“A chill runs through me. My grandmother’s legacy. This town’s lifeblood. Dead things. Welcome home, I guess.”

After her mother’s death, Cecelia moves in with her grandmother, a famous mystery author who lives in an old Victorian house in the small, coastal town of Seaview. Cecelia is just in time for the annual book convention celebrating her grandmother’s work, and she decides to reacquaint herself with her first novel, a book about the death of the town’s homecoming queen that was inspired by real events. When another homecoming court hopeful turns up dead in a similar way, she’s determined to find what looks more and more like a copycat killer. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House. Trigger warnings: character death, drowning, car accidents, drug/alcohol use, injury, needles.

This is easily one of my favorite YA thrillers in recent memory. It’s an excellent blend of contemporary characters and settings with vintage murder mystery vibes, and the combination manages to feel both fresh and classic at once. There’s so much atmosphere in Cecelia’s grandmother’s big old house and her notoriety as a mystery writer, alongside the more modern high school, social media, and book convention aspects, and the homecoming queen murders feel nicely nostalgic (as well as gruesome, of course).

Like most YA thrillers, we have to suspend disbelief a little that Cecelia is able to investigate murders past and present better than the local police, but it’s enjoyable watching her uncover pieces of both mysteries. It’s nicely paced between that and the more realistic problems of fitting in to her new high school in a town where everyone has known each other forever, as well as her grief over her mother’s recent passing.

The romance is a little quick, the love interest a little overbearing and with a hint of a love triangle, but it’s nothing that put me off as I was reading. Overall, the characters are enjoyable and feel realistically like teenagers. The ending is tense, the murder reveal satisfying and plausible, and I’d gladly read more of Donne’s thrillers. I’ll probably go ahead and add The Ivies to my list, since it’s giving off heavy dark academia vibes.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

Pretty Dead Queens is a perfect read for teen slasher/murder mystery fans.
This story follows our protagonist Cecelia who goes to live with her grandmother after the death of her mother.
Her grandmother is famous for writing thriller/mystery novels and she had her big break after writing a book based off a true murder that happened in her small town of Seaview.
Cecelia is learning to navigate her new life when a new murder happens in Seaview in almost the exact same way as the original murder years before.
Cecelia thrusts herself in the investigation and is determined to find answers but as she uncovers secrets, she learns that the truth may be more than what she bargained for.

I really enjoyed this book. I am a huge fan of thrillers and YA thrillers are some of my favorites. I loved that this felt like a teen slasher film reminiscent of I Know What You Did Last Summer. I also loved the murder mystery aspect of it and how determined Cecelia was to find answers. I was definitely invested and had many theories along the way. I will say, I sometimes had a hard time with the lingo used and Cecelia made some erratic decisions that were a bit hard to follow. But overall, this is a good thriller perfect to read during spooky season.

I love Alexa Donne. Her books are always enjoyable no matter the genre. I really loved the relationship with the grandma who was an author. It was a delightful layer to an already cunning story.

Thank you to TBR and Beyond Tours for an eARC.

4.5 stars

CWs: Murder, death of a parent (cancer), adult/minor relationship (minor details), descriptions of dead bodies (alluding to suicide), drowning

This was a really good, fast-paced YA Murder mystery thriller. I read it in one sitting, and I didn’t want to put it down. The writing style was easy to get sucked into, and the mystery and the secrets of this town kept me completely hooked. The author had me guessing so much, and while I figured out one plot lines answers, the other one surprised me.
Cecelia was a really good character. She was struggling with her grief over her mom’s death, moving in with her grandmother who is basically a stranger, and then having one of her new friends turn up murdered and being the one to find the body. Throw in a cute guy who is willing to help with her investigation, and Cecilia is dealing with A LOT. The author handled all of it really well. Cecelia was relatable, realistic, flawed, and her emotions came across really well. I liked her investigation and how she got to know her new friend group, and the emerging relationships that she was forming with them.
There was a lot of tension and secrets in the plot. The idea of a potential copycat killing of Cecelia’s grandmothers debut novel which was based on the “real” murder of Caroline Quinn which the town has mourned for 52 years was really fascinating. I liked that in digging into the current murder, Cecelia was finding answers about Caroline’s. And the ending was really intense!

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donna is getting 5 / 5 Stars from me.

I want to thank Alexa Donne, Crown Books for Young Readers, Random House Children’s Books, and NetGalley for giving me an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Themes, Tropes, & Warnings: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Romance; High School, Small-Town, Homecoming, Serial Killer, Murder Mystery, Death, Dead Parents, Playing Detective, Lying, Blackmail, Theft, Manipulation, Spying, Backstabbing, Assault, Murder, Blood, Mystery Writer Grandma.

Thoughts: As a lover of Mysteries and Thrillers, I found Pretty Dead Queens to be one of the better written YA mysteries this year with twists, red herrings, and murder galore in a small coastal town where everyone has a secret to hide.

Following the seventeen-year-old Cecelia Ellis after she loses her mother to cancer, Cecelia moves into the home of her famous mystery writer grandma. Finding herself the newest addition to the popular kids, Cecelia is barely there two weeks before the group’s homecoming queen is found dead in the school pool, exactly like the murder that shook the town years before. Knowing something is wrong, Cecelia throws herself into the middle of the investigation, putting herself directly into the path of the town’s newest killer.

Considering this year has been a terrible reading year for me, the fact that I consumed the bulk of Pretty Dead Queens in 2 days says how truly good of mystery it is. Alexa Donne has outdone herself once again and written a YA novel that really makes you take a look at the people you think you know and the secrets they will do anything to keep out of the limelight. It had me at the edge of my seat, constantly changing my guess of who the killer really was, and when the big reveal came, I was utterly shocked, and I hope you will be too.

Reviewed under RosesandSundragons16 @ Amazon, Bookbub, Goodreads, Instagram, NetGalley, and StoryGraph.

I really enjoyed reading this one. I love the mystery and the story line. I definitely did not expect the ending

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Books for Young Readers for the ARC of this novel. This was twisty and felt a bit like One of Us Is Lying especially in the last few chapters with the reveal. Girl from the big city comes to the small town with secrets and lies from everyone. Yes it hits the tropes but it does it well enough to keep you entertained. Those who read mystery more often likely would have known at least part of the end before I did but hey I got something right. A quick read to keep you entertained at night but it won't change the world.

Pretty Dead Queens - Alexa Donne
In Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne, Seaview High's homecoming queen is dead and she's not the first! There's a copycat killer on the loose and seventeen-year old Cecelia Ellis is determined to figure out who it is. But the more digging she does, the more secrets emerge and before long, Cecelia herself becomes a target. The twists and the ending of this book were great. I really enjoyed this YA thriller!

I am always looking for a good young adult mystery and they normally end up being about average. This one I am having a hard time deciding what I my thoughts are on it. Part of me thinks it was sort of average, but the ending was pretty interesting.

Cecelia has to move in with her grandmother that she doesn't really know very well because her mother died of cancer and she is only seventeen. Her grandmother isn't just an ordinary one, she is a legend in the small town. She is the successful author of several murder mysteries but the big thing is, is that she wrote a book based on a true story that happened right there in the town.

Cecelia learns from some kids in school that a long time ago there was a homecoming queen murdered and that Maura's first book was based on that murder and that between it and the movie it has pretty much made Seaview a tourist town because people have morbid curiousity.

Cecelia becomes friends with some of the popular sect, probably because of who her grandmother is, but she doesn't care. She likes them and they seem cool and Natalie seems to be taking her under her wings or making her into her newest play thing, but Cecelia lets it happen. Then during the homecoming football game after those who are running for homecoming Queen have their percession through the football field it's not long till Cecelia finds Natalie in the same school pool, and it looks a lot like the murder from before.

Maybe it's part curiosity and part dealing with her mothers death but Cecelia decides she must be the one who figures out what happened. There are a lot of suspects, all of her friends plus a few others.

It took me way longer than it should have to read this but I don't think it's the books fault, I just was busy and it was easier to listen than read, but that also means it didn't grab me either. The first 30% was a bit draggy as the murder doesn't happen till about 30% and then it started getting more interesting but still didn't really grab me but at the same time I wanted to know who done it.

I thought it was kind of easy to get the killer of the present day murder but a little harder for the older murder. Even if it was easier to guess a few things it could be harder for some to guess the twist and that was probably why I am not sure what I want to rate this one.

I am going to go with maybe my own personal rating of 3.5 stars, but 4 stars on Goodreads.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me a copy of this book.

I haven't picked up a young adult thriller is a LONG time. But every now and then, especially when I need a little help to get out of a reading slump, I will gravitate towards this genre and it usually does the trick. And this book is definitely no exception. Please don't let my low rating of this book deter you from reading it. And also, don't think that I didn't enjoy my time spent here. Because this book was honestly okay. I didn't hate it at all. I even kind of liked some of the characters, which is more than I can say for most of the books that I have been reading recently.

My biggest complaint about this book is how predictable it was. I am not even kidding, I guessed not one but BOTH murderers extremely early on. With thrillers though, and this is just a me problem, that is exactly what I go into the book doing. I am trying immediately to figure out what is going on and who did it. And being right is unfortunately usually something that makes me dislike the book. Especially if it seems too easy, or in this case, I figured it out too early. Once I am sure who did it, I'm just flipping pages getting to the end and hoping to be surprised, and in this case, I wasn't. Which for some, maybe that will have the opposite effect on the reader and boost their enjoyment more.

I will say that I definitely enjoyed the author's writing. I felt like the book was rather atmospheric and the story was paced and flowed nicely after about the first quarter of the book. I think that a few of the characters were a bit too similar and stereotypical, but other than that, I have almost no real complaints for the story. If I am nitpicking, I do think that Cecelia managed to instantly bond to a friend group too quickly to make it feel natural for me, and that the less than two weeks, but so in love couple was a bit of a turn off for me. But again, personal preference here and I will NEVER be a fan of instalove in any book. There was a fairly large cast of characters, and it did take a bit longer than necessary to get to the drama of this story, but I also don't think that's a super negative thing. I would definitely be interested in picking up more books from Alexa Donne.

It’s 11;15 PM where I live and I am actually looking around my room frantically in an attempt to see through the darkness and make sure there is no creepy being because oh my s**t, this book was so freaking amazing and scary at the same time (especially if read at night). Cecelia was a main character I could relate to, from her curiosity to her loneliness, and it was an experiencing to see her work. This book was like an older version of Nancy Drew books that I used to read. And the plot was the best! It really lived up to the books genre “mystery and thriller”. The way that everything presented itself at the end just left me with so much shock I’m seriously thinking of waking up the people in my house just to express my fear and shock and awe.

All cheers to the author for this book! Will absolutely read the next book of Alexa Donne’s!

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this YA thriller. I always go into these knowing I am not the target audience but this one was written to be enjoyable by older adults as well. If you’re a fan of Pretty Little Liars, you will definitely enjoy this one.

Pretty Dead Queens has a lot of potentially and I’m just not sure I’m the right audience for it - I think a younger audience will eat it up and that it will do well in school and Public libraries.

The main character feels a bit full of herself and inauthentic, which I think is what turns me off with this one so much. Her life just seems to fall into place without single issue and that just doesn’t feel real? It feels the main character doesn’t actually experience any of the struggles you would typically expect and it seems things are a little too perfect.

The killer was incredibly predictable which made it less than fun and didn’t give me much of a reason to keep reading. While this wasn’t my favorite book and it definitely had its problems it still was a lot of fun all things considered and will likely do really well!

Rating: 3.5

I want to start off by saying this one will be a hit with teenagers! I’m definitely going to purchase a copy for my library as I think the teens will really enjoy this one. I wanted to read this one after reading the synopsis and am glad I gave it a try. While it wasn’t my favorite book I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I think what might have ruined it for me was the main character. I couldn’t really connect or understand why they acted the way they did so that took me out of the story a few times. However, this was such a quick read and because of that I just let it go and kept reading. The author also made me curious to see what was going to happen and that helped keep me interested the whole way through. Overall, I would recommend this one and I say give it a try! It was a quick read, well written, and it had a good build up.

Thank you so much or the gifted copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

3.5. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

Overall, I thought it was a fun book. I'd be willing to check out more of Alexa Donne's stuff. The writing was mostly fun, and the mystery had some twists I was not expecting. The main bad I guessed right away, but I was still engaged throughout.

Probably my biggest gripe was a personal one - I hate when books make TOO many explicit references to modern pop culture. It dates the book and not in a cute way.

Fun book, def read if you like a teen mystery thriller!

Wow, another stellar YA thriller from this author!!

I have to say, some of the twists were a bit cliched, but I also didn’t see any of them coming to like that was really good. Our main character was really easy to root for and not nearly as naive as some YA heroines can be in books which I really enjoyed. The amount of detail given to each characters backstory as well as the towns history really pulls you in and makes this read unputdownable (I finished it in one day). I will definitely be recommending this book to a ton of readers!

I really struggled with the MC in this one. In the beginning she keeps monologuing in her head about the way houses are built, interior design and architecture and she talks about it in a way that makes you feel like she's some sort of prodigy, but she actually doesn't ever mention having any sort of interest in it and it just feels so forced.

The way she fell in with the super popular kids in such a short time also felt like a convenient plot point to put everything in place for the climax of the book. Which yes, that's how we write books, it's purposeful but this felt far too forced and unbelievable.

Also, by the end of chapter two, once we hear about the real life murder that inspired her grandmother's first book, I knew who the killer was and why. And I was right. I was right about a lot of the plot from reading just 8% of the book and honestly I had hoped for more.

I was really excited to read this book because it sounded so interesting and I have been wanting to read more mysteries. Unfortunately this one didn't quite work for me.

Pretty Dead Queens follows Cecelia Ellis, who moves in with her famous writer grandmother after her mom dies. On her first day of school, she learns about Caroline Quinn, a teenager who died shortly after she was crowned homecoming queen 50 years earlier, and then a couple weeks later, another girl is found dead in a similar fashion.

Honestly, I think one of the biggest issues was that the victim didn't die until 30% into the book, so the lead up to it feels really long because we know it's going to happen and it takes forever. But then on top of that, I feel like there is this huge cast of one dimensional characters, so I don't really care about any of them (and honestly, the victim is probably the one character who I cared least about as they were just a bully). I think the writing was fine, and the book was fairly atmospheric, which was a nice touch, but the actual mystery was really pretty predictable (I didn't predict everything but in retrospect, I think it's because I was thinking it couldn't truly be that obvious, and yet it was).

Also, maybe it's just me, but if I were to find a dead body, my first reaction certainly wouldn't be, 'well the cops are incompetent and can't do their jobs so I need to solve this mystery because no one else can.' Like, I get it, she was still grieving her mom, and then she finds her classmate, but at the same time, it felt so over the top and forced that she HAD to solve the mystery.

I do think the book was fairly fast paced (after the murder happened) and I read most of it in one day, so there's that.

The title caught my interest right away! i love a YA thriller and including prom queens? Heck yes. This book was fascinating and exciting and i really enjoyed getting to work my way through this thriller.

Although this book sounded like a multitude of other books (prom queens with murder) I was still intrigued enough by the synopsis to take a peek at it. I will ALWAYS read a book about books. This one didn’t stand out until the very end tho. Once you finish it you’ll understand why. It was all just really weird.

Ok so there’s so many books about prom queens out there, so I was interested, but I waited a little until reviews started pouring in so I could gage their reaction and decide if I still wanted to read it. (I had also heard about this author’s involvement in the incident with B&N and the author who called out what they’ll be buying for the public and disregarding that woman of color’s feelings on the matter.) But after hearing an apology and hearing mostly good things, I decided it was ok to try. (I’ve never read this author before.) So anyway, I thought it was ok. It had a grandmother who was a super famous author. They live in a small town and everyone knows her and the books she wrote that were based on a real murder. But suddenly things start happening again, and either the killer is back, or there’s a copy cat amongst them.

The mystery was pretty good. I never caught on to who the killer was. Well I kinda did but not really. Once some things came up I had changed my mind, but then it turned out I was right all along lol It was also hard to pinpoint who it was because of the way she made sure certain secrets weren’t told until certain points in the story. And like I love seeing things unfold, but I did feel like it took too long until she started finding things out. There is A LOT of back story here, and tho it may set the stage for the rest of the story, as a mystery/thriller reader, it got a little boring. I found myself pushing through to “get to the good part” if that makes sense. But once it got going, it was fine.

The characters were all over the place. Some I liked and others I didn’t. But the main character, Cecelia was a boss tho. I am usually not impressed with Teens as Detectives, because it’s usually some weird ass coincidence that happens and lets them get access to materials or clues way too easily, but this wasn’t the case in this one. She was really working off the strength of being a reader and being observant. It was actually really refreshing to read about a teen detective who didn’t have it easy or really have anything really handed to them. And in the case she did and I don’t remember it, I don’t remember it so that’s a good sign lol To me anyway.

The narrator also did a great job. I’ve listened to a couple things by them, so maybe that’s why I was hooked from the beginning. It was an easy listen and I enjoyed hearing all the character’s voices she came up with while she was being each one. It really made it that much more enjoyable. And it was easy for me to turn the speed up to more than my usual 2.0 and still understand what was going on. It was just an all around good performance.

This was your typical prom queen with murder but also not. Definitely one to check out if you want to see the twist and the weird turn this one takes. If you read it, be sure to stop by and tell me what you think!