(All is not well on Embassy Row): All Fall Down by Ally Carter

(All is not well on Embassy Row): All Fall Down by Ally CarterAll Fall Down by Ally Carter
Series: Embassy Row #1
on 1st February 2015
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
four-stars
Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things: She is not crazy. Her mother was murdered. Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay. As certain as Grace is about these facts, nobody else believes her - so there's no one she can completely trust. Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door who is keeping his eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understands. Everybody wants Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty smile, blocking out all her unpretty thoughts. But they can't control Grace - no more than Grace can control what she knows or what she needs to do. Her past has come back to hunt her ... and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes - and one wrong move can make them all fall down.

Grace Blakely knows what she saw. Three years ago her mother was murdered and she is determined to get vengeance. Unfortunately no one believes her. With Grace’s father being deployed to a war zone, Grace is sent to live with her grandfather on Embassy Row in Adria. When your grandfather is the US Ambassador and your new home is an embassy, even the slightest things can become international incidents. When Grace sees the man she believes killed her mother, she knows she has to make him pay – even if it could bring countries to war…

Ally Carter’s newest book, All Fall Down, starts the Embassy Row series with a lot of action, excitement and international intrigue. Grace knows that no one believes her mother was murdered. They think her death was an accident but Grace can’t let it go. She’s a great character to follow as she uses all her resources to get her revenge. This is truly a foreign affair with the Russian boy next door trying to keep an eye on Grace and her closest allies being the son of Israeli and Brazilian diplomats and the daughter of an US computer whiz. The secondary characters are all interesting with their own stories and lives going on. They have their own problems yet they still support to Grace as she tries to find answers. The overall plot is exciting and full of suspense and action. Grace doesn’t really know what she is doing but she knows she has to do something. Her antics often end up in disaster yet she is not discouraged.

Adria is a wonderful setting for Grace’s story with the city itself (as well as the inhabitants of Embassy Row) adding a lot of colour and mystery. I really enjoyed the international aspect and how despite united appearances were, the political nature was incredibly unstable. Grace’s single-minded determination to find the man she believes responsible for her mother’s death put countries against each other and leaves them on the brink of war.

All Fall Down is a little darker and more grown up than Carter’s Gallagher Girls series but it still maintains her distinct storytelling style with secrets and lies tied up with a great story. There are fantastic and fascinating characters with their own secrets to be discovered in the future. I can’t wait for the second book in the Embassy Row series and see what happens next for Grace and her international allies.

Many thanks to Scholastic Australia for the review copy. 

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