Faye Bird’s Favourite Mysteries – Guest Post

Today I have an extremely exciting post to share with you! I very recently read and reviewed My Secret Lies with You by Faye Bird and I thoroughly enjoyed it (you can find my review here). So, when I was asked to be a part of the blog tour I jumped at the opportunity!

This blog tour is special though, as it isn’t going to be something I’ve written but something written by Faye Bird, the author of My Secret Lies with You. Throughout this blog tour Faye is sharing her favourite mysteries! There is 10 stops on this tour and I’m the 4th, so make sure you check out all the other posts for more of Faye’s favourite mysteries!

Without further ado, here is Faye Bird’s favourite mysteries guest post!

Faye’s favourite mystery today is … Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence!

I loved the opening to this book. It was startling and brilliant. I was immediately with Marlon Sunday from the first line. I was at the fairground, I was on the rides and I was in love and lust and in awe of Sonya Wilson. In one chapter I was entirely hooked by seeing the world through Marlon’s eyes and being with him in the situation he found himself in. A brilliant day that goes terribly wrong. It’s a perfect place for a mystery thriller to begin.

But it wasn’t just the opening and Marlon Sunday that I loved about this book. It was the struggle Marlon had both with himself and with the outside world – the push and pull of both – that really kept me reading. I needed to know what decisions he was going to make and what he was going to do in the middle of external events that were frightening, chaotic, unjust. And I loved that he didn’t always make what seemed to be the ‘right’ decisions, but we didn’t lose the sense of wanting to be with him at all. In fact that’s what kept me with him right through to the end.

And I have to mention his Mum, who while sometimes furious sometimes hurt and often desperate for her son, stands by him all the way through. When the police are questioning him, and she says, “All through these times, Marlon has been my rock….It’s my turn now to be his rock.” She backs him and we love her for it. Well, I did! Because everyone needs a Mum like Marlon’s. London is a brilliant backdrop for this story and the language and the places add to both the texture and to the sense of scale.

This is a story where drugs and gang culture drive the plot and much of it is spiked by revenge. It matters where you are from in this city and who you identify with. Perhaps more of an urban thriller than a mystery per se, but Orangeboy had it all for me. The writing is pacy and fluid, the characters so real. An absolutely gripping read.

There you have it, Faye Bird’s take on Orangeboy! Be sure to check out all the other stops on this wonderful blog tour. Also, be sure to check out my review of My Secret Lies with You! Thank you so much to Faye for this wonderful post and to Jacob Dow at the lovely Usborne for organising this excellent blog tour!