Five Survive

A thrilling ride!!

Holly is undoubtedly my favorite author I’ve discovered this year. I’d first come across her The Good Girl’s Guide To Murder series and I read the 3 books back to back, all of them in one sitting and had nearly a full 13 hour binge on the series and the 3 books. Her clever and incredibly complex, dynamic and endearing protagonist Pip from the series, along with each and every character she implements into her writing have such genuine and authentic qualities, reactions, emotions and interactions with others that they very easily and often quickly become embedded in your heart. Long after I’d finished those first 3 books, I had wondered about Pip, her family, her friends and like all inspiring characters/humans, I’d wished she’d somehow return to me in the same way as she’d become enmeshed into my thoughts and while her life and story were fictional, there was still a very strong connection between herself and my heart. This is a quality that only those of the highest caliber of creative authors can achieve. It’s even rarer that they’re able to achieve these same results with an entirely different protagonist, plot, story and narrative. Yet, somehow, the ever talented and widely intelligent and exceptionally creative writer, Holly can and HAS done this in her latest book, FIVE SURVIVE.
Her compelling, thrilling and edge of your seat with anticipation tone in all of her mysterious, dangerous and cleverly crafted stories that are best at leading the reader to the conclusion, dropping hints, subtly mentioning connections that can only be described as the answer to the “who done it” questions that arise from the very outset. What sets this author far and away from other thriller, mystery genre writers is her extraordinary ability to twist, entirely change the whole plot to the opposite, unthinkable direction that has incredibly also left a trail, subtle answers yet until she’s brought you to the conclusion you’re unable to see them hidden there in plain sight beside the other hints and leads that misled you to believe, with conviction that it was another character entirely. This ability alone is beyond brilliant, it’s done differently and quite simply more expertly with each new story, plot and complex characters she imagines, beautifully crafts in has written jewels of books and thankfully shared them with her readers. I for one, may be her biggest and most impressed fan she’s got.
Keep writing, Miss Holly. Reading has always been my happy place, my preferred way to spend the day and most pleasurable time spent. Reading YOUR books has amplified my ferocious love for books and the craft of writing, the passion for vocabulary, the placement of each word and wordsmiths unique influences on my own life and collective years of written paragraphs, pages of my own style that is lent an essential dose of creativity and imagination. It is through brilliant and innovative ideas that stories can become the inspirational aspects of so many bibliophiles and linguists such as myself.