Alibi Series Review

Title: Alibi
Authors: Annie Miles, John Byrne, Isabel Eckersley & Sorrel Provola
Publisher: Twist Literary
Publish Date: 2012
Genre: YA, Mystery
Pages: 100/Installment
Source: Publisher

Abigail Shelton is dead. Spring Valley's golden girl is found floating face-down in her boyfriend’s pool, hands bound behind her back, head bleeding, drugs and alcohol in her system. Her friends are the only suspects – and they all have reasons to want her dead. Everyone has an alibi, but no one is innocent.

ALIBI is a 4-part young adult e-book series. Each one-hundred page installment reveals the perspective of a different character: the secret love, the nemesis, the boyfriend, the best friend. As their tales unfold, we learn that Abby is not as perfect as everyone believes, but she’s not the only one with secrets to hide.

Mysteries are hard to come by in the realm of YA fiction. Yes, occasionally a mystery series will find its way onto the scene, but I’ll be brutally honest and say that they have a difficult time finding their way beyond the little niche. I was approached to review the Alibi series from Twist Literary and authors Annie Miles, John Byrne, Isabel Eckersley and Sorrel Provola, and I was intrigued, to say the least. In the true vein of mysteries and cloak-and-dagger mind play, the Alibi series leads you in one direction at the pace of a runaway train, then switches directions just in time to end the installment.

This series is, truthfully, unlike anything I’ve read. It is a four-part series of 100-page installments, each complete with its own unique vantage point. We’re given the arch-nemesis, the boyfriend, the best friend and the secret love, all of whom might just have a motive, but also have their own unique alibis. As the series progresses, we begin to watch the ties develop, linking the characters and installments together into the tricky web it spins. However, it’s not that easy. We aren’t simply given answers. The authors give the readers just enough to make assumptions, then leave you with a crushing cliffhanger that makes the next installment utterly necessary…like yesterday.

There is so much going for the Alibi series. We’re given a host of entitled and privileged characters each with their own façade, which we must decode in order to read into the story itself. We know that Abby was murdered, and we know that this whodunit mystery is going to shock us, but we don’t exactly know how. Alibi isn’t afraid to spin us into a dark web that’s both unsettling and riveting. It’s like watching car crash. You simply can’t look away. The true beauty of the novels is the fact that, despite having four different authors, four distinct perspectives, a full array of complex characters with their own seaprate pasts, we have a seamless transition from one installment to the next, and we are ultimately given a direction in the story.

Unlike similar mystery series (think Pretty Little Liars), we have all the drama, secrets, backstabbing and evasive mystery, but we find ultimate closure in the end. The mystery does get solved, and we do feel a sense of vindication. I want more just like this story though! I give it a 4.5 out of 5, and I highly recommend it to fans of YA, especially those who enjoy mysteries and something a bit out of the box.

I received this series from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.