The Birthday Girl: An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller (Mallory Dawson Crime Thrillers Book 1)

I feel like this book was designed for me. I love a locked room mystery, add in a creepy hotel on an island cut off from the mainland with no phone signal and I'm hooked! I loved the concept of a child murderer deciding to do some adult murdering years later, and as the reader trying to work out who it is was really fun. I also love a poisoning plot so this really was right up my alley.We got to know the characters well, I especially liked the main character Mallory and doctor Michael. The setting was brilliant too - I really liked the descriptions of the hotel and there was a creepy backstory with the nuns who used to live on the island. The story was well paced and the ending was satisfying and cleared up all loose ends, which is important to me.I can't think of any negatives, this was completely up my street and by the sounds of it, Mallory will return in another book so sign me up for that!

I really enjoyed this. A locked room type of mystery, an island cut off by a storm and the bodies are piling up, all linked to a past horrific event. What's not to like?Mallory is an ex cop just starting a new job as the hotel's night manager so is perfectly placed to put her skills to use.I couldn't read this quickly enough. Looking forward to the next one.

What a collection of characters, reminiscent of Agatha Christie just without the old fashioned- ness. Thoroughly enjoyable book, a good page turner

I am so excited to discover this writer, what a brilliant new series.The setting based on Caldey Island is amazing. I have visted there a few times and the writer captures it really well, adding a sense of isolation and claustraphobia that had me gripped. setting for this story. It is fast moving , keeps you guessing, and at the same time the characters are carefully and sesnatively drawn. I loved this book and am looking forward to reading more of this writer's work. If you love Agatah Christi, paricularly her darker booker such as Then There Were None or Lucy Fowley's The Guest List, you will love this.

This kept me up half the night because I had to know what happened and who was the villain. Fantastic atmosphere and setting and a great start to a new series set in Wales. Real characters and a twisty plot that kept me guessing until the end. Recommended reading.

Thoroughly enjoyed this novel, plenty of twists and turns. Look forward to reading the next Mallory Dawson case from Sarah Ward

This was a good read and the plot was interesting though not always plausible. It did keep my interest until the end

I read a book by this author around 8 years ago and gave it 4*. So, I expected this one to get an easy 5*.......nope !! I packed it in for good after persisting for 36%. I rarely get that far and jack it in but I'd sadly seen enough.The dialogue just doesn't ring true for me; people just don't speak like that-and there are too many daft mistakes. Mallory speaking to Charlotte about her husband humiliating her and later speaking to Michael about his health were blunt and not in the same vein most of the conversations had been up to that point....the same conversations, I'm meaning, not different ones. She just abruptly speaks so rudely out of nowhere. It wouldn't happen as far as I'm concerned, which is why it stood out so much for me.I was enjoying the story itself (though NOT the needless Welshisms I had to keep pausing for and looking up. A translated glossary at the beginning might've been helpful as it halts your flow and it's really distracting. The Kindle translation tool itself was very hit 'n' miss with its service as well.) She did provide a list of rooms and occupants in each room, which would've been helpful if SHE remembered this herself !! She spots Michael and Stella in reception but then goes traipsing along to room 5 to listen to the TV playing inside his room......it may be this happened some time after she'd seen them both but if so it was as clear as mud. I couldn't understand why the next sentence had her outside his door !!She wrote shoe-in and not shoo-in, doesn't capitalise Prosecco or Sauvignon and missed a question mark off a question but that was it for grammatical or spelling mistakes I spotted.She does, however, have an issue with continuation-at one point Mallory has slung away a mug of coffee as it was stewed, THEN goes into the hotel and pours herself another ! Then the victim eats a chicken wing yet later it's morphed into a chicken leg, someone mentions spotting a "her" at a table but Mallory, clearly not detective of the year, wondered if one of the men at the table was an old flame !!Sadly I won't bother to read anything else by her, as it appears this is number one of a new series and I can't be doing with all the Welsh. (Something similar put me right off a series by another author set in Ireland......it is immensely irritating to have to keep looking words up.) I also expected great strides in the writing in the intervening 8 years and they weren't there, unfortunately.

On the recommendation of a friend and podcaster, I purchased "The Birthday Girl." We had been discussing "Cozy" mysteries, both agreeing that the sub-genre originated by Agatha Christie still was a great structure. As a writer of psychological suspense, I wracked my brain trying to uncover the killer, in this case of a female poisoner, and I failed completely...thus, Sarah Ward did a brilliant job of disguise, with numerous feints. The novel is set in a hotel on an island off the coast of Wales during a serious storm, with 70 mph winds and no or little cell phone/internet connection (the absence of these is very useful to writers). The heroine is an ex-detective, Mallory, who has been injured during service, and has taken a night manager's job. The book will keep readers in suspense and will also challenge everyone. Good!

If you are looking to start another crime fiction series then I think this should be the one!The protagonist of the series, Mallory Dawson, is a former Met detective who has had to retire due to medical reasons. She worked in London and was seriously stabbed in two places by a perpetrator she was arresting. She is divorced and the mother of one teenage son who now lives with his father, another London police officer. In this book she is just starting a new job as a night manager/security guard for a pricey boutique hotel on an island off the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales. She definitely begins in the deep end, as she is left to run the hotel by herself when a hurricane force storm settles over the island cutting it off from the mainland.The Cloister Hotel couldn’t be any more atmospheric. It was built as a convent originally, and has inherited it’s own ghost story. The hotel, some outbuildings, and a mausoleum are the only buildings on the tiny island.Since it is set on an island, during a storm, it makes the perfect ‘locked room’ type mystery with an almost Agatha Christie feel. The enforced isolation affects both the staff and the guests of the hotel, which heightens the inherent suspense.As the body count continues to rise, Mallory comes to realize that there is a renowned killer among the guests. A child killer, who has been protected in the media, so no one knows what the girl might look like now that she is an adult.The storm worsens, Mallory’s injury is increasingly painful, and her adversary is a desperate and revengeful woman who has planned her crimes with meticulous attention to detail. With only a skeleton staff of herself, one maid, and the chef, Mallory must keep the other guests safe until the storm is over and help can arrive.I thoroughly enjoyed every page of “The Birthday Girl” and I’m eager to read more of Mallory Dawson’s exploits in the next book in this series. Highly recommended!

Really 3.5 stars, this is a “locked island” mystery, where half a dozen people are gathered for a weekend holiday at a plush resort on an island. Newly hired night manager Marlowe is a youngish Scotland Yard policewoman, on medical retirement. The proverbial storm brews up, isolating the island and the guests, among whom is a killer, who picks off victims one by one. The night manager, Marlowe, very quickly figures out the profile of the murderer, but cannot identify who it might actually be. Mysterious hints are strewn around as each possible perpetrator is seen to do mysterious things.I quite enjoyed it but it seemed carelessly written, very repetitive, with Marlowe “frowning” on every second page, getting endlessly soaked by the storm, rubbing her injured leg and so on.Would have been five stars if more tightly written. Maybe ChatGPT can be enlisted to edit?

This is another wonderful book from Sarah Ward. In fact, I think it's her best so far. Beautifully written, a skilful plot, a fascinating location and intriguing characters, The Birthday Party has it all! You should read it now.

Although this story stretches your logic a long way, it is exciting if you don't worry too much about how possible it is. Ward borrows a premise from Agatha Christie but telegraphs everyone's next moves fairly clearly. That said, I still stayed up late to see how everything came out.