Addictive… Grace Bernard is one of the most intriguing and bewitching protagonists I've read in years’ EMMA GANNON While in prison for a murder she did not commit, she begins to keep a journal in which she documents the six murders she did commit. Each death is described in detail, Grace relishing in her ability to plan and execute killings so flawlessly that she was never suspected.

A funny, compulsive read about family dysfunction and the media’s obsession with murder’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE If you like snark, irony, and dark humor, and are willing to not take the book too seriously this is fun and fresh. If you liked Dexter, and/or the humor of Joe in You, or Paul in Best Day Ever, then you will love Grace. The twist toward the end was the icing on the cake. Casale added: “Every few hours I suddenly remember that Harriet is my editor and Viking is my publisher and it’s not just an amazing daydream. Harriet’s pitch captured everything I want this novel to be; from the start, she and the whole wonderful Viking team have embraced me and the women in the book with all the solidarity that lies at the heart of the story. I can’t imagine better partners in bringing the book to readers and hopefully becoming one more voice in the fight to change the endemic nature of male violence against women and girls. Maybe if I can make people laugh, they’ll also listen—ideally to women with more practical ideas about how to change the world than handing out antique skillets and shovels.”When she hit 30 that year, she remembers thinking everything felt different. “I started running and continued seeing the therapist … all the worries and panic and irrational thoughts and not being able to get out of bed went away. I was able to live on my own for the first time and travel and do all the things I couldn’t do in my 20s. It felt like a new lease of life. I felt like a human being and not like a sad, empty shell pretending to be a human being which is what my 20s felt like”. I have killed several people (some brutally, others calmly) and yet I currently languish in jail for a murder I did not commit. I've been wanting to read a good anti-hero type story for a while, and though I've had my eye on the Sweetpea books, this one caught my eye due to the cover and the hype it received.

When I think about what I actually did, I feel somewhat sad that nobody will ever know about the complex operation that I undertook. Getting away with it is highly preferable, of course, but perhaps when I’m long gone, someone will open an old safe and find this confession. The public would reel. After all, almost nobody else in the world can possibly understand how someone, by the tender age of 28, can have calmly killed six members of her family. And then happily got on with the rest of her life, never to regret a thing. ONE CRITICISM: The author included some political venom and BDSM mentions (in different parts of the book!) that could have been easily deleted without compromising the storyline. Not only that, but the plot felt kind of weak. There were so many weak points in the murders she committed. At one point I wondered if there had been witnesses, and it turns out THERE WAS. Okay, this is going under a spoiler tag, but yeah, apparently her secret half brother had been following her all along, and she never noticed because she's an idiot. She thinks she's being so secretive, and yet carries out at least three of the murders with witnesses. And then she does the incredibly stupid thing of writing out her confession in prison where her cellmate can read it (AND DOES). It's just so stupid. Those who hated the ending are forgetting how ridiculously silly Grace was for not thinking of these things. One thing is when you expect something from a book and then you realize that's not going to happen, another story is when the book is also outrageously bad.Grace has a plan in life: revenge. I'm not here to criticise that, her father is awful and her family are all assholes; you go, girl! But good revenge needs a smart way to be accomplished.