'Every Move' Every #3 by Ellie Marney

 Received from the Publisher 

From the BLURB:

The sequel to Every Breath and Every Word.

After the dramatic events of London, a road trip back to her old home in Five Mile sounds good (in theory) to Rachel Watts, with her brother Mike in the driving seat. But when Mike picks up his old buddy – the wildly unreliable Harris Derwent – things start to go south. Back in Melbourne, Rachel’s ‘partner in crime’, James Mycroft, clashes with Harris, and then a series of murders suggest that the mysterious Mr Wild – Mycroft’s own personal Moriarty – is hot on their tail. When tragedy strikes, Rachel and Mycroft realise they’ll have to recruit Harris and take matters into their own hands…

‘Every Move’ is the third and final book in Ellie Marney’s ‘Every’ mystery YA series.

I didn’t want to read this book – not because I wasn’t excited for it, and I certainly wanted to catch up with James Mycroft again … No, I didn’t want to read this book because I knew it was the last we’d be reading of Mycroft and Rachel Watts, and I didn’t want their adventures to end. But, it was Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote; 'What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable.' And I suppose after all that Mycroft and Watts have been through in this series, they deserve a rest now, huh?

Certainly, ‘Every Move’ is set deep in the aftermath of second book ‘Every Word’, and the horrifying London events that see Watts and Mycroft now distant and uncommunicative. Rachel in particular is suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the form of nightmares, sleepless nights and a new, frightening awareness of the world around her and the danger she and Mycroft have found themselves in. Adding to Rachel’s woes are the fallout from her London trip with her family – her mother in particular is expressing her fear for Rachel’s safety through anger and hurt, not entirely without justification … but it’s taken so much of a toll on Rachel, that her brother Mike drives them out of the city and back to their country home in Five Mile for a reprieve.

It is while home in Five Mile that Rachel and Mike catch up with one of his old friends, one Harris Derwent whom Rachel describes as; ‘sun-bleached, Driza-Bone-wearing, dickhead, tearaway.’ Harris wants to follow in the Watts’ footsteps and get out of Five Mile, so Mike offers him a lift into the city and their spare couch to crash on, much to Rachel’s dismay.

Meanwhile, Mycroft is following new leads, based on evidence gathered while in London – these threads will take him dangerously close to finding out who killed his parents, and why – but at what cost to him and Rachel?

I’ve got to say, this book is high-adrenaline and high-emotion. There’s a lot that needs hashing out – particularly between Watts and Mycroft, Rachel and her family – and while no stone is left unturned, Marney isn’t afraid to break reader’s hearts and leave them gasping with every page-turn. I don’t feel like I can say a hell of a lot about the nuts and bolts of the story, except the pacing is exquisite and the whodunit marvellous … the end will leave your heart racing and mind reeling.

But onto the really good stuff that drove this series – the characters – and I’m thrilled to say that Watts and Mycroft don’t disappoint. The characters we first met back in 2013 feel like they’ve come full-circle in this finale, and Marney really does give them room to shine and reflect on their past adventures and ramifications of those adventures. I particularly appreciated that Rachel is given time to grapple with her PTSD following the events of London, and Marney really does explore it with infinite patience and compassion. 

Mycroft and Watts’ romance has always been such a tender counterpoint to the oftentimes brutal crime-thriller aspect of the series, and I was delighted to find that their last dance is a damn good one for the emotional outpourings;

 ‘Covalent bonds are a type of molecular bond formed by the sharing of a pair of electrons between adjacent atoms,’ I recite. 

‘Yes! Covalent bonds are about the strongest molecular bonds in biochemistry, right? So you’ve got this molecule, it’s very strongly bonded ….’ 

Mycroft is close enough now that I can feel the warmth of him through his white shirt. He slips one of his hands into one of mine, and holds our joined hands high. Our fingers twine together, and some of the heat in his palm radiates out into my body. My stomach starts to do gravity-defying things again, and my cheeks flame. 

His voice has gone low. ‘But then the molecule comes into interaction with other molecules, where it can be affected by something called dispersion forces …’ 

‘Dispersion forces. Uh-huh.’ My heart is hammering. 

‘… also called London forces.’ 

‘You’re shitting me.’

And while this was an end, there was one new addition to ‘Every Move’ that bought a surprising freshness to the finale – in the form of new character Harris Derwent. He’s a tough bloke on the outside, but with an all-too believable back-story that had me thoroughly in his corner. And while he is coming to this series literally at the eleventh hour, I couldn’t help but feel like we haven’t seen the last of him either … at least I hope so.

I’ve loved this series from the start, and I’m so happy to see that it’s gone on to enjoy great success overseas. It introduced us to a fantastic new voice in Aussie YA, and even though I’m sad to see the last of Watts and (especially that delicious) Mycroft, I can’t wait to see what else Ellie Marney has in store for us.

While this series started out as the perfect read for fans of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, it quickly became a must-read in its own right as a gutsy and exhilarating crime-thriller for readers young and old.

5/5

'Every Word' Every #2 by Ellie Marney

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Rachel is still getting used to the idea of Mycroft being her boyfriend when he disappears to London with Professor Walsh. They're investigating the carjacking death of the rare books conservator, which appears to be linked to the theft of a Shakespeare First Folio from the Bodleian Library. Worried about similarities between the conservator's accident and the death of Mycroft's own parents, Rachel follows Mycroft to London ... and straight into a whole storm of trouble.

When we left them in ‘Every Breath’, Rachel Watts and James Mycroft had narrowly escaped death and come out the other side stronger and with the tentative beginnings of a romance.

When we next catch up with them, Rachel is still grounded for her part in uncovering a homeless man’s killer (and risking her life in the process), but has been permitted to compete in her latest sporting craze – roller derby. Mycroft has taken a job/internship at the coroner’s office, and both of them are finding ways to navigate their newfound relationship amidst Rachel’s grounding and her mother’s concerns about Mycroft as a suitable friend, let alone boyfriend.

When a news story comes out of London, about an Australian ex-pat being murdered in similar execution-style to Mycroft’s parents all those years ago, hell breaks loose. Mycroft jets to London, supposedly as coroner’s aid after the deceased man’s Australian family expresses a wish for a national presence during his murder investigation. But Rachel knows better. She knows Mycroft’s obsession with his parents’ deaths, and that he’ll go to any lengths to follow a lead – no matter how dangerous.

Thanks to the reward money Victoria Police provided her recently, Rachel tags along with her brother’s girlfriend at the London-leg of her European vacation. She intends to catch-up with Mycroft, and be there when he inevitably starts suffering from the old wounds he’s reopening to investigate this new case.

‘Every Word’ is the second book in Australian author Ellie Marney’s ‘Every’ young adult crime series.

I love, love, loved first book ‘Every Breath’ when I read it last year. And I was thrilled when Ellie Marney made the 2014 Gold InkyLonglist. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the sequel, and pining for more Mycroft … and now it’s here and the criminal cases are getting darker, Mycroft is sinking further into his revenge and Watts becoming increasingly concerned with the lengths he’ll go to avenge the dead (even if it means putting her and her family in harm’s way). In other words: now I’m eagerly anticipating third book ‘Every Move’, and I’m so relieved it’s coming out later this year to assuage the suspense!

When the book begins, it has only been a little while since the events of ‘Every Breath’. Rachel and Mycroft are still smarting from their brush with violence, and find themselves in the midst of a lust-haze that’s only grown deeper as the heart grows fonder during Rachel’s grounding. I loved the set-up (calm before the storm) as Marney shows us just how close Mycroft and Rachel have become – they were always friends, but now there’s a new level of intensity to them with this romance, it feels like they have more to lose and protect.

I also loved the set-up because it is so rudely shattered the moment Mycroft sniffs out a connection between a recent murder investigation out of London, and the cold case of his parents supposed “car-jacking” murder. I think Rachel too is given a reality-check when Mycroft literally drops everything to follow this lead – it hints at bigger problems for him and Rachel down the track, if he can’t appreciate what he has in the present to let go of his tragic past, even when it means putting himself and those he cares about at risk.

Naturally, being a loyal go-getter, Rachel follows after Mycroft to London where she’s insistent on not being his baby-sitter, but wants to wait in the wings for the emotional implosion that’s sure to come.

 ‘You shouldn’t have to do this on your own,’ I say softly. 

‘Well, you can’t do it for me.’ Acid bitterness lines his face as he leans down, curls a finger on the cue. ‘Some things I just have to sort out myself.’ 

‘Hey, I know that.’ It’s hard, smothering the urge to return fire. ‘But this is too big. Mycroft, you can’t control all these feelings that–’ 

‘I CAN,’ Mycroft abandons his shot to stand straight. He levels the cue at my head. ‘I can, and I bloody will.’

I was a bit wary of a change in setting for this second book, because I so loved reading about my hometown of Melbourne in ‘Every Breath’. But actually the London setting is just as enjoyable, if not more so, for affording readers and Rachel a glimpse at Mycroft in his natural setting. It’s also a great location for bringing up so many emotional grenades for Mycroft, that really helps him to start unearthing his past and sharing more with Rachel. And, yes, Marney does make the most of visiting Sherlock Holmes’s hometown – with a trip to the museum at Baker St.

Ellie Marney really has to be commended – there’s no resting on laurels with this follow-up. I praised Marney for her debut; “this isn’t ‘crime-lite’ because it’s for a younger audience. It’s crime, full stop.” And in this second instalment she further cements the ‘Every’ series in the crime genre and lets the ‘YA’ tag fall away. She ups the stakes and the violence in this second book – Rachel and Mycroft don’t just have a brush with death, they stare it in the face. Marney doesn’t pull on the brakes or lessen the intense pace she set from the onset with ‘Every Breath’ – in ‘Every Word’ she goes bigger and darker, the overarching storyline gets more complex and the while the finish line is in sight, it’s also filled with obstacles.

I can’t wait for ‘Every Move’ now that Marney has posed such interesting questions about Rachel and Mycroft’s relationship, his ability to let go of the past and hints at how much more complicated his parent’s deaths are. The ending and introduction of a certain villain are probably what you expect in anticipation of the third (and possibly final) book, but if there’s anything Marney’s homage to Arthur Conan Doyle has taught us – it’s to expect the unexpected.

5/5

Every Word is published by Allen & Unwin, and now available in all good bookstores