Loved the setting and I thought the story was interesting as well. But it also seemed to be lacking something. I loved the spooky elements!

I actually really liked this book, the action was great and the characters were well rounded. I like that there was an autistic main character. To be honest I don't remember a whole lot of this book, I read it several years ago when I first joined NetGalley and was looking for good children's horror. However as an American I'm not sure how much interest my library's patrons would show in this.

I did not finish this book as I was not the target audience, however, this is a book I would definitely recommend to my little brother and cousins.
I am a Yorkshire girl born and bred and hold Yorkshire very dear to my heart. To finally have the Yorkshire Moors be portrayed in a book filled me with joy, especially since most books portrayed in England are portrayed in the south or in London.
From what I did read (2/3 of the book) I enjoyed the characters and the quality of writing, I just felt I wasn't the right reviewer for this book- which I have altered my personal recommendations to ensure I don't review any further middle-grade books, which I used to enjoy.

Overall I would recommend this book for younger readers.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC.

The cover and description of this book grabbed my attention so I was looking forward to reading it. However, I was pretty disappointed in this one.
There's a lot of telling, not showing, and that makes it very difficult to get engrossed in this story. The characters are really flat and one dimensional, and their interactions and dialogue seem very forced. Stevie, in particular, was meant to be comedic relief but instead was cringy. All his one liners had the opposite effect on me than the author intended. I was also not a fan of some of the metaphors in this one. They didn’t make sense and left me confused. They pulled me out of the setting, which is the opposite of what a good metaphor should do.

I do have to say that a redeeming quality in this one was the way the author described the more horror based scenes. You could tell it had real potential in those scenes.

All in all, this one is a pass for me.

This was a really cute take on Sherlock Holmes for MG readers. I found the mystery/horror aspect of the book to truly be the best thing about it. It was certainly creepy enough that a younger me would have been thrilled and terrified all at once. Unfortunately, the characters were so bland and boring that it took away from the rest of the story. The conversations seemed stilted and unnatural and though I loved the author including Michael, who has Asperger's, and did a great job with him, he didn't utilize him or the rest of the cast enough. And because it focused so much on Bobby, who was perhaps the most boring, it really took away from what could have been a phenomenal MG read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

A perfectly spooky October read.
I’ve been looking for a good horror werewolf book and this one hit the mark.
I devoured this book in one sitting!

When requesting this book I didn't realise that this was the second book in the series. In my panic I found that you can read this one without having read the first book so was happy to dive right into the mystery.
However I really struggled with this book. It felt incredibly slow to me and the dialogue just didn't seem to fit the image and description I held for these characters.

I might try reading this from the beginning later down the road but right now this book just wasn't for me.

While on vacation to the North York Moors, Bobby Holmes and his friends visiting from the United States find themselves amid another mystery. These characters have worked together before, solving a mystery the previous summer, but Monster on the Moors can easily be read without knowledge of the previous book. This time, they must figure out what creature is killing sheep and people on the moors.

I really enjoyed the setting of this book. I thought it was thoroughly described, and I especially loved the literary references included to Dracula and more indirectly to The Hound of the Baskervilles.

While I enjoyed the setting, I struggled with the dialogue and the timeline. My biggest issue with the dialogue is that it didn’t sound like children talking, and often the children and the adults talked almost exactly the same. Some of the dialogue also sounded more like narration but this wasn’t as frequent. In regards to the timeline, it jumped around a lot from all of the different characters and I think this led to some dropped details and could be confusing to some younger readers.

I think this could be a really fun series for students to read, especially if some of the dialogue is adjusted in future books so students can connect more with the characters.

Monster on the Moors was an entertaining and engaging read, even if I'm "too old" for the book. I loved the descriptions, the plot was interesting and the characters had depth to them, one of them even had Aspergers (yay for diversity). The only downside is that I felt the paranormal aspect was a bit brushed over and I would have loved to know more about that aspect.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. Once i am done i will come back with a proper review and rating.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the free arc. All reviews and opinions are mine.

It was an entertaining and engrossing read that kept me hooked till the end.
i think it's well written and I liked the character development.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book as an ARC via NetGalley.

I did not realize this book was part of a series. The way the characters are presented, I did not necessarily miss too much from the first book. I like the homage to "The Hound of the Baskervilles" with a supernatural twist. I did feel the pacing was too fast and too jaunting. Barely one piece of information is presented and before one processes it another is added. I do think it is still a very entertaining read and fun for a modern young Holmes-esque interpretation.

Thank you Netgalley and Publishers for granting me early access to "Monster on the Moors".

I'm currently in the middle of a major move, and will definitely come back at a later time and write out a full review and rating.

Thank you so much!

I really enjoyed this mystery book. It had me guessing at every turn! I liked the characters as well and found them enjoyable and likable

Written by J M Kelly, Monster on the Moors follows Bobby Holmes, a take on a young modern day Sherlock Holmes, and in this he is hunting a werewolf.

This is the second novel in this series, and I feel like it was trying to aim for middle grade and just, slightly missed the mark. The plot was interesting, and the descriptions fantastic, but the whole time I wanted them all to be adults going after the mystery.

If you enjoy novels with werewolves in it, give this a try, and if you want to read something with a Sherlock feel to it, this could be a good choice.

After having this copy sent to my tablet, I found out it was the sequel in a series, the first The Lost Treasure is set in America, and based around ghostly pirates. I decided to continue reading it. You could get away with reading just this one if you wanted to, as things in the previous book were recapped well enough. 

This is set in the very creepy village of Goathland in North Yorkshire where a young boy called Bobby Holmes is on holiday with his Scotland Yard Detective mother, to visit one of her old friends. Multiple people warn Bobby not to stay in the county and not to go out at night. When they arrive it seems that a young woman has gone missing...

Bobby seems to be quite mature for his age, probably as he is a homage to Sherlock himself, but it was really strange to see him converse with adults as if he was the elder and consoling one.  He and his friends were a cute little band of mystery solvers, with one being an obnoxious american called Stevie, an autistic young boy called Michael and the token clever girl of the group called Brenda. There were different POVs, from the children and the adults which was refreshing, as we could see what the adults were doing to solve the murders, and what the children were up to running around Whitby and the moors. 

The conversations between Melanie, Bobby's mum and himself were very strangely written - very stilted and formal. I also question whether a Scotland Yard Detective would carry a gun, which made me think that the author was American (on checking later I found this correct).

The writing was very good, beautiful in it's descriptions, but in making this a middle grade book, it feels like the author became a little stuck. The adult chapters were easier to read and follow than the children's. Whilst the plot was interesting and the writing for the most part were lovely, this felt a little off, and a little difficult to read in the sense that it didn't flow or make much sense in places. If this is edited and changed before it's release, then I would recommend this for older children and it could be a good introduction to horror books for young people. 

Trigger warnings for gore, blood, death of animals, detailed descriptions of injuries and supernatural bodily changes.

Thank you Netgalley and Publishers for the advanced copy.

Monsters on the Moor features Bobby Holmes, cousin Brenda Watson (hmm, sound familiar?) and friends, all of which get launched into a paranormal mystery.

This was a really neat spin off of your typical Holmes and Watson mystery, and I found myself enjoying it for the most part. It does start off a bit slow, but it picks up and stays there for the rest of the novel.

I have to say I’m big fan of the mythology / paranormal stuff. It’s commonly done that something ‘seems’ paranormal but has a logical explanation- so it was refreshing to have real creepies in this book.

I wouldn’t purchase this novel right away for my library, mostly because we do not own the first one. However, now that I have read Monsters on the Moor I would highly consider looking into acquiring “The Lost Treasure” also by J.M Kelly. The younger grades would definitely enjoy it.

A fun little mystery (love me some monsters on the moors) for young readers, though I didn't feel that the writing lived up to the atmospheric cover. Even for a middle-grade book, the prose was very "And then this happened. And then this happened. And then this happened." with very little character development or even a sense of the characters as individuals at all. However, bonus points for a genre-savvy supernatural tale for kids featuring a werewolf, which is always a refreshing change of pace.

An interesting read that I believe is a retelling of Holmes?
The story while enjoyable meandered for a bit before picking up speed. That and the constant shift of perspectives somewhat soured my expectations of this. Apparently this is also a part of a series so even though there was backstory I felt more than a little lost along the way honestly.
This is however a great book for those who are favs of middle grade fiction and an opening to horror and mysteries for young minds.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I didn’t know this was a series when I requested it but thankfully there was a bit of a recap from the groups earlier adventures so you can get caught up fairly quickly.
This book isn’t bad but again I think it’s meant for a younger audience and I can think of quite a few people I’m going to recommend it to!