Truly devious

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”

Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history. 

True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder. 

The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.

Helo everyone! I hope you are having an amazing day so far. Now lets get right int the review ecause today i am not feeling chatty hhahaha.

This was a fascinating one and that I thoroughly enjoyed. At the beginning it was a little bit confusing because suddenly you get introduced to a lot of characters and you were going back in time and reading another story that happened in the past and then you go back to the present.

in both stories there are a lot of different characters so my mind was so confused at times and I didn’t know what was happening and who was the one that was talking and what It had to do with the story but as you keep reading, you really get into it and you start to understand the plot and everything starts to come together.

We follow Stevie who is our main character and in this particular book we don’t get to see a lot of character growth or development I don’t know if in the upcoming books it would be different. I felt like this book was mainly focused on the plot and the mystery rather than the characters , however the plot was so interesting that you don’t even notice that you were not getting to know them and it was more when I finished the book when I realized I knew nothing about Stevie or any of other character , that’s how hooked I was in the story.

There is also a romantic story line and I have to say I was so not interested into it I couldn’t care less for some reason I really didn’t get to feel as if they truly cared for each other like I said this is the first book in a series the relationship might develop further in time or at least I expect so. as for right now and just in the first book there isn't a lot of romance.

Talking about the romantic interest I don’t know if this might be a spoiler so just be aware of that and don’t read until the next paragraph if you don’t get it you don’t want to get spoiled about this but I thought it was such a cliché the fact that he is the bad boy the one that looks at her in a weird way the first time that they saw each other and the typical guy that you were like you’re a damn ass but still you’re gonna end up with me  main character and I did not like that however the ending was absolutely stunning I was not expecting that and I was shocked about it,  that’s the only reason why I forgive him hahaha.

So basically generally talking about the book it was so worth it. it was really good I did find that the beginning was a little bit slow it took me a while to get into story but once I got into it like I said I lost track of time I lost track of characters and I was so into the misery I really really enjoyed this book and I will for sure be doing the next ones I have already asked for the second one to my local library so that will be coming over soon. With all that being said, my rating is very solid

4.5/5⭐️

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