Let us now start discussing the equilibrium notions in imperfect information extensive form games. So, we have seen that in perfect information extensive form games the equilibrium notions are pretty straight forward we are looking at the sub game perfection that is at every sub game of the game of a PIEFG you can find the Nash equilibrium and that a Nash equilibrium which is guaranteed to exist will be the sub game perfect Nash equilibrium of the PIEFG. Now there are ways how you can extend the same idea for IIEFGs as well the only trouble being now the nodes or the histories of these games are uncertain because there are certain information sets which is not there in PIEFGs or they are and they are singletons so there is no uncertainty for any of the players which state of the game it is in. So, unlike the PIEFG and IIEFG will have to bring in a notion called belief that means that what is the probability distribution for a player who is playing at that information set about the different nodes or different states of that game in that information set. So, if we have let us say two different nodes in an information set how does that player who is playing at that information set believes that this is in this node versus that node and with what probability that actually determines what will be the final equilibrium notion and in the equilibrium notion we will also see that in addition to just the mixed strategy that we did for normal form games there is also another component which is known as the belief and this believes and that mixed strategy has to have some sort of a consistency. Okay, so belief as we just said is a conditional probability distribution over the histories of an information set. So if you have multiple nodes which are nothing but histories the probability distribution over those histories in the information set is essentially the belief. Now from now on we are just going to discuss only games with perfect recall and we know that in such kind of games behavioral strategies and mixed strategies are equivalent so we are going to use them interchangeably sometimes we will also use the same notation to mean that it's mixed or behavioral. So let's first start with this example this is an example from the Maschler's book. So what does this show? So there are two players in this example. So player one plays two different levels. So first it plays here. So this the player one is playing here as well as playing at this third round. So it has three information sets I1, I1-1, I1-2 and I1-3. Similarly player two has one information set which is here and it is playing in the second round. So let us look at some behavioral strategy profile and that behavioral strategy profile is actually shown using the bold lines here. So player one in this information set is playing a mixed strategy which is 5 by 12, 4 by 12 and 3 by 12 with that it is playing this capital L capital M and capital R respectively. So in the second round when it is player two start to play it is it is playing the action L even though it has this action M and R and in the third round player one comes again and it plays R1 here in this second information set and L2 in the third information set. So that is the behavioral strategy profile of these two players. Now we are going to ask whether this is an equilibrium and by equilibrium we are using the same Nash notion. So if the other player is playing the strategy that it is playing according to this strategy profile is it beneficial for this current agent to deviate from it or the strategy that it has picked in this strategy profile is the optimal one. So how should we talk about what is the rationality here? So rationality as we said depends on what is the belief. So let us focus on this information set let us say I1-3. So if the probability distribution or the belief of player one who is playing at this round is let us say P that with P it believes that it is in S6 and with 1-P it thinks that it is in X7 then based on that because then what is going to happen is that you can do this small calculation that if it plays L2 it has this expected utility which is 2 times P because that is the utility it gets if it is playing L2 plus it has the probability of 0 the utility of 0 at 1-P if it believes it is in here which happens with probability 1 by 1-P and if it plays L2 then it gets an utility of 0 and if it plays R2 the expected utility is going to be 0 times P that is this number here and it will be 5 times 1-P. Now if you compare these two things you can clearly see this observation that if if the belief was in favor of it was larger than 2 by 7 in favor of X7 so if this this player thought its belief was such that this 1-P is larger than 2 by 7 which means that this P is at most 5 by 7 in that case it would have chosen R2 so that is the so you just solve that inequality you will find it. So this is what we are going to call as sequential rationality so given the belief it is going to take the decision which is rational according to it and based on this kind of a rationality notion we are going to evaluate whether the the strategy profile that we have just given that behavioral strategy profile is indeed an equilibrium or not okay so let's let's go back to the figure it's easier to explain it that way so now we know that if the belief was less than 5 by 7 so in favor of this so what can player 1 think in this case so it knows that if if it is if it is L then its belief is going to be equal to 1 so for X6 belief of player 1 will be equal to 1 and X7 will be equal to 0 so in that case it knows for sure that it is it is going to be in this state and it can it can choose L2 because L2 is going to give them give give it a higher utility than choosing R2 so this L2 action at this point so which is a which is the behavioral strategy which happens to be a pure strategy in this case is definitely a better option now what about this information set by the choice of player 2 which is L the conditional probability here is undefined because the probability of reaching this information set is itself 0 so therefore we cannot really calculate any conditional probability on it so therefore R1 is sort of vacuously rational so there is no harm for this player to play R1 because this node will never be reached now let us go go above one stage so if player 1 so let's say player 1 was after player 1's first stage of play we are in this information set of player 2 and player 2's belief could be something like again you can put some numbers let's say q and 1 minus q that denotes what is the probability at these two different nodes different histories in the same information set now it knows that if it plays L so if it if it plays L it is going to get an utility of 1 here and in this case it is going to get a utility of 2 here now you can you can actually calculate what is the utility that it gets given that the player 1 is still holding on to the same strategy so it is playing L2 in this information in the third information set and is playing R1 in the second information set you calculate what is the what is the utility that you will get if you play M which turns out to be 0 in this case and if it plays M here then it will also get minus 1 so certainly this is better than that and similarly if you play R and this player plays R here then it gets 0 similarly if it gets 2 plays R then it is going to get an utility of 2 right now the the question now becomes based on what kind of so it will play L or R based on what is the the belief in this in this in this node so if it believes that it is the the probability of Q probability Q is much larger than 1 minus Q then possibly it will go with 1 because playing L at this node is a is a better strategy otherwise in this case it is like it is the it is getting the same utility here so it is sort of weakly dominating that that strategy so we can we can see we can do the the calculation so here the if the if player 1 is using this strategy this mixed strategy in the first round then what what is going to happen is you can find this Q that is the the belief of this player you can find that to be 5 by 9 and this belief here will be 4 by 9 so clearly you can you can see the expected utility of playing L under this situation is strictly better than playing R under this belief system so that is essentially the calculation that we have we have seen so so you can take a look at this so this essentially based on the same utility the same strategy profile we have actually derived the the probability of reaching every node and the the conditional probability of reaching a specific node when it is at a specific information set is nothing but the the the the total probability of reaching that information set as denominator and in the numerator you have the the probability of reaching that particular node so that is the the belief so essentially that is the numbers 4 4 by 9 and 5 by 9 that we have calculated so if it has to be sequentially rational then we will have to see that the the utility the expected utility when it is playing that strategy so by picking that strategy L that we have just discussed we will see that the expected utility is going to be 13 by 9 and this is this is going to be larger than any other choice of action if you pick M or pick R you can take a do the same calculation and try to find out what is the what is the expected utility and that is going to be smaller than this number so therefore under this belief system so where player one has already picked this behavioral strategy in the first round it is appropriate for player two to stick on to this strategy L because that is going to give it the highest expected utility. Now if you look at the the first stage so we are going in a in a backward manner so we are if you look at the strategy of player one whether it has done the right thing or not you can see that the expected utility so given that player two has chosen L and at the third round player one has chosen what it has chosen so it gives player one an utility of two in if it is in this state of the game and at x3 it is going to get an utility of two again and again at R it is also going to get this utility of two so all the utilities are actually equal so it makes sense to give positive probability masses in all of these actions and therefore these numbers are meaningful so just compare this with the the notion of mixed strategy Nash equilibrium we have said that if the utility if you if it has to happen if the strategy the equilibrium strategy has a support where it is putting positive probability masses then it better be the case that the expected utility when other players are putting their strategies according to that equilibrium it has to be equal and in this case the you can even further divide it at a specific stage that is in this stage of that behavioral strategy because behavioral strategies are defined at every information set you can also hold the the strategy of the same player in the other information sets to be fixed that is exactly what we have done so for that the same player at i12 and i13 we have held fixed and for player 2 if it plays this strategy of L one can see that under all these strategies of L M and R the expected utility is going to be the same and that is why you can put positive probability they all can live in the support of this behavioral strategy. Fair enough so that is that is the that is one way of showing that this particular strategy profile is a is an equilibrium point however there could be more equilibrium point and in particular you can actually take a take a look at the same graph and try to find out if there exists some other kind of equilibrium so let me give you one small exercise you can see whether M by the by player 1 so M comma M R2 so that is that is one strategy so this is a pure strategy so it is playing M in the first round R3 in the in the last round so in fact you can you can even write that R so instead of M R R2 so because there are three information sets we should write M R1 R2 comma the the second player is just choosing M because it is it has only one information set do you see if if this is an equilibrium or not this this one here M R1 R2 comma M so let let us just define for for the completeness we already have seen all of this notions in in practice in that example let us just formally define so that we can also define the equilibrium notion in the IIFG so the first definition is that of belief so belief is nothing but what we have defined it is defined for a specific information set of a player so let us say for player I in the information set J it is a probability distribution over all the histories in that information set so that mu ij is something that we are going to call the belief now this belief it becomes a patient belief and now we are bringing in another probability distribution which is the mixed strategy or the behavioral strategy in this case so we are going to call a belief which is the same as before a belief which puts some probability masses at each information set for a player this is going to be Bayesian with respect to the behavioral strategy sigma if it is derived from that sigma using Bayes rule what does that mean this is something that we have used to find out what is the belief of that player at a specific information set so we are just looking at this at that information set summing over the probabilities of all the nodes under that sigma that is what is the so what is p sigma y this is the probability that that the game reaches node y under this behavioral strategy profile sigma so player one is choosing some some strategy of picking some action at every information set player two is similarly choosing something else and based on that you reach a specific node which is y so you sum over all such nodes probabilities probability of reaching all the nodes in an information set therefore this denominator becomes the total probability of reaching a specific information set now that you are in that information set what is the probability you will be in one of those nodes which is x in that in the same information set of player i so which means that this is the the belief you are essentially already conditional on the fact that you are in this information set i i j what is the probability that you will be in that node x in that information set that is going to be given by this belief and because it is consistent with that sigma using this Bayes rule we are going to call this belief as a Bayesian belief so now the notion of sequential rationality is very similar to the to the notion of Nash equilibrium the only difference being that now we are also expecting over the the node being in that information set so you can see that this notation utility of agent i when it is playing sigma i prime and other players are playing sigma minus i condition on the fact that you are in that node x and what does this utility mean because you are in a in a in a tree here so in a tree like structure so let's say we have a we have one we have a bunch of nodes in a specific information set let's say this is the information set and there are corresponding sub trees below it now once you are in that node let's say x all that matters the utility that you are looking at is is conditioned on that x that is you are only looking at this particular subtree which is the subtree of x what is the utility that you are going to get when you are restricting this graph at this node x under this behavioral strategy profile mu i prime and mu minus i so that is going to be defined as ui and then you take the expected sum because you are going to look at you do not definitely know as agent i you do not really know exactly which node you are in so you you might be in x but you might be in some other nodes in the same information set so you are looking at the expected utility of expected utility at that information set and what it is what sequential rationality is saying is that this sigma i sigma minus i is going to be sequentially rational if everybody else is still committing to the sigma minus i and player i does not benefit by deviating to any other sigma i prime so this is very similar to the Nash equilibrium but now you are looking at the the information sets in an IIEFG so that is the only difference that we have so now we have actually a combination of two things one is the behavioral strategy which is given by sigma and the corresponding Bayesian belief which is mu now this tuple of sigma comma mu we are going to call that to be sequentially rational if if it is sequentially rational for every player at every information set so we will sometimes also refer to this to this tuple as an assessment I mean this is just a just a terminology so as you can see I mean it's a refinement this a notion of sequential rationality is a refinement of Nash equilibrium so the notion essentially coincides of with sub game perfect Nash equilibrium when you apply the ideas to PIEFG so the and that is not very surprising because in PIEFG your Bayesian belief is like a single term I mean it's a it's a degenerate distribution because all the information sets there are single terms so the theorem says that in a PIEFG a behavioral strategy profile sigma is an SPNE if and only if that tuple mu sigma hat is sequentially rational sigma mu hat so sigma mu hat is that Bayesian belief which has to be a degenerate distribution so with all these definitions now we are in a position to define the the equilibrium notion which is a perfect Bayesian equilibrium notion and that very naturally is dependent on this tuple itself the assessment sigma and mu this is going to be a perfect Bayesian equilibrium if for every player i in n two conditions hold the first thing is that this mu i is a Bayesian belief with respect to the sigma and then the second one is this sigma i is sequentially rational given sigma minus i and mu i so the sequential rationality we have just seen the definition it is very similar to the Nash equilibrium and the the mu y that you are deriving is essentially coming from the same behavioral strategy which is sigma so if these two conditions hold then we are going to call that a Bayesian perfect Bayesian equilibrium so this is often sometimes only represented with sigma but you can always remember that there exists a underlying mu which is Bayesian with respect to that sigma so it is something like it is very similar to SPNE self-enforcing but in a Bayesian way because now we do not know perfectly the players do not know exactly which state they are in therefore they will have to use this sort of a belief system and also there should be some sort of a consistency so therefore it has to be this mu y has to be Bayesian with respect to that sigma so once that happens we we have an equilibrium notion and that is the equilibrium notion in imperfect information extensive form game


Leap for work. He's sitting in his living room. Highlights of my morning. I go past his house and we wave at each other. I've always wanted a neighbor like that. Really great guy. He's the guy who gave us those ciders. I thresholded his driveway for him. He brought us a little house warming gift. He introduced himself when we moved in and every time he sees us he stops the chat. Really great guy. I believe he's from the UK. I want to say that because that's where his accent sounds like it comes from and he says that he has family out there, so one plus one now I would assume that he's from the UK, but I'll have to ask him next time. We don't get to see each other very much right now because of the whole virus thing going around. So it's not like we can just go visit each other. Highlight of my morning. Every morning he sits around his couch and as I leave the driveway gives me a wave. Good guy. So I owe, I owe, and it's off to work. I go again. Drive some trucks today again.  Bring people their stuff. You know as simple as it sounds just bringing people their stuff. I love it. I love it. The simplicity of it is beautiful. I take stuff from here and I bring it over there in good condition. You see, people are always happy to get their stuff. It's sort of like getting an Amazon delivery. You're always happy when you get the stuff you order, right? So I'm like a hero of sorts, right? Maybe? No? Whatever. We'll just go with that. I'm sure everything's working, shall we? So I gave the truck a rinse yesterday. You'll see I didn't do a very good job. That's because it's gonna be just as dirty as it was yesterday. In about 30 minutes, but I did rinse her down and look at this. I've got a trailer door again. Again, just pretty much rinsed it down. It's a lot better than it was. We need to get this thing looked at a little bit, but it still works. It's still good. Well, I fixed it if it ain't broke. Another day begins. I'm gonna pick up something for the city. So if you don't know the Manitoba Speak Lingo, that means I've got to go into Steinbach and pick up something going to Winnipeg from town to the city. Town could be any town in Manitoba. It depends on where you're from. Town is usually where you're from or around the area you're from. If you say you're going to the city, every Manitoba knows what you mean. You're going to Winnipeg. In my experience, I guess everybody could be different. The truck, a little mini bath. I don't even know if I'd call it a bath yesterday. I had a little bit extra time after I got off. I just rinsed down the front end. If I got time today, I'll do the supposed to get really cold over the weekend. So if I am going to wash it, I've got to do it this week. Otherwise, I've got to wait for it to warm up a bit again. I don't want to be out there spraying water in minus 40. It's supposed to sit in on Saturday if the weather people are right. What they say you can take with the grain of salt. I don't know. It changes all the time. If you pay attention to the forecast, they're like, you know, the long range forecast, seven to 10 days. They change it every single day. They're just guessing. I don't know. What do I know? I'm not a meteorologist. I'm a truck driver. All I know is I don't like it when it snows. I love snow like on the weekends when I'm not working. I like it in the ditches. I like it on the trails for snowmobiling if I had a snowmobile. However, I am not a fan of it when it is on the road. If we could just find a way to like heat the highways so that as soon as snow fell, it just melted off the highways and ran into the ditch intersection. My crane friend touched myself a little bit more and I always thought it would be cool. I mean, it would cost a fortune, but if we could heat the highways that all the concrete and pavement is heated, that would be awesome. I want to have a heated driveway one day when we build our house. And that is within the realm of possibility, right? Just from our garage to the street. I want it to be paved and I want it to be heated so that whenever it snows, all you got to be like, hey, it's snowing outside. Turn on the floor heat or the driveway heat. And as the snow falls, it just melts and runs off. That way you always have a clear driveway. You never have to shovel. It's about to get that all I got to do. All I got to do is win the lottery. During this last lockdown thing that Manitoba participated in and we were forced into, lottery tickets was not essential. I get it. It's not essential. But they closed that down too. So we couldn't buy lottery tickets for like two months. So maybe you can buy them now. I don't know. But my chances of having a heated driveway drastically decrease when they take away my ability to buy a lottery ticket. You never know. You never know. Truck and drive might have a heated driveway one day. So that would be like, how long would our driveway be? We haven't really planned out our yard yet or our house build, right? I'm guessing it would be at least 100 feet of pavement. That would be expensive right there. Plus, heating it. I'm going to look into it. If I had to look into it, maybe it's cheaper than I think. Maybe it can be done. That way when I get old, I don't have to shovel, right? All I have to do is flip on a switch. Work smarter, not harder. If you want to see first thing in the morning, living up to its name. So beautiful day. A beautiful February day. Look at this. It doesn't get much better than this in February. The snow is actually slightly melting. That's not bad. And the truck is filthy again. And now you know why I don't wash the truck every day. I try to get it done as often as I can. But you know, if I got an easier day, or if I get off a little earlier and usual, I'll spray her down. But look at every vehicle here. Except for that one just off to the right there. He obviously just washed it. He'll get about to the next traffic lights and it'll look just as dirty as all the rest. Glad to the city again. We're coming out to bring some stuff to around the casino is. We're not going to the casino, but see what the Lord gods have for us. Usher fluid got filled up. We need it today. We find ourselves downtown in Winnipeg again. Running myself down here quite a bit. Boy, I sure end up downtown a lot. I don't mind it though. I love driving through here. It's fun. Get to see all the buildings, all the people, how everybody lives in a little box in the sky. And then I get to go home. And leave the city. I really wish. I wish the jets, like the jets arena is just off to my left over there. We went by yesterday. Did you see it in yesterday's video?  I wish their brink wasn't downtown. That's the only thing I wish. But I get what they're trying to do. They're trying to revitalize it. A lot of these buildings here have been redone recently as well. They're investing a lot of money to revitalize downtown here. They're doing a good job, but they're not doing a bad job. But it's very hard to revitalize Winnipeg. I won't say it. It's just Winnipeg. Everybody in Canada knows it's Winnipeg. You can put a shiny bow on it. It's still Winnipeg. Winnipeg. Let's just leave it at that. A lot of good areas. I'm looking at something off on the right here. What are they building here now? True North Square. So this will have to be something to do with the Jets Arena, I'm guessing. Oh, they're tearing something down first. Well, what did they tear down this time? We've got a lot of heritage buildings and a lot of old buildings. It's been upsetting a lot of people. That's our history, you know? But sometimes you just gotta make room for the new, you know, out with the old and with the new. Right where the Winnipeg Jets Arena is right now. Used to be the Eaton Building, I believe. Built in somewhere in like early 1800s. This is one of the first big buildings of Winnipeg and it was a heritage building. And they knocked it down to build an arena that's way too small in a terrible place with no parking. It upset a lot of Winnipegers and a lot of Manitobans that they did that. But alas, it has to make sense. All you gotta do is say, Winnipeg. And oh, that makes sense. The next road up here is Broadway. Did you know that we have a Broadway in Winnipeg? Oh yeah, we're super fancy. What's this? There's a sidewalk, literally right there, my friend. I guess it probably doesn't work well for her walker. Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. Oh yeah, we got this light red too. Of course we did. Of course we did. So we're gonna turn the left here. This is Broadway. Not quite the same as New York, but it's something, we got something going on here. Look at this. Look at this go. And this light's gonna turn green right away and there's still people crossing the road. Okay, you made it.  Good for you. New Broadway. We're gonna turn the other way on Broadway. We would legislate, which is our capital building on the Bronx. That would actually be fun to show you sometimes. It's actually a pretty impressive building. Of course it is. It's a government building. They spared no expense. Probably still paying it off. You know what's at the top of our legislature? There's a Golden Boy coated in real gold. You know what has been, and people have attempted to steal it more than once. One guy even had a helicopter and tried to fly away with it. Oh yes. And the Golden Boy points northward to signify the developments up north as we were developing and settling north from here. Pointed towards all the opportunities and minerals and stuff up north that we could go and hear this fancy hotel as the Fort Gary Hotel. It is said to be haunted from some pretty credible sources. I am not checking over myself and stay there for a night, but it's difficult to justify paying the rates for a hotel room here because I live in Manitoba. Why would I? Well, I don't know. Maybe a date night sometime we'll come and check out the haunted Fort Gary Hotel. Make a video about it. I don't know. Maybe we'll see a ghost. We'll see. You never know. And this right here is the Via Rail Station, Union Station. This was the hub. This was like the airport of Winnipeg back in the day before we had flying metal boxes in the sky. Everybody would come to Winnipeg by train. And this is where you would board the train and get off the train. The rails are right behind this building. This was the place to be if you're going anywhere or coming from anywhere. Must have been a pretty happening place back in the day. I mean, that was the only way to get around. Like if you wanted to go to Calgary, you had to get on a train. If you wanted to go to Toronto, you had to get on a train.  I mean, but that only takes you so far, right? Oh, there's one of those buses that folds in half. Main Street is behind us. As soon as we get over the Asciniwine River here, it turns into St. Mary's Road onto Marion Street and go into St. Boniface, the French Quarter. The French Quarter of the city where everybody speaks English anyway. The English were on this side of the river. And eventually the English won because if you look at our provincial flag, it has the Union Jack in the top left corner with the crest, Manitoba Crest on a red background. That's our provincial flag. Wow, we're getting into like Winnipeg history here. Wow, I'm sorry to have bored you. Now you know. See, Winnipeg isn't really on the map. People always forget we exist. Now you know something about it. You know more than your neighbor. Congratulations. This is myself for a couple of hours. So how was your hump day? Thursday and Friday, that's it. Hey, then we got one more full week and then it's a long weekend. That's the commander. That's the commander. He cares. One second, boy, let me get my work boots off. Got my shield. Got my shield. Got my shield. Okay, so maybe I egg them on a bit sometimes. What? I enjoy the welcome. Britt, does that work right now? Chevy, Chevy. Careful. Weiner's coming. Careful, careful, careful, careful. Okay, okay. Okay, watch out for Weiner. Weiner. Weiner, go somewhere safe, buddy. Go somewhere safe. That's not somewhere safe. Oh, okay, Chevy. Chevy, are you excited to see me or are you excited to see them? I think he's excited to see you. Wow. So that's how I get home when I know Brits at work. We're very lucky. Yeah, well, Brits at work. The boys will have some fun, right? All right, Chevy, can you sit? That's not sitting. Sit and I'll pet you. Hi, Commander. What's up? What's up, Commander? I got all your messages you sent to me. That was rude. I was talking to the Commander. Can you sit still? Sit. I'll pet you if you sit. No, you got to stay sitting. Diesel's sitting. Quiet. No, Diesel. Okay, no, you stand up. I don't pet you. You have to stay sitting. Stay sitting. Then I'll pet you. No. Only if you're sitting, you get the pets. No. Okay, you can't handle it. You can't handle it. I should pet myself then. Oh, but I'm not sitting. I have to sit first. All right. All right. They want to go outside or something lame like that. I got to find my tube. Where's my tube? Is it right here? There it is. One second. Let me put you find people down right there. Don't move. That you might fall. Watch the little guys, Diesel. Watch them. You stink. I've been working hard all day. What do you expect? More than I can say for you guys. I'm a tired man. I don't work anymore. But we're tired. Must be nice. I'll take these fine people. Okay, everybody. And let's go outside. Let's be a little quieter out here though. Okay. That's not annoying, everybody. Oh, that was a good day. That was a good day. A bit of a shorter day, like I said. So I'm home just after five o'clock instead of usually lately I've been getting home. Like what is usual, right? Every day is different. There is no usual or usually. But I would say lately I've been home usually around six to six thirty. And today I'm home at five. So Britt only gets off work at six thirty. So that gives me over an hour, almost an hour and a half. Just to do whatever I want. Do you want to know another pet peeve of mine? I feel a rant coming on. I don't know. Maybe not. People who have cats in town and they just let them loose outside to roam around town. They jump our yard because of course our fence, right? Because of course we got dogs. And they spray our entire yard. And in summertime they wreck stuff. And of course they make our dogs go crazy, right? Because the dogs when they see the cat chase them right out of the yard, right? And I'd encourage them to do that. They're supposed to chase intruders out of our yard, right? That's what they're supposed to do. But why do people who have cats in town let them loose out into town to just wander around everybody's backyard? There's this one cat that keeps coming here. There's actually two with it. But there's one for sure, black and white cat. He's obviously an indoor cat. Obviously has owners. He's well taken care of, well fed. And they just let him out every day. And he always comes to our yard and then he teases our dogs. He sits outside on our front porch there. Makes the dogs go crazy. And then he goes around to the backyard, jumps our fence and climbs it, jumps over and then sprays our backyard so it stinks like cat urine.  I'm really not a cat person. I don't know if you knew this. Well, work is not over yet. Work is not over. Just one part of it is over. Now we must show everybody what we did, right Diesel? And him and we're both the kitty cats.  Good job protecting me.


So I like to do this video where I read seven books in seven days around a certain theme and I always think it's a great idea and I then hate myself for doing it whilst it's happening because I have to read a book a day and then by the end I'm like I should do this more often. I just read seven books in seven days and we're doing it again. We're here again, we're ready, we're back, it's time to do it all over again. Hi, how are you doing? We're back and we're ready for it all over again. So yeah, this time we're going to be reading seven murder mysteries in seven days. I love murder mysteries. If you guys have been here a long time, you know, I love murder mysteries and I've just been feeling like I haven't been reading enough of them.  We've done this before with seven horror books and seven readathons. We did seven readathons in seven days and that was fun. But this is just seven murder mysteries of my choosing, okay? I have full control. We can do this. We were all so happy that day. It's actually hard to even imagine how terrible things would soon become. So in terms of my TBR, there's been a few that have been on previous TBR cluedos that I definitely want to make sure I get to. We've got four here. These are definite. These are absolute. These are happening and you be pleased to see they were quite short. So we've got The Woman in the Library by Salari Gentiles. This is probably the book I'm most excited to read in this video. I am pumped. I am ready. Like, let's go. This has been one of my most anticipated books. To give you like a brief synopsis, we're going to talk about synopsis all of these. It's a book within a book. The book within a book, there's a murderer in the library. One of the four strangers sitting around the table committed the murder but they were all sitting there. How do they do it? And then there's the author writing the book, writing letters to someone about the book. I'm confused. Essentially, doesn't that fill you with excitement? Doesn't that get you going? Two series I'd like to make progress in. I'd like to read the next porro. Good old Agatha. Good old Agatha. Come on. It's not a mystery video. I don't read a bit of Agatha.  So yeah, that's the next in the porro. I'm up to number nine, everyone. Applause, please. We're getting there. I would also like to read the next in the Lady Hard Castle mystery series. This might be more a missing person murder mystery but these are basically murder mysteries.  I don't really know much about it. We're on the seaside. I love Lady Hard Castle and Flow. The audiobook season is incredible so this will be good for a day when I want to listen to an audiobook. Good for a day when I'm super busy. We are going to read your guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper. This is basically a graphic novel taking the mick out of murder mysteries. It's got like the usual suspects, the usual places, like the little village that often exists in murder mysteries. I have been so excited to read this for so long. This and Woman in the Library are probably the two I'm most excited for. So those are like four definites that are absolutely happening. Two that I would like to get to. One because it's short, Six Stories by Met Wazelowski. This is like a podcast kind of one. I've heard really good things about this. We've got like, I think this teenager was killed and then years on he's trying to like interview the teenagers at the time who were kind of like around him when it happened. I've heard really good things and I would also like to get to The Murder Game by Tom Hindle. This is the only murder mystery from 2023 that I have so far. I mean it is long so this is going to be for a day when I can just read it basically but it's at this 1920s murder mystery dinner party and someone actually gets killed. So that's six. So today it is Mother's Day here in the UK and I don't want to read a long book today even though I'm not really doing much because I've been reading a lot the past couple days. Like I feel like let's do something substantial but not intimidating. I'm thinking why don't we start with Agatha because I can listen to the audio book for this. Proro books are always quite quick like they're nice and speedy. So I think let's start with Lord Edgeware Dies today. We're not doing loads from Mother's Day. We're just going to the garden centre locally. We're going to have lunch there and we'll buy some plants and maybe do some gardening. That's basically the plan for today. So yeah I feel good about reading this. Get the Agatha out of the way and then maybe tomorrow, I feel like maybe tomorrow we read the woman in the library. I don't know. Anyways we're almost back to the for the garden centre so see ya! Lovely day. I'm very tired. I dressed for the weather that I wanted not the weather that actually existed and I got so cold and when I get cold I get really tired and like crabby. Crabby? It's not as an Americanism. Grumpy. I'm about to have a bathroom. I think you can hear it running because I need to warm up. But I am halfway through Lord Edgeware Dies and it's okay. Essentially what you should know is that this woman comes to Proro going like I want to divorce my husband. I want to get rid of him. I might even kill him. You know what? I don't believe in the glorification of murder. I do believe in the empowerment of women. And she's asking his help to convince Lord Edgeware that they should get a divorce essentially. And then like the next day he's murdered. And certain people claim to have seen her at the house that night so she is definitely the chief suspect. But who knows? Who knows? It feels like every suspect that we've got it's like too obvious for it to be them. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. But that's basically what we need to know. And I mean it's fine but guess who's here? Guess who's here? Hastings! Hastings! Do you hear that? I've looked it up. He's in this one. ABC Murders which is in like four books time. And then Curtain which is the last one. I'm almost free of this man but I didn't think he was in this one and he is. I actually have no objection to him being in a book right Hastings. If you don't know, Hastings is like Porro's friend who's narrates a lot of the early early books. He narrates this one. And he's kind of just like Porro just says he's like he's kind of like the every generic man. Like he thinks what the generic thing would be to think.  And he gets offended when Porro speaks the truth to him. I'm like Hastings get a grip.  I don't mind him being in a book. I'm hoping maybe for ABC Murders. I don't know but I'm hoping for AC Murders and Curtain. He doesn't narrate it but he's just there because I have no problem with him being there. It's just being in his head. It's no coincidence that like all of her best books don't have Hastings in them. All of the best Porro books don't have Hastings in them. He can get gone. I'm so annoying. Objectively I don't mind him but I just don't like the books that I read from his perspective as much you know. Murder Roger Ackroyd is arguably the best from the early Porro books before Murder on the Euronexpress and guess what that's the one that doesn't have Porro in it. The one that doesn't have Hastings. But yeah it's a fairly easy mystery. I mean we've met lots of people. It feels like what's going to happen in this one is that all of the suspects seem so obvious or at least the suspects that I think it is seem so obvious and so you think oh no it's way too obvious to be them and then it's going to end up being them because you discounted them because it was way too obvious to be them. It's what it feels like this is going to be. I feel like for a Hastings one though I am enjoying this a bit more. Like I'm liking, I feel like the writing is starting to come into her own a bit more. The way that the book is moving I feel like I prefer to some of the other Porro early ones. So anyways I'm going to finish it tonight. I don't know if I will see you tonight or if I'll just check in with you in the morning because I am quite tired. Yeah maybe I'll just see you in the morning with my thoughts but I'm definitely going to finish it tonight because I've only got like an hour and a half maybe a reading left to do. Like if I'm reading it from the page.  I'm so sorry Hastings. There's nothing against you. You're just annoying.  Okay good evening everyone. So I finished Lord Edgewood Dies last night. It was too late to check in with you and then all day I've been prepping oh my gosh let's just move this over a little bit. All day I have been prepping for the Agatha Christie disappearance video which is fitting since I just read a video that I'm doing that hopefully is out already by the time this is coming out. One would hope but I've been reading like a lot of books and like websites and stuff for that and trying to find pictures and newspapers and stuff. So I've done all my research for that today. That took like the whole day and then tomorrow I'm gonna script and film it hopefully. But anyways so yeah that took up the whole day at six o'clock now. Anyways let's talk about Lord Edgewood and then we'll talk about what we're gonna read today. I finished this last night and I'm gonna give it a three. Right that's for multiple reasons. Firstly Hastings. Now that's bullying. Did you see that? Turns out I lived up. He does narrate the ABC murders. I'm hoping since that's such a loved one listen I don't dislike Hastings as a person. I just don't like him narrating the books. For me I much enjoy the poro books from the outside perspective not from Hastings being like oh I just didn't really connect to any of the kind of characters in this book that we met. When I think of the last one I read which was Parallel Endhouse I really enjoyed reading from a lot of those characters. I thought they're really interesting characters. I thought the character group had a really interesting character dynamic but I found myself forgetting who all these people were and how they were all connected and relating to each other and I do draw the line at incest even if this is the 1920s and you know your cousin's I mean it's just your cousin. I don't care but I did like the end reveal. I thought the end reveal was really good and I enjoyed it and I think it's one of the first ones from Agatha Christie that I've read like this so I enjoyed the ending. That was it really. I thought the end reveal was good. The last like 40 pages I was into it but for basically the whole rest of that second half from when I last checked in the last night I was kind of checked out. I was kind of just like I don't care. Me and Christie, me and Agatha have a mixed relationship. Five stars, one star. I've given her everything in between basically. I've just been trying to figure out what I should read today. Obviously it's quite late and when I woke up this morning I was like I've had enough of reading because I have to read a lot before this video as well in order to get my last one up but now I'm like oh I don't know the evening's upon us. I'm in the mood but I need to be realistic with myself. I found this which looks tiny it is but I feel like it might be what we read today because I realized there's no rules that I can't start another book today if I finish one. There's no rules that I can't get ahead. That's not happening. All right. We're gonna read an elderly lady is up to no good so I think that's we figured out what the seven books are because we've yeah we spoke about one of them. This was recommended to me by one of my patrons.  So I need to do some cooking tonight, some stuff that I can listen to the audiobook with. The audiobook is only three hours long so so I'm probably gonna do a mix of I'll start it off with the audiobook and then I'll read it physically along with the audiobook afterwards but yeah I think we're gonna start with this because it's late I'm feeling a little bit tired. I want to go to bed early so that I can like smash it tomorrow with this Acala Christie video. A lot of this video I'm not going to be doing a lot of my life because I'm just trying to get this Acala Christie video done. I'm not going to be doing exciting things for you in this seven books in seven days. I need to talk quietly because I'm my family asleep. It's 20 past 10 and I'm just doing some skincare and I just finished the book and I thought I'd chat to you about it. So I finished and elderly lady's up no good um this wasn't been deceived. I'm so sorry I know but like honestly we're in this we're all deceived. I don't know if telling you what this is it's a spoiler no on their back it says Maud has no qualms about a little murder that that's putting it lightly like this is a series of short stories and this all just it gives us like the last short story so whatever but I had such a fun time reading this book I had the most fun a little bit of murder is so much fun it's so much fun yeah I'm going to give this four stars I loved this I really did enjoy it it is such a short little cute collection of short stories about this little old woman who definitely has no qualms about committing a little murder and honestly go Maud go Maud like I love women having hobbies apologies apologies we can hear my candle by the way I'm making sure it doesn't tunnel so I'm still banning it yeah I really enjoyed all the short stories in this I was gagged I didn't know where this book because I hadn't read the back properly and I was gagged and gooped I was it all over the place I really enjoyed it I loved the writing the writing itself I think this author is Swedish and I hope I'm correct in saying that the author of Bear Town is Swedish and the writing felt very similar to me perhaps it's how Swedish is translated to English and how that that linguistically feels because their writing felt very similar in a good way I really enjoyed the writing it was just fun it was just a fucking barrel of laughs murder is a barrel of laughs I just love I love reading about old people as well like listen Maud's living her life she's doing what she's got to do she's doing you know perhaps a little bit delusional perhaps a bit paranoid but Gally she does what she needs to do girl boss yeah there's not much for me to say to you about it because I don't want to spoil anything more than what I've already told you again I feel you know I feel like I haven't told you anything it's not in the back you know really if I'd bothered to read this properly would have been a problemo the audiobook was really good as well I really really enjoyed the audiobook I listened to all of it via the audiobook and read along I'd say for the second half and the narrator was really really good and this is a series there is a second one I'm debating whether I'm actually going to get the physical version or whether I just listen to the audiobook for the second one I'll definitely finish the series off this year um but yeah I don't know if I will just get the audiobook I don't like having an incomplete series so maybe I will I'll get the second one physically as well two books down my loves one no not one to go five to go what we read tomorrow is going to depend on strategically how the day goes so I'm going to wake up I'm going to script the Aga Christie video I'm going to film the Aga Christie video then I decide is it a better use of my time to read a longer book like let's read the woman the library tomorrow I have got reading sprints of five with my patrons or is it a better use of time to try and edit as much of the uh the video the Aga Christie video tomorrow like say if I finish filming like 12 I'm gonna edit in which case we would probably read six stories tomorrow I don't know we'll see which of these we read tomorrow it'd be one of these two I would imagine I feel like I keep saying I'm gonna read this and keep paying it off because I am so excited to read it I'm scared what if it doesn't live up and I want to make it the perfect condition okay hi so I just finished filming the Aga Christie experience video it's almost five o'clock it's taking me the whole day to script and film that the script for it was almost four thousand words long that's me cutting down from like a document that's about twelve thousand words of research then making the timeline for myself and then scripting it so I'm pretty pretty tired get your ass up and work but I have got reading sprints and I feel like none of the books fit the length of time I have to read like I don't want to I'm tired but I have got reading sprints but I have got to wash my hair tonight and that's I mean I wash it every other night but it's an olympic sport washing my hair okay if I'm being honest with you I am torn between two of the books I'm most excited to read which oh shit which I'll run in the library and six stories the pro about six stories is I have an audiobook and it's a full cast audiobook and I've heard such wonderful things about this audiobook it's like a podcast so plan me thinking that but then part of me just thinking let's just get into or in the library if I don't finish it today like it's not the end of the world because as long as I read seven books in seven days I would like to keep it to a book a day but like if I read your guide it's not getting murdered that's just too quick for today we don't know super quick book but I've done all the middle of the road books because I'm impatient like that oh do I go with this or do I go with the audiobook no we're gonna go with woman in the library I've got a fair amount of time to read today it's only almost five o'clock so I'm gonna go with this even though I don't have the audiobook this is one of the books I've the most excited to read and it's not long it's 250 pages although the font isn't large okay right let's go then I'm gonna pop out in the garden for a second get some fresh air and then this prince will start and I will start this um it's really late it's like nine o'clock oh you can see my pyjamas my clothes my exercise clothes anyways I you know everyone has clothes that you've only worn for like an hour and they're still clean you want to put them in that's where they go anyway it's nine o'clock they're about to have a bath I need to wash my hair wash my hair it's taken me a bit longer to do the sprints and eat I just ate for ages but I am halfway through my library so I haven't done badly even if I don't finish this tonight I reckon I'll get at least like halfway through the next half so I'll get I reckon at least three quarters of the way through I'm really enjoying this let me try and give you the simple I'm not even gonna try and get deep into this synopsis I'm gonna give you the simplest explanation we have got a character writing letters to their author friend okay that's plot number one they're writing letters that author friend is a famous author they are sending back chapters of their current work in progress to the first character so they're like sending them a chapter and at the end of the chapter we have a letter from that first character going oh that's so great this is what I think about x y and z and in that book that she's sending chapters of the character is writing a book let's just get our heads around that for a second everyone just sitting in silence and think about that because it's a lot but I'm really enjoying it and so in the chapters that's where the main plot is happening like the the chapters that are being sent in the first chapter I think a group of characters are at this library table and they hear a scream and it turns out someone was murdered and we find out at the end of that chapter that one of the people sitting at that table was the murderer but how do they do that when they were sitting there and I think the the murder was like blunt forced trauma to the head it wasn't like poisoning or something so what's the truth I'm just enjoying it it's fun it's ridiculous it's campy it's over the top the inception of like reading the chapter and the author the the author in the chapters is writing a book about the other characters in the chapter like inspired by them it is so much and I'm having a lot of fun reading the chapter and then getting the letter from the friend saying oh it's so interesting I think the murderer is this there's a murderer is this because it's making me kind of pick up on things I I didn't think about or making me theorize more it's also fun knowing one of these four characters the murderer because you're looking everything they do in great detail I feel like at the moment there's an obvious choice and it's not gonna be that person it's not gonna be that person I can see why this hasn't got the best reviews it's got like a 3.5 I think this is marmite to the heavens like it is so you're gonna love it or not I hate it you know it's a very interesting set of writing because the book is written I think if I read a book that was the chapters which is the main portion of the book there was just a book like that the writing would piss me off because the writing is kind of pretentious and like self-aware but because of this whole concept of like the author is a character and the author is conversing with this person in the emails he's still with me um it makes it fun it makes it interesting like stuff is starting to happen that is just ridiculous so it's like the meta-ness if I read a book of this I wouldn't I wouldn't vibe oh that's what I was gonna say to you I was mistaken because I thought the whole book was gonna be them sat at that table and like that's only the first chapter I thought they were gonna be like no one can leave you have to sit here and it's just gonna be through like conversations that kind of maybe would have been boring but just through like conversations with each other that we figure it out but no this is like over the period of weeks and weeks and weeks but yeah I'm having fun I don't think this is gonna be a five star but I've been excited to read this for a long time not because I thought it was gonna be a five star but because I like modern murder mysteries that take the genre and twist it and do something interesting and different and new with it and this is new I mean it's difficult I don't even know if you guys have the foggiest as to what I've just explained as soon as you read it you get it but like trying to explain it it's like a book within a book within a book but I've made really good progress and like I said I'll probably get at least three quarters of a through because once you get into this this is a super quick read okay so you may be thinking Megan a day's missing and you'd be correct I did finish the woman in the library last night but I finished it at like 11 30 so I did read this across two days that's okay we can read two books today or at least try to let me not make promises the final thoughts on this bad boy I'm gonna give it a four maybe it's a 3.75 but I think a four I think it's a really fun book like I was saying before I just loved the new take on a murder mystery this was taking the letters that Leo the friend is writing to her at the end of each chapter start getting a bit bad vibes and I really liked that and I thought it was interesting it was both a protocon like seeing the character of her who we never really see the author the character of the author kind of bleed into the book the chapters that we're reading and sometimes I liked that and sometimes I thought okay it's getting in the way of this being a great book now do you know what I mean I'm not sure what the balance of that was I had a super fun time reading it on the whole but I would say I have a few two it's been a long day guys I spent okay yesterday I spent let's we'll get into critiques in a second I spent the whole of yesterday editing this agatha christie vlog and then I've only just finished now and it's like half three usually a video like a non vlog video would take me a day's worth of work to plan film edit this if you've count up me doing the research months ago it's at least like five days of work to make this video I'm really happy with it I'm really proud of it I'm so happy I've finally done it because I've wanted to do it for ages so now we're finally free I'm fitting more like a human again and we're ready to do the rest of this vlog so anyways what was I saying yeah a few critiques I have of it is I did feel like the ending was really rushed it was making me a bit anxious like we were like 16 pages from the end I was like how is this gonna end clap if you have anxiety I do appreciate an ending it doesn't have loads of unnecessary stuff at the end like when you've the ending has happened and you still like 40 pages the book is totally unnecessary but in this I was like okay and then the ending just kind of happened and I didn't feel like we had a good build up to the ending it felt like we were kind of on the same level same level and suddenly it ends do you know what I mean it didn't feel like we really built the ending and I will say you know that one of these well really three characters so you have the protagonist in the story and then three friends and you know it's one of those three friends who is the murderer and so it's this really tight pull of of people to suspect and then one of the characters is kind of like the obvious suspect and so I obviously didn't suspect them so that leaves like two people and so then when the murderer is revealed you're like yeah I knew that guys knew that because you've kind of having so few characters to theorize as to their motivations and why they did it and how they did it leaves you with very little options you know what I mean I always say with a good amount of mystery you want like six suspects five suspects being left with really I would say only two was like it's obvious so that kind of drew was a drawback for me I was going to and I was like I know who it's gonna be I know how it's gonna happen but I will give it a four because I thought it was such a fun book you know such a fun imaginative book but I am a little bit disappointed because this was like a five-star prediction for me it wasn't that and I can see like I said before why so many people haven't enjoyed this because the style of writing because it's kind of like everything's in on the joke not it's not a joke but you know everything is like in this concept and everything is fed through the lens of this concept I can see how people don't love it so plan for the day I have actually just started as I was getting ready speak me again I feel like I've been like this editing little gremlin for the past couple days and I've forgotten how to speak I just started this the murder game by Tom Hindle I don't know much about it I can't tell you much yet so I'll check in with you and I'm about halfway through this and then if we do have time we'll read your guide to not getting murdered in a quaint English village tonight but we can also double up with this on Friday or Saturday do you know what I mean it doesn't have to happen today so we're definitely going to read this today and this will be the book that we read when we read two books in one day over the next couple days I'm going to go read some of this I'll let you know what I think when I'm about halfway through just stumbled across a strange moment on the audio book my god I tell you the plot basically what you need to know is we've got these characters from this small town going to this New Year's Eve party that is I've got this annoying hair in my face okay there is like a 1920s murder mystery party they all kind of know each other there's this drama with this lighthouse that someone's converting there's secrets from the past there seems to be multiple secrets in the past I don't really know what's going on there that's all you need to know and I'm just bored I think there's something about Tom Hindle's books that just don't do it for me I if this doesn't pick up I'm not gonna pick up another Tom Hindle I'm just not gonna do it to myself but neither of his books are bad right this and the fatal crossing which I read last year they're not bad I just don't care do you know what I mean I'm not reading it going on this writing's bad or whatever I just feel like his character actually I think that's what it is his characters feel so anonymous I couldn't even tell you who half these people are there's too many of them and they're all I don't give a f*** they have no characterization and so I just don't care his books are just boring like I can't root for like oh I hope it's not this person or I hope it's that person I think it's this person if I don't know who any of them are I'm just feeling bored I'm not loving the audiobook narrator I'm still gonna listen to it by the audiobook because I don't think not listening to it by the audiobook would help much but the audiobook narrator was like being posh one moment but is trying to put on like a London accent for some of the characters particularly like for a rich character but it's like a bruv uh I'm trying to find I need to I can't do it the two of you have some history come on oh no I can't that's not it but like I'm putting on like a kind of rougher London accent for this like posh character and I'm like what does that make any sense we're halfway through and the murder has only just happened and you're telling me you're setting this at 1920s murder mystery party like that's the hook but that doesn't happen like because the murder happens right as he's giving them the opening speech of this murder mystery party I so no one's gonna be concerned about figuring out the clues I thought we could I was angry I was angry the idea of a murder mystery party like my oh gosh it's so camp so fun but that you've lured me in and it might as well not been there because it just wasn't happening it could be any other new year's eve party because guess what the murder mystery thing doesn't happen at all no one gets into characters no one looks for some clues so much potential wasted like there could have been a murder halfway through the murder mystery party and people try to figure out if it's a real murder if it's not like see a murder and then is that something for the like for the clues or is and like one of the characters has gone missing and were they in on the plot of the murder mystery party or has it been an actual murder I kind of get my words I'm excited think of the possibilities think of the drama think of the range and we're not getting any of that I'm just gonna go ahead and finish it I think it's it seems big but listening at my normal like reading with the book pace it's only gonna take me like an hour and a half of reading to finish this so I'm just gonna get it done and it's done I'm really sad this was the only 2023 murder mystery that I own that's come out that I wanted to read so far that I haven't already read and it's disappointing I'm not kidding when I tell you I'm debating giving this one star I think I'm gonna give it one star I was saying in the last clip I don't think Tom Hengel's books are bad I don't think I have anything good to say about this book I know here's a thing right I don't think wow it's not the worst writing ever read although we'll go onto that but I just think it's a crime for a murder mystery with this fun a sounding premise to be this boring like you actually have to grow out of your way in my opinion to make this foreign like you gave me nothing nothing nothing was bought nothing was given I kept getting so annoyed with how these characters are acting you know what a character like acts in the most stupid freaking way possible just to help the story and what the author and make it more convenient like there's a police woman in this who ends up turning up and firstly she does stupid stuff throughout the book but when she starts like accusing people it's fairly obvious that that person is being framed like they have a clean alibi for the murder like it's literally not possible and she's like it's you and I'm just like you are pissing me off and this this person is obviously in deep just a very anxious person deep distress and she's like being meaner and meaner to them and it I just really annoyed me from being honest I'm a bit pissed off about it a book hasn't irritated me like this in a long time I felt like my time has been wasted my money has been wasted I'm gonna give it one star usually I reserve one star so books that I think are like offensive there's nothing offensive in this but I am angry I don't want to tell you like it's pissed me off this whole book has pissed me off and it's more just the fact that it's so boring like nothing happened I thought the dialogue was pretty bad the characters I couldn't tell you any of these people are they are all boring they all have no characterization the reveal of who it is okay yeah a little bit of a gag but not really like boring boring tomato tomato I just I'm upset I don't have anything else to say to you I don't I want to pretend this didn't happen can we all do that just the way these characters would talk it was so no one speaks like this that is something I can't forgive in a book when it just feels cringe cringe cringe and boring that's kind of unforgivable for a murder mystery in my book I can't believe I've given that a one star that might be my first one star of the year anyway so two days to read the three books remaining we can do this I think I'm gonna save death beside the seaside and your guide not getting murdered for tomorrow and it's about what time is it it's almost four o'clock I'm gonna focus on reading six stories this afternoon and evening I don't really know much about this so I'll give you the plots and obsess when I'm about halfway through but my god anything is better than what I've just read I am fuming fuming all right good morning so I finished off six stories this morning I read most of it last night but I finished off this morning and you'd be thinking Megan you didn't check in halfway that's because I for most of reading this book I didn't know how I was feeling about it and to be honest I still don't know how I was feeling about it anyway I'm gonna do my skincare and chat to you and then I'll tell you about our plan so today because obviously it's our last day so six stories is basically about a boy whose body was found in the 1990s um like my mouth was open I did that because I was talking not really gonna multitasking I should learn this by now I can't redo these two things at once yeah his body was found in the 1990s and it is a podcaster going back and doing interviews with a lot of the people who knew him he was kind of part of this um nature group with these adults and kids so it's really just adults and kids from that group per being interviewed and trying to kind of get to the bottom of what happened that's basically all you need to know it's not like say days during the six where all the interviews are kind of like mixed in together each interview is separate and I think that was the sticking point for me I think I'm gonna give this three stars it wasn't bad but I just didn't love it like I feel like a lot of people have been loving it and I think it's because each of those interviews being separate it felt like there was no tension each of them were like 40 pages long and it kind of just felt like they dragged on and I didn't feel like there was any tension being built which being told the same story kind of over and over again with little new nuggets being revealed which weren't interesting I didn't dislike this but I was just kind of like okay you know what I mean I didn't I don't know it didn't do for me what I feel like it's doing for a lot of people do you see the snail slime yes I am putting snail slime on my face so I don't really have I feel like I don't have much to say to you it was kind of just fine like I just read it and I was like okay like I'm not gonna remember this going forward I'm not gonna continue on with the series there's like six books in a series I'm okay I'm good I don't need more I don't think it was bad but I think maybe there's just something about the writing that I didn't personally click with that's kind of hard to say to you the characters were fine but I didn't feel like any of them were like I don't know there was one called Anya and you and she was kind of my favorite character she was the fifth interview but by then I was just like not super interested there's just these few small scenes that we heard about over and over again and they just weren't that interesting to me so that's that on that don't mind me I'm just picking my eye cream on but I just realized I need to hold stuff up to talk to you okay so we've got two days no we've got one day left we need to read two books today and oh I've got to hold stuff up quickly eye cream I'm definitely going to read your guides not getting murdered in a quaint English village tonight I'm going out for a walk this today most of the day with Thomas family and um probably have dinner around there so I'll try and read that when I get home but I was supposed to be reading Death Beside the Seaside by T. E. Kinsey today but I'm just not feeling it that's fairly long it's a fairly long Lady Hardcastle and I'm just feeling like read out you know the trouble with these videos like I'm always happy after I've done them because I've read seven books in seven days but I just don't think I read this much actually no here's the thing I wouldn't feel like this I wouldn't feel like oh I've read so much I'm kind of like my brain is kind of read out if I had read like one or two books with the same amount of pages as I've read but it's I think it's so me consuming so many different stories I've read a lot of shorter books and I've consumed so many characters so many plots so many information that's kind of too much if it had just been like two books with the same amount of page lengths I wouldn't feel like this but it's the consuming of so many stories so I love the Lady Hardcastle mysteries and I just don't want to read this while I'm in that kind of mood so I was asking some of my patrons I was like what should I read does anyone have any short murder mystery recommendations and we were kind of struggling to come up with anything and I was like I don't know maybe I'll read the next in the elderly lady series the one that I read early in the week but it's only a matter of mystery I would be kind of like breaking the rules a bit and part of me was like I'm okay breaking the rules so I was gonna do that and then one of my patrons was it Sophie I feel like it was Sophie let me check on the discord yeah Sophie recommended a jury of her peers by Susan Glassville looked up the order but it's only an hour long so it's easy to do but I'm like okay so this is like a play or a short story by Susan Glassville I'm gonna be honest I don't know anything about is that really bad is she a really famous feminist OG author from back in the day I think this was published in the 60s that is not correct but yeah it's just like this short story about these two women who tried to solve a murder that this detective can't and I'm all for what I got a spot on my chin guys I never get spots and recently I've just been breaking out loads and I don't know why maybe it's something maybe one item of skincare I'm using doesn't agree with me but I don't know how to discern what I never got spots and suddenly we're breaking out I don't know if you've noticed the past couple weeks yeah I'm all for reading a book that I knew nothing about one of my favorite books in series a strange case of the alchemist daughter I picked up the audiobook on a whim I've never heard about it it was because I needed I think like a murder mystery for a video and I didn't have any more and I just like looked around and I picked that up so yeah I'm just going to do my makeup and then I'm going to make some food and I'm going to listen to drew of her peers which is going to take me like half an hour which is great I'll see you in a bit hopefully I can chat to you before we go out on the walk and then we'll go out on the walk and I'll come home and I will read you guys not getting murdered tonight we're just about to go out for a walk can you see me yeah you can just have to go for the walk but I just finished a short story so I thought I'd just tell you about it as I packed up my bag that's literally like 40 pages long I don't know why I told you it was written in 19 what I told you 1960s yet 1917 is it 17 basically all you need to know about this is that a woman's husband has been murdered and she's accused of killing him it's kind of in this rural town where everyone knows each other and the sheriff and like the I can't remember these these men these detectives who have gone to the house to try and find clues as to what's happened these women have gone with them what I think is the sheriff's wife one's maybe the farmer's wife I'm not sure but they've both gone there and they're kind of tasked with going through her stuff while they look for the proper clues and it ends up being a book where you know the detectives think they're the good guys and they're trying to find justice when really it's the women who are finding justice through their knowledge of what women are like and through looking through this woman's things and I really enjoyed it I'm giving it four stars I think this is a great little short story and I also think for the time it was written it's fairly radical in what it's saying and I want to spoil anything but listen they're here for the women women protecting each other women like I loved it and I loved how it showed the detective thinking they were the ones who were helping and they were the ones who were going to solve this but it was the women it was the women so yeah I think for what it was saying in 1917 about good versus bad good versus evil what justice is what is justice what is yeah what justice should be brought on someone for their actions when you take in a full picture I thought was great I really enjoyed it and I can't believe this was written in 1917 so thank you Sophie for the recommendation because it didn't take me long to read I just um read it listen to your audiobook while I was making an eating lunch and I really enjoyed it so woohoo we're going to read your guide to not getting murdered after I come back from the walk and from around Tom's house so I'll see you this evening bear just finished your guide to not getting murdered in a quaint English village by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper and I'm going to give this five stars but what it is I knew I'd be obsessed with this and I am obsessed with it it's basically just taking the mick out of people events and locations in both the village of a quaint English village and the manna house in a quaint English village and just making kind of the murder mystery genre in general and I just thought it was so fun I loved it talented brilliant incredible amazing show stopping spectacular I loved the illustrations I loved the sense of humor I thought it was really funny there was like a lot of good like referencing throughout the book because it was common strands of thought and of reference like there was a lot about the vicar again and again or like when we're in the manner there was a lot of references to the characters we had there and how they all intertwined and I thought it was really fun and in the pictures there'd often be anything that was like a murder weapon would be coloured red and I thought that was just like a really fun little thing otherwise it was black and white but there'd be little murder weapons with like red on them and I thought I was really fun oh my god also height of camp there was quizzes at the end there's like two sections and there's the village and the manna and the end each of them is like a quiz to see whether you'd survive it's just so fun it's so fun like putting what you've just read to the test I was like oh my god I love this I feel like I'm the top student I loved it I knew I would love this I think this is something that's just gonna be really fun to reread now and then again like I love the sense of humor I thought it was really funny really humorous the quizzes were a nice little added special touch there's not much I can say to you because it literally took me maybe 20 minutes to read but I'm obsessed I loved it Maureen Johnson J Cooper please come out with more I would like have 20 of these I'm not even kidding it's so much fun that brings this to the end I wrote seven books in seven days we did it even if it I'm lucky I did not read Lady Hardcastle Day because I would not have had time this wasn't the most successful vlog I don't think it wasn't bad when you think of it but we did have some duds and we had like a few like three stars so let me rank these this is my ranking of the books that we read with the short story um was it again I can't remember Jure of her peers I would say maybe for what it was I would say above women in the library because I didn't really have any problems with the short story I thought it was great for what it was whereas I did have problems with that so I put it in there so a lot of shorter things what worked for me the more you think about it perhaps a one star for this is harsh but it's just how I feel in my bones I don't think I've ever given out a one star like that it's always a book that's like offended me personally I would give a one star but like being this boring has offended me personally so that is me done with Tom Hindle I'm sad I didn't love this more but I still had a really fun time this was kind of the big most anticipated book that I was reading in this vlog I wish I'd loved it a little bit more but I still think it was really fun and out of all of what we read probably the most unique with what it was doing I've never read another book like this and the layers that this had so yeah those were the books that we read I'm ready to like not read for a day just to refresh my life I'm gonna have a bath now and play some cozy grove it's been weeks I haven't I've been so busy with what I've had to read for videos the past couple weeks I haven't played cozy grove in weeks weeks so that's my evening but thank you guys for watching this video um I had a lot of fun making it there's always a struggle reading seven books in seven days but I had a lot of fun I have a few more of these planned throughout the year I think we've got at least two more coming throughout the rest of the year so I hope you guys enjoy them I think they're always a bit of fun even if they are kind of torture for me to do that's like part of the fun and yeah if you got to the end comment a magnifying glass emoji down below and I love you and I'll see you very soon in another video bye