The Hayley Mysteries #1: The Haunted Studio

Hayley Leblanc

#hayleyleblanc #childacting #acting #mystery #MG #middlegrade #sourcebooks #Netgalley #Thehayleymysteries

Amazon Summary:

The first book in an exciting new middle grade mystery series from actress, artist, and YouTube star Hayley LeBlanc! In Hayley Mysteries: The Haunted Studio, when Hayley is cast as the lead in a Nancy Drew like kids TV show, strange things start happening around the studio and she becomes a real-life sleuth. Hayley needs YOU to help her solve a terrifying ghost mystery in this fun-filled, action-packed story. Plus, get a behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to be an actress IRL! When Hayley gets the lead role in a new TV show called Sadie Solves It, she's so excited...even if there are rumors of hauntings surrounding the Silver Screen Studios. It's LA, she thinks―there are ghost stories everywhere! But to her surprise, strange things actually start happening as production ramps up. Lights flicker, cold blasts of air come out of nowhere, and one day the electricity is cut to the studio entirely with no clear cause. Can Hayley and her two best friends solve the mystery of the haunted studio...before it means curtains for their show?

My Review:

9/10

For starters, I recived this book as an eARC from Netgalley. The publishers were nice enough to turn on auto-approvals for me for all their Netgalley titles. This was the first book I chose to use that gift on and I was not dissapointed. Before I get into how good this book was, let me say the one negative thing about this story. It was too short. It ended too quickly and would've liked it to be 50 more pages. Now that the ONE negative is out of the way, let me tell you why I loved this book.

Aside from being an avid reader and reviewer who dabbles in writing I love to act. This book delves deep into what being an actor is really like, especially if you are a child actor. So from page one, when the author describes the setting, I was in love and it only got better from there.

Loving mystery, this was a perfect ode to the iconic teen sleuth, Nancy Drew. I am a big fan of mysteries and ghost stories, and this was a perfect blend of both. It was a modern take on ND for the modern person. But the characters aren't as generic as ND. Each of the characters in The Hayley Mysteries are fleshed out and well developed. Hayley, the main girl, is everything you would want in a child. Smart, brave, talented, and witty. The characters were not mean to one another, and all had the same passion, acting, so it was nice to see them grow as people, on and off the set. That's all I have to say on the characters, now let's move on.

The story was fast paced and was impossible to not be interested in what was going on. Something was always happening, a clue here, a clue there. The mystery both haunts the characters on and off set, blending the two. this book is everything I dream of when I think of myself as an actor, and what being on set is like. Hijinx, friends, fun fun, lots of food during lunch, basically my heaven

OVERALL:

I loved this young Middle Grade book and would recommend it to any mystery fan or a fan of acting. I loved book one, and can't wait for book two to come out. I hope this will become the next Nancy Drew series.