First Degree Murder by M.J Weatherall

Release: 23rd November 2022
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Blossom Spring Publishing
Source: Zooloos Book Tours
Find it at: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle

From the author of Silent Is The Crown!

Matty Darcy is a Criminology and Psychology student in the quaint university village of Ambleside. She has survived the normal dramas of student life such as shared living, assignments, heartbreak and friendships. But this year takes the drama to a whole new level when her fellow students start mysteriously dying.

Matty takes it upon herself to catch the killer with the help of local Police Officer, and heartthrob, P.C Nicholas Wilde and her ex-boyfriend Dean. It is a race against the clock to work out who’s killing students, and why.

Matty soon finds out more than she has bargained for… enough to make her the next target!

About the Author:

M.J. Weatherall is one of those people who loves writing but always struggles to write about herself. She always feel like she’s bragging (which in and of itself sounds like a brag according to her).

She is a young author from Sheffield who moved to the Lake District to get her BSc (Hons) degree in Outdoor Adventure and Environment. More recently she has qualified as a primary school teacher and is now fulfilling her calling as an educator.

M.J. loves climbing, kayaking and spending all her spare time in nature. A lifelong bookworm, she takes pride in growing her book knowledge (an asset to any pub quiz team to be sure!). She likes to think that she’s a fun person to be around…at the very least, her cat seems to think so.

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First Degree Murder Review:

“First Degree Murder” is a crime murder mystery that slowly grew on me due to the direction how the author took it.

Firstly, I liked Matty in the lead. She is only a criminology student but stumbles on her first case unofficially when someone she knows in school gets murdered. I liked how she took on the topic using her instincts and was brave in her investigations.

Initially, I was skeptical that the author would stray from the crime angle by focusing more on Matty’s romance, like her relationship with Tommy and Dean. However, the author paces the story well, where we get a fair bit of romance and an interesting case. Moreover, I was shocked by the kill counts that happened in the story as it was more than I anticipated. Some scenes that stood out were when Matty gets attacked at night or how she interacts with Wilde. The author paces the story nicely, where the crime aspect and Matty’s romance both intrigued me and took me by surprise at times. The climax also turned out to be unexpected and made it memorable.

The only criticism of the tale is the beginning. It takes the story a while to kickstart as little happens initially. Moreover, after reading the book, I would have liked to know more about the killer’s intentions and what triggered them to behave that way, as we don’t get the backstory.

Nevertheless, “First Degree Murder” is a fun book, which I hope is the start of a series, as I would like to revisit Matty to tackle another case.