. The narrator was great for this book. Overall it was a good debut novel, Tierney's writing is wonderful and skilled, and I think it will be well received, but it was lacking a bit for me.

An early teens crime solver? Yes! Set in the early 1980s in Birmingham England, a school age boy is missing. Ava a thirteen year old girl loves to study dead animals and the phases of decomposition. The animals she studies are usually road kill. She has amassed quite a bevy of knowledge regarding the pathology of death. She has recently discovered the body of a fox. She has never conducted a study of the nocturnal processes of desth a night. She has ventured out in the wee hours of the night to study the fox.  On her adventure she stumbles upon the body of the missing boy. She knows that she must report the body to the police. To keep her identity and "body farm" secret, she disguises her voice as an elderly woman. As events move forward she uses her knowledge to assist the police with the investigation. I listened at an advanced listener copy from Macmillan Audio. The narrator Olivia Dowd knocks this book out of the park, she is amazing and delivers the different point of views with incredible accuracy

Story - 5 stars
Narrator - 5 stars

5 stars!
This is such a unique book in the thriller/suspense genre. I don’t know why, but I think the Stranger Things crowd will like it, despite it not being paranormal. Perhaps it’s the 1980’s vibe or the female heroine that does it.

Ava is the queen of this book, a teen sleuth who’s into drawing diagrams of animal body parts. She’s intelligent, odd, and impressive. She slyly helps the detectives figure out who is killing these young boys.

There are moments when I was wondering if it was going to go paranormal on me, but it didn’t go in that direction after all.

I believe this is the author’s debut novel, which is extremely impressive! I’ll be waiting for more!

Also, the audiobook narrator was a perfect match. She had a smooth, soothing voice quality.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and MacMillan Audio for letting me listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Deadly Animals follows a peculiar 14 year-old girl as she helps a detective in a serial killer investigation. Ava loves to study dead animals and how they decompose. I went out of my comfort zone on this book, as I am a little squeamish with reading about things like decomposing flesh, but I found that only the first few chapters were the tough ones to get through. Once I knew Ava's personality, I was with her til the end of the book. I didn't love when you find out who the killer is, as I prefer as close to the last page as possible, but it made for a thrilling ending to see everything come together. Truly a unique premise and main character.

There are numerous trigger warnings for this book. While there is animal/child cruelty/death, it happens in past scenes where you are reading about the discovery.

I received an ALC from Macmillan Audio via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dark, twisted and sometimes gruesome with fascinating details about forensics and pathology you will fall in love with Ava, a brilliant and precocious thirteen-year-old who has a morbid fascination with dead animals, as she helps police discover the serial killer of young boys in 1980s Birmingham, England.