A review by annettebooksofhopeanddreams
Pretty Girls Make Graves by Steffanie Holmes

5.0

The title already tempted me, but the moment I had the book in my hands the book refused to leave me alone. It wanted to be read. Even though it's not a supernatural story, I was incredibly curious. The atmosphere, the setting, it sounded like something I was gonna love. And since I have great experiences with Steffanie Holmes and haven't read a book by her that I didn't like, I just couldn't wait any longer and dove in yesterday.

Once more this book proved how terrible I am with names. It took me some time to realize that the George in this story is the same George as the one in the Stolen Girl series. Even though I still have to read the last book in that series, I enjoyed this book immensely. After all, George had a relatively minor part in the other series, but from the very first page I was reading from her point of view I felt this connection. We had so much in common, we were so alike.

As I already expected it was the atmosphere in this book that truly stole the show. I live in Europe and I've visited quite a few castles and even though I normally don't really have imagines in my mind when reading I now could see the school quite clearly. Holmes describes its oldness, the hidden niches and she made sure I could almost taste the history, but she never lost herself in endless info-dumps. I was in a place my mind could create combining Holmes' descriptions and my knowledge of European castle and churches.

I can totally imagine that this book might not be for everyone. The plot is amazing, the mystery is great, the location is awesome, but the guys are not the easiest guys to like. It's clear that they have a lot of secrets and a shared past. And where George comes across as this honest, loyal and fierce young woman, it's clear that her guys are anything but honest and also have some issues with loyalty. They're bad boys in every possible way. But they're delicious bad boys and I somehow fell in love with them.