I love that I'm reading a book about someone writing comic books. Inception?? I LOVE IT! I also love when fantasy is mixed in with reality. There's not really superheroes, but Molin paints a world where there actually ARE superheroes and villains and they're all mixed into regular society. This gave me a very Batman or Superman feel.

This book was full of nerd culture and an appreciation for comics and graphic novels, awesome friendships and a super intriguing love interest, plus a dash of mystery that makes it the perfect recipe for a riotous fun time! If you're looking for a book with awesome girl power and one that is super engaging, I highly recommend.

I wanted to love it! Sassy, out-spoken main character made this a need to read for me. But sadly, I just couldn't find myself drawn into the story. As soon as she categorized every person she saw and needed to judge the exterior, I found MG annoying. She even called him Officer Herbal Tea (or OGT) for a long long time in the book after complaining that no one would learn to call her MG instead of Michael. I just felt like the story was trying to hard. Trying to throw in Stranger Thing quotes and little quips from my favorite movies all the while pushing the comic book and gamer girl MC. It was just a miss for me.

But if the synopsis is for you, GO FOR IT. You will probably love it.

I was initially mostly attracted to this book by its cover, and then by the fact that it was marketed kind of as a nerd or geek mystery, which sounded sort of unusual. I usually assume that something described as nerdly is going to be heavy on the science and/or engineering, which is fine with me, since I’m an engineer. But in this case, nerdly meant comic-book/graphic novel culture instead. This turned out to be fine with me also - there is some overlap between comic book/graphic novel nerdliness and science/engineering nerdliness, which a couple of my friends demonstrate quite nicely. I think, however, that even if I hadn’t had a little bit of familiarity with the background, it is nicely described throughout the book, so I think pretty much everyone can “get” it without having to be a big comics fan.

Moving on to specifics, the plot kept me guessing, the characters were fun and fairly well developed, and the relationship between the protagonist and the cop, although a bit predictable, was still fun too. I really like the protagonist, who, like me, is female in a largely male profession, and handles the challenges that poses is a prickly and totally credible manner. (I too, even with multiple engineering degrees, have been asked to get coffee...and might have been a bit prickly myself…) And in the end, the motivation (initial motivation, anyway) for the main criminal turns out to be something much different than I expected, and something that made me think just a little.

Although there are no big cliff hangers towards the end of this book, there is just a little something that hints at the next book to come. But since I had already decided partway through this book to go ahead and buy the next book in the series anyway, a little hook at the end wasn’t going to bother me.

All in all, this is a really nice first-in-series, and I look forward to reading the next one soon.

Please keep in mind that a four-star review from me is really good. I tend to only give maybe 1 in 20 or 1 in 30 five-star reviews – I like to leave a little room at the top (5 stars).

Even if I'm not interested in the nerdy stuff like comics, I did enjoy this book very much. The characters are great, the plot is good, the story is amusing and romantic, and there is a mystery to be solved.

This book might come off as niche, but it was extremely enjoyable to read contemporary geeks. Watching Matteo flounder in MG’s world was also a highlight. (See: MG attempting to explain why you have to start Star Wars with episode IV.)
MG comes off as a very relatable character: she fell in love with comic books as a child and has forged her way to a job in the comic book company she adores. (Okay, so here they have Marvel, D.C., and also Genius Comics? It’s a little wack but we can deal with it.) She feels like everything she does at work is a balancing act, and she fears being seen as unprofessional above all else.
The storyline gets a little confusing, especially since there are so many characters, and so much jumping around in the storyline. Some plotlines are dropped, and not everything is explained clearly. The villain did turn out to be a surprise, for me at least. I did find the premise interesting, and the story handled it well throughout. The ending was also satisfying, but it still left enough in the air to make an interesting sequel.
Overall, the novelty of this book is that it looks into a hidden community. The light that this book shines on fans is special and well-done. Wonder Woman t-shirts and Captain America costumes are peppered in just as much as Genius’ Hooded Falcon. It might seem over the top, but I think that it captured the mind of a geek perfectly. A climax scene at SDCC (San Diego Comic Con) is the cherry on top.

I have to say that it’s surprising that MG’s parents named her Michael. They’re supposed to have extremely traditional views on gender roles??? And I’m equally surprised that MG hates it because it’s a boy’s name??? She’s the one who wants to push the boundaries.
This book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

This is my own book, so yay! I loved it! If you like capes, costumes, comics, superheroes, or anything in fandom, this book is for you!

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. There's mystery, crime solving, and a little romance. The writing is solid, and the characters are all lovable, even when they're mis-behaving.

MG is a strong, intelligent woman who works her ass off to prove herself in the male dominated world of comic book artists. I loved watching her progression of self-awareness over the course of the story. She was so proud of who she is and her Geek Culture, that she wasn't willing to accept that a "non-Geek" would not only be interested in her romantically, but would appreciate her as a whole person.

The mystery/crime story is fantastic. I was invested in the story was the first sentence to the last. It's funny and vivacious, the comic book imagery is vivid. All in all a great read that I'd highly recommend.

The Frame-UP by Meghan Scott Molin is the 1st book in the Golden Arrow series. MG Martin is a comic book geek, who works for a comic book company. When MG recognizes scenes from her favorite comic book, happening in real like, she is determined to find the truth. If you love action comic book characters, this book is for you.

I reviewed a digital arc provided by NetGalley and the publisher. Thank you.

I'm honestly in awe. This book was so fun and entertaining and I truly, truly loved it so much!

It had everything: a wonderful cast of characters, some adorable romance, drag queens, crime & mystery, nerdiness and heavy fandom themes and so much more! I had a huge smile on my face throughout reading this story, it was incredibly enjoyable.

Can't wait for the sequel!

I was super excited when I saw the cover + read the premise. This book has everything that I loved. Gorgeous cover, check. Badass and strong female as the main character, check. Pop culture references, check. Mystery/thriller plot, check. However, once I dived into this book, I realized it's not as good as what it promised.

⇾ The main character started off amazingly. She's blunt, fun and quirky. Yet, she quickly turned into an aggressive, over-sensitive and snobby GEEK. I've never encountered such character, where she saw herself as a part of marginalized and being upset about it yet boosted herself as someone better than other members of the same community, and acted even worse to someone she'd seen as 'Muggle'. Not to mention how she's basically being rude instead of supporting 'girl power'. Multiple yikes.

⇾ Too many pop culture references and everything is unnatural and pushy. I get it. This book is supposed to be a lighter yet more mysterious version of Ready Player One. But it didn't work. The references just threw there for the sake of it. This book might as well become a fandom dictionary.

⇾ Awkward and unnecessary romance. I couldn't find their chemistry at all.

A young woman writes for a comic book company. A vigilante seems to be mimicking the actions of the fictional heroes. The police department wants help to interpret what's happening.

The premise of the book is ok, if a bit overdone recently, but the writing is simplistic and the characters do not behave like people. I could not finish.

I really loved this new series! It has comic books, mystery, and it is fast paced. I do a lot of reading for teens and new adults. I think that this series is great for them! It has wonderful elements that young people will flock too and keep coming back.

A very cute and charming read — looking forward to seeing what Meghan Scott Molin comes out with next!

This story revolves around a comic book writer. And she's a girl! (woman) which makes it more fun. It's her expertise that helps solve the mystery when she is consulted as an expert after making an off-hand remark about the murder scene resembling an old comic. She's in line at the coffee shop and the remark is made to a handsome guy who turns out to be Detective Kildaire (that name!).
I felt bad because I never really warmed to MG -- the trope of "I'm going to investigate even when I've been told not to and then bumble my way through completely screwing up the investigation but still somehow solve the mystery" annoys the heck out of me. And she has a giant chip on her shoulder that somewhat comes off at the end but is a little too late for me.

Three stars
This book came out December 1
ARC kindly provided by NetGalley

This book was funny, fun, entertaining and a fast read. This was so great. The story development was easy to follow and made the book so fun to read. The characters were so great. Thank you for allowing me to read this book and write about it.

A great start for a new series! It's an entertaining and enjoyable read, full of fun.
I loved the setting, the references to pop culture and the heroine, quirky and fun.
The mystery was good, no plot hole, and it keeps you hooked till the last page.
I look forward to reading other instalment in this series.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to 47North and Netgalley for this ARC

I enjoyed this book. I'm not a reader of traditional superhero comic books, but found that I learned a lot about the genre and con events, which was cool. It was a great combination of action, mystery and thriller, with a love interest thrown in. I feel like a little more character description would have helped me to "see" the characters more.

I loved this book. Mystery with full of geekness. I loved the main character. She was badass who loves comics. This book was full of humor and action. I am really happy that this series continue. I need more !!

First of all, think of Batman. Not because he appears in this story, except by mention. As does every geeky/nerdy movie, TV show, book, comic and game that you can think of. And a few you probably can’t. (Not just because a few of the geek references are made up for the purposes of this story, but because no geek, no matter how dedicated, is into absolutely every geekish everything on every geekish axis. I say this as someone who is fairly geeky, and recognized most but not quite all of the references and in-jokes.)

And I’m not sure if someone without at least a passing knowledge of geekdom will enjoy this story, because there are a LOT of in-jokes. And while the point of the romance part of the plot is that MG finally realizes that she doesn’t need to find someone who knows the ins and outs of geek culture in order to find her happily ever after, it does help the reader to know what at least some of what the flying references refer to.

Back to Batman. Among all of the famous superheroes, Batman is the one who is just “original recipe” human. He may be incredibly rich, and probably has a heaping helping of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but underneath the batsuit is just a (usually really, really buff) man. No extra-terrestrial origin, no mythic ancestors, no science experiment gone wrong. Just as Batman responds in Justice League to the question, “What are your superpowers again?”. His answer, “I’m rich.”. And that’s all.

The “caped crusader” who turns out to be at the heart of the mystery in The Frame-Up, the Hooded Falcon, is just like Batman. Not nearly as rich, but just as human. And only human. Excessively trained, and with a desire to see justice done, but merely human.

As a comic book, the original Hooded Falcon died decades before the opening of the events in this story, but MG Martin is a writer for Genius Comics, the company founded on the popularity of the Hooded Falcon. And even though the Falcon’s original creator is long since dead, his son still publishes a comic under the Hooded Falcon name – admittedly without any of his father’s, or his father’s creation’s spirit.

But someone in LA is committing crimes that recreate panels from the classic Hooded Falcon adventures. This person seems to have taken up either the banner of the Falcon himself, or perhaps that of the Falcon’s creator. Either way, there’s a vigilante on the streets of LA who has put himself (or possibly herself) in the sights of LA’s current generation of drug kingpins.

The police want to stop the crime spree before it’s too late. After a chance encounter, Detective Matteo Kildaire recruits MG as a police consultant expert on all things geek in general, and on her hero the Hooded Falcon in particular.

But all the clues point much, much too close to home, both for MG and Matteo. When his creator died, the Hooded Falcon was on the trail of both the drug kingpins AND the dirty cop who was covering for them.

History seems to be repeating, with both MG and Matteo caught in the crossfire. This time it’s not a crossfire of BAM and KAPOW, but real guns firing real bullets and dealing real death. They have to find the faces behind the masks, before it’s too late for our heroes.

After all, in real life there’s no possibility of a failure saving reboot if they get it wrong.

Escape Rating B-: The Frame-Up felt a bit like two books in one. One book that I really liked, and one that I really didn’t.

The first third or so of the story is the setup. We get introduced to MG, her coworkers at Genius Comics, and the opening frames of her relationship with Matteo. That relationship begins by being intimately tied to the case – not that it doesn’t take on a life of its own.

But the introduction to MG’s world is hard to take. MG is the lone female at Genius Comics. We see things entirely from her perspective, and that’s a realistically scary place to be. Geekdom in general, and geekdom-creation spaces in particular, are rightfully notorious for their misogynistic dudebro culture. Women are made to feel unwelcome, and it’s deliberate. MG is correct in her belief that she has to be “more badass” than any of the guys just to be taken half as seriously – no matter how unfair it is or how much it hurts to be that defensive all the time.

Matteo, with his need to find an “in” so that he can surreptitiously scope out the company, absolutely DOES undermine MG’s position. That she falls for him rather than boot him to the curb at the first opportunity rankles quite a lot.

And the whole setup makes for very hard reading.

Once things are significantly setup, the story kicks into a higher gear and becomes a lot of fun.

The mystery is definitely a wild and crazy ride, only missing a few scattered BAMs and KAPOWs to make it completely part of the comic hero genre. I really liked MG’s nerdiness and felt for her desire to be her authentic best self. I particularly liked the way that Matteo, while he is a “virgin” when it comes to geek culture, is open minded about everything he experiences. It’s easy to see that he accepts MG for who she is, loves her as she is, and doesn’t feel any need to cram her into a box that won’t fit – as her parents and so many people in her life have previously tried to do.

The case has a lot of heart to it. It’s about children taking care of, writing wrongs for, or attempting to get past the legacies of their parents. It’s about superheroes and supervillains, and how real people come to fit into those places – whether they intend to or not.

And in the best superhero tradition, good triumphs, evil gets its just deserts, and the hero and heroine live happily ever after. At least until the next supervillain comes along…