Every Breath

by Ellie Marney

Rachel Watts is an unwilling new arrival to Melbourne from the country. James Mycroft is her neighbour, an intriguingly troubled seventeen-year-old genius with a passion for forensics. Despite her misgivings, Rachel finds herself unable to resist Mycroft when he wants her help investigating a murder. And when Watts and Mycroft follow a trail to the cold-blooded killer, they find themselves in the lion’s den – literally.

A night at the zoo will never have quite the same meaning again…

from Goodreads

Source and Format: nook read-in-store, ebook

My Thoughts:

$$$$$ (not for the price [though it is very expensive] but worth it for its amazingness)

O. M. G. This was so great. Like I have no words. I finished it about an hour ago, and couldn’t breathe, and spent the half hour after I read it explaining the plot to my mom (idk how she took it; my explanation did not do this book justice at alllll).

So Watts and Mycroft (yes, just like Sherlock Holmes) are BFFs and neighbors. Watts (Rachel) just moved to Melbourne and is not very happy about leaving their farm in the countryside. Mycroft (James) is a sort of mad scientist, chemist, and forensics enthusiast—Rachel is even afraid he could burn down the home he shares with his aunt, whom he never sees. He’s book smart but not street smart, as he says himself multiple times.

OMG I ship Watts and Mycroft so much!!!!! At first, I was kinda questioning their ship because it wasn’t the usual “oh I feel sparks when I touch him and I’m so in love” blabby stuff. They could touch and hang out and be cool without spontaneously combusting! This gives me faith for humanity! But after that thing with that girl, and then the thing after that, holy poop I was hyperventilating from the tensionnnn… Ack I shipped so hard. When Mycroft’s like “uhh I have to go” yeah man you have to go jerk off because that was so amazing and like 3 nook pages of swoonnnnnn and holy shit

When I read a sample of this, I was really confused because it started not with real action, per se, but just jumped in with all the characters and Rachel bringing Mycroft dinner because he forgets to feed himself. I found it interesting that he said that he didn’t have street smarts and all that, yet he knew all these people everywhere, which is kinda the main plot of the story. One of Mycroft’s many friends around town was Homeless Dave and his dog Poodle, who was not a poodle but a Jack Russell and what they called a “bitsa”—a bitsa this a bitsa the other which might just be an Aussie thing, but I thought it was cute.

I loved the sort of bravery of the characters since they kept going even when the police and principal and parents said to stop. I wouldn’t have done that; I would have stopped, but I guess I wouldn’t be a very good heroine anyway—I’m rather too wimpy for that.

Back to the ship. I was ready for it, or so I thought. I saw reviews (mainly the ones by Meg at Cuddlebuggery, Christina at Reader of Fictions, and Gillian at Writer of Wrongs), so I thought I knew what I was in for, but boyyyy was I underestimating this! Wattscroft ftw! They just match perfectly and they have glorious banter and words and feeeeeelings and aaaargh Mycroft more like MyLife. Like you could see their love but they couldn’t and of course being characters they had to do the “no I can’t do this” sort of thing even though life is better togetherrrr