All I can say is I love this book. I read it at the right time too because it's homecoming season, so perfect atmosphere for reading. If you like big plot twists in thillers I definitely recommend this book.
Spoiler section read with caution!!!
As I was reading I was thinking about the review I was going to write and how I love Ben and how adorable he is. Then I was like lol what if he's the killer and boom he was and now I can't be gushing about Ben cause he's a literal psychopath. 😢😢😭😭

Pretty Dead Queens had the potential to be an excellent murder mystery; however, I felt the build up to the plot was slow. I did not feel enough tension and or suspense existed until the end of the book when the big revealed occured. Parts of the story remained perdictable, but the reveal was great. I did not see that coming. Although, parts of the book were not for me I still had a fun time reading it.

Pretty Dead Queens is perfect for fans of Murder She Wrote and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.

I first found Alexa on YouTube when trying to find some advice on my own writing. Then I found her book The Ivies! And was a huge fan. This book is no different!

My favorite part was the character development! That was something that made the ivies such a strong read for me and I was happy to see that was no different with Pretty Dead Queens!

I’m going to sit with this a little longer (don’t want to give any spoilers) before I write a more in depth review!

I would def recommend this to fans of Karen M McManus and Diana Urban!

Two murders, both homecoming queens, but decades apart and eerily similar - both discovered in the school’s pool on homecoming night.

What I loved:
✨Dark academia - always a genre favorite for me but with strong Nancy Drew vibes as Cecelia (MC) plays detective to both the current murder and the decades-old murder.
✨Lots of suspects - literally everyone in town is a suspect! This town holds so many secrets, lies, blackmail, and cover-ups.
✨Plots twists - quite a few! I think a seasoned thriller read will foresee some of the twists because Donne offers breadcrumbs to the truth. But if you like to play Nancy Drew or Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury - RIP 💔), you'll enjoy the ride!
✨Grief plotline - most YA thrillers gloss over the effects of death, but here, grief is not an afterthought but is treated honestly and realistically as the characters experience tragedy.
✨Great HS representation - ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, social class

Who will like this?
✨Fans of Karen McManus, The Ivies (Alexa Donne’s debut novel), Nancy Drew Books, and Murder, She Wrote

A quick note regarding the reading format: I equally loved the audiobook and physical format. You can't go wrong with either, but you're in for a treat if you can pair them together. The book offers police reports and text strings, but Phoebe Strole superbly narrates the story! She emotionally captures the teenagers in Seaview - jocks, mean girls, nerds, supportive friends, and back-stabbing enemies. I literally could not stop listening.

This was a disappointing read for me. I had high hopes, especially given the premise of a murder mystery in a town with a famous murder mystery writer but Pretty Dead Queens just fell flat as a YA novel. The narrator's voice did not feel like a teen, either modern or in the past. She referenced things that didn't seem realistic for someone her age and then a page later mentions Kpop biases and other extremely on trend things that make the outdated references even more jarring. She was also extremely judgy of her new classmates despite only interacting with them for a few minutes and only changes her opinion after they are kind to her anyway. This was marketed as a thriller but the pace did not match up.

I am a thriller addict. I absolutely love the whodunnits and this book did not disappoint!

I liked the twist at the end and started to see it coming halfway through but then decided that it wasn’t going to happen. The way this author made me guess and then second guess myself so much that I ignored the rest of the signs was awesome!

This was a really well done YA thriller and it is perfect for the spooky season!

Thank you NetGalley and Crown for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.
I was pretty excited about this book. I really enjoyed THE IVIES last year, and it was one of my top reads of 2021. But PRETTY DEAD QUEENS just... didn't deliver for me.
There were definitely elements I liked. The story follows 17 year old Cecilia as she moves from LA to a small town where her grandmother is a bestselling thriller author and town legend. The town's messy past repeats itself when another homecoming queen dies 20 years after the first--and in the same way. So Cecilia throws herself headfirst into the investigation, determined to find out who the killer is.
But sadly, I really couldn't stand Cecilia. She annoyed me throughout the entire book and by the end, there wasn't a single character I actually liked. All seemed very shallow to me and I didn't care about any of them. I predicted the twists early in the book, including the identity of the killer, which took the fun out of the mystery. And even though the final twist turned out to be better than I expected, the execution was lackluster.
I still enjoyed Dunn's punchy writing style and vivid descriptions. Despite being annoyed by the main character, I was still able to get lost in the story during my lunch breaks, but this is definitely not a book I would read again.
I think some fans of YA thrillers will enjoy this, especially those who love the meddling amateur detective angle. I'm certain more readers will connect with Cecilia, but I just wasn't one of them.
3/5 stars.

This is a story about endings.

I enjoyed this generally, but really loved the concept that came up towards the end. I would love for the author to write that book! This is a good pick if you enjoy YA thrillers with a side Agatha Christie glam.

Thank you so much @prhaudio for the audiobook! & @netgalley, @randomhousechildrens for the eArc!

History, as it often does, repeats itself.

Cecelia moves, after her mother dies of cancer, to her mom’s hometown, where her grandmother Maeve is a literary God. Fifty years ago a murder happened, and Maeve sensationalized it into a book that launched her career. Now it’s happened again, another murder eerily the same. One murder put this town on the map, but a second is threatening to air all the town’s long buried secrets (and even quite a few fresh ones). The politics and the intimate connections of small towns really come into play. There’s much more going on in this seaside town than there looks like–small and sleepy towns are almost never really so.

Even after a few short week of moving here, chances are in a town this small that if Cecelia knows the victim then she also knows the murderer. Since her grandma writes mysteries, Cecelia feels she has a legacy to defend–solve the murder like her granmother’s sleuths and find out who killed her new friend.

This was an easy read to get absorbed in. The characters were easy to relate to. The themes of loneliness, dealing with death, and being an outsider are all addressed by the main character moving to a small town. When she’s close to another death-this time a murder, Cecelia decides to play sleuth and who can blame her? It’s something to relieve the mind from grief, and really, who wouldn’t want to try to solve it, especially when you’re in the middle of it?

I really enjoyed this book and I can say, though I guessed a thing or two, that the main crux of the story simply blew me away. It’s a book that will definitely leave you shocked.

This is a great YA mystery/thriller with a perfectly timed October debut! Just in time for the perfect Halloween season TREAT! Murder, a mansion, beauty queens, homecoming, and an amateur murder solving teen detective. All the ingredients for a chilling mystery read - just watch out for any tricks! Great addition to a HS classroom library shelf.

Cecilia has just recently lost her mother to cancer. Going to love with her grandmother, the infamous Maura Weston, was not in her plans, but the only choice she has. Cecilia’s mother had a falling out with her mystery/thriller author mom and Cecilia has never really had a relationship with her. Cecilia is immediately taken in by the popular kids in the class. They start filling her in on the legacy that is her grandmother. The most famous book written by her was based on a true murder in their town. When the murder is repeated current day, Cecilia finds herself playing detective to get the root of the dead queens.

This was an entertaining read. It contained a couple pretty good twists and I was truly engaged and invested with with characters! I will definitely recommend to my customers that like a good thriller!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children's for this ARC.

Pretty Dead Queens was an enjoyable YA mystery and kept me engaged into the late hours of the night. Cecelia was a great character, and I was happy to come along as she bulldozed her way through the murder investigation. The intricate mix of the first and current murders was well paced. And while I suspected who the killer was, it still kept me gripped until the very end. There were moments when I felt the story was a bit long, but the plot would speed up, and I would be pulled back into the narrative. I give Pretty Dead Queens a solid 4/5 stars.

* I received an ARC of this book from Net Galley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my own.

I wasn’t overly impressed by this book. There are plenty of other better thrillers/YA thrillers out there that I would recommend over this one. I found Cecelia to be annoying most of the time and her friends weren’t much better. Her relationship with Benn felt odd and unnecessary.I wouldn’t say the ending was super predictable but it also makes sense. Stories had to look very well to be somebody older.Most of the book was pretty boring and I felt like there were a lot of lulls. It was not as exciting as the description makes it seem. The writing needs some more editing and refinement. It’s a good plot but needs to be worked through a little more.

It took me a while to get into this but it's a solid ya mystery! I did find it kind of predictable but then again I read a lot of books like this so it's getting very hard to surprise me! I liked the grandmother as a mystery writer aspect, that did make this a bit more unique.

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne is a murder mystery that brings both emotion and intrigue to the table.
Things I loved about this book
-Loss and mourning themes (in particular the main character seems to be distracting herself from her grief by going deeper into the mystery at hand)
-Copycat Killer (in this small town setting there is an air of intense discomfort and suspicion as an unsolved murder from years ago seems to have been recreated in the modern era.)
-Believable and relatable character behavior (The teens cuss, the main character has to come to information and conclusions in a natural way.)
-The Grandmother our main character goes to live with is a writer and her recent story was inspired by the murder years ago.

My only sadness regarding the book at current is that it seems to be a standalone and while it serves as a wonderful standalone I am not ready to be done with these characters just yet.

Pretty Dead Queens Review - Early Reader Review
Thanks to Alexa Donne and her Publishing team for gifting me an early copy for review and promotion. While I was given a free copy of this book, my thoughts on it are my own, and are well deserved.

Overall Thoughts: Pretty Dead Queen is the perfect thriller to read this homecoming season, or for fall in general. The setting is picturesque and stunning, characters hide secrets in plain sight, and I couldn’t stop reading.

The author’s note at the star of the book, along with the forward, are just as stunning as the rest of the book—possibly more so as they give you the starting emotions for the rest of the book. Mourning and looking for answers. Donne does an amazing job setting the tone for the reader. She promises a fun romp, but also an emotional journey from someone who has lost their mother (both the author and main character) and is looking for a way to find purpose in something, to find a reason why a life was taken when it feels like it shouldn’t have.

Main character Cecelia is plunged into a new life after the death of her mother. She moves in with her grandmother in a beautiful mansion (very much jealous) and starts life anew as her mother rests six feet under. The opening of the book is perfect for an emotional, possibly moody teenager. Cecelia feels like death has lingered around her her whole life, taking the things she holds dear and causing her to possibly become emotionally distant from things. An outsider looking in at her own life and the happenings about it. It fits with the slightly gothic feeling of the book (genre gothic, not aesthetic gothic). Gothic novels are usually dreary and involve a curse, and I would say Cecelia feels like a curse to people around her. Our girl is numb to the world for a while.

She comes to live with her grandmother and that’s where things could possibly take an upturn for her. She technically moves up the social and economic ladder as the family member she lives with is quite well off, another great note in some gothic novels, an estranged family member that is loaded. Cecelia’s grandmother, Maura, is a novelist. She writes murder mysteries/thrillers—her first and most popular based on a murder that happened in Seaview (the setting for the book). Cecelia makes friends, attempts to put off mourning a bit, and stumbles across a dead homecoming queen just as the murder her grandmother wrote about all those years ago.

From there we follow Cecelia as she looks at the world she was plunged into (I repeat this line because the dead queens were found in a pool and plunge involves water and I think this is funny to keep saying) and tries to solve everyone’s problems to avoid her own.

Cecelia’s motivations for solving the murder are clear and make sense. As a reader I believe the reasons that drive her to uncover this murder. She isn’t doing it for kicks or because it would be fun, she’s really trying to understand what’s going on in the world around her—why the things in her life keep dying, and maybe even why lives feel like they were cut far too short. Cecelia may do this to avoid her own grieving process, but I think she acts out the stages of grief as she investigates this new murder. She’s a wonderful character. I don’t always agree with her actions but that’s because I’m an outsider looking at her, with a fully developed adult brain and a degree from Criminal Minds University.

Every suspect in this novel had me guessing and double-guessing myself. Reasons and motives were strong for every red herring, I came across, and came across again and again. Donne did a magnificent job setting up every little twist and turn to have us guessing and reading on and on to figure out who killed this Seaview Homecoming Queen. It’s a habit the town needs to shake.

Again, motives were strong all around, twists were well performed, and I had a blast reading this book.

Pacing-wise, the opening was a bit of a slow burn, I really liked this as it built up the tension in a believable way. I was tricked a few times, had some good laughs, and almost forgot that something horrible was going to happen—and when it did it came as a shock! I was shocked that someone was killed in a thriller—almost embarrassing but it’s such a good setup! We see Cecelia getting comfortable in her new life, avoiding death, both of her mother and the seeming curse around her, and we see her happy. And then it’s gone because good things don’t last for her. It hits her hard and thrusts her into solving this mystery as I talked about previously. The slow-burn start was a wonderful idea for this novel and worked so well. I can see how some people wouldn’t like it, they want action right away, but this setup was perfect for me. I really enjoyed savoring every tense moment waiting for a body to drop.

Moving on to other characters for a moment, our ragtag group of friends all have secrets and enemies they keep close. Each character felt unique without being too unique—one thing I’ve found in books recently is that in an effort to make sure no characters sound/feel the same an author makes characters have nothing in common with each other. No one does anything that really indicates them as a group or friends. We need some common ground to believe that a friend group would be friends, right? I think this friend group had it, and they had their reasons for doing the things they do. Not saying too much here because I don’t want to ensuite or say spoilers about things. Vague is fun. The characters were all unique without being so crazy different it hurt to keep up with. They felt real. Rich bratty kids. Love them—and Donne does a great job at writing them in her books (The Ivies and this one).

The setting itself is befitting a thriller, and the gothic vibes I’m picking up. Seaview is crumbling into the sea due to land erosion and other problems. The small, but rich town, is shrinking both in size, and people because it’s a thriller and ya know, murder. The setting lends itself to each character in different ways and it’s so cool to look back at the book as a whole and see the little pieces being put together. That’s my favorite part of a thriller, looking back or rereading and seeing all the tiny clues that we readers glance over. We see how a setting shapes a character—a truly difficult thing to accomplish in writing. This setting is perfect for the gothic fall thriller.

Looking at the ending of this book, I didn’t super guess the killer right. I had suspicions, and I was leaning in the right direction this time (I didn’t guess the killer in The Ivies). I was torn between a few options, but by the end I had kinda guessed it. Don’t look in the street-team chat for proof though, I’m showing zero evidence that I actually guessed it right! Donne does a great job of giving her killer's motivations—believable, twisted motivations. Those are the best kinds. The ones that if you went circling with your thoughts would make sense to you too. Simple answers. I love them so much because they’re unsettling! Not saying this about this book solidly because maybe it’s a spoiler, maybe it’s not, but we as humans want big things to have big reasons behind them. We don’t like when something big happens and it’s because of a small simple thing. It drives us mad! It reminds me of this ending. Oh, I loved it, and I hated it because it was so good! (Not actual hate, the joking type of hate!)

Again, Donne did an amazing job with this YA Thriller and I highly encourage everyone and anyone to pick it up for a delightful read this fall season, and any fall season!

Minor content warning: this is a thriller, expect death and language to be present throughout the novel.

"The new homecoming queen is dead...and she's not the first unsolved murder at Seaview High. From the critically acclaimed author of The Ivies comes a nonstop YA thriller about a decades-old mystery, a copycat killer, and the teen who will stop at nothing to uncover the truth.

After the death of her mom (screw cancer), seventeen-year-old Cecelia Ellis goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a celebrated author whose Victorian mansion is as creepy as the murder mysteries she writes. On the surface, life is utterly ordinary in the California coastal town...until the homecoming queen is murdered. And she's not Seaview’s first pretty dead queen.

With a copycat killer on the loose, Cecelia throws herself into the investigation, determined to crack the case like the heroines in her grandmother's books. But the more Cecelia digs into the town’s secrets, the more she worries that her own mystery might not have a storybook ending."

It's like Nancy Drew and V.C. Andrews and Jessica Fletcher had a baby!

Thrilling, that's all I have to say about this book. If your looking for a good thriller to read this October, look no further. Pretty Dead Queens had me on the edge of my seat, gripping my kindle, wondering what was going to come next! It is full of suspense, and if you like copycat killers you will love this read!

The main character’s mom recently passed away and now Cecilia is moving into her grandmother’s house. Her grandmother, Maura, happens to be a famous author and lives in a large home with four floors. Maura has brought fame to the town after writing a fictionalized book about the murder of a classmate that occurred during homecoming when she was in high school. Maura continues to write mysteries and her fandom holds yearly conventions in town. Cecilia makes friends and ends up on the sidelines of their drama. Then she finds the body of another homecoming murder victim and it’s eerily similar to the murder all those years ago. She throws herself into trying to discover the killer as a way to distract herself from losing her mother. She ends up in the middle of trouble and has to fight for her life. A fun mystery, 4 stars!

Language: R for 139 swears and 101 f-bombs
Violence: PG-13 for Bodies found in school swimming pool. Strangulation mentioned. Serial killer in community. Premeditated murder. Punching.
Mature content: PG-13 for sex mentioned, no details, drug use mentioned.
LGBT content: bi mentioned, lesbian mentioned
Likes/dislikes: The swearing was too much. The main character, Cecilia, is wishy washy with her new friends. She expects them to immediately divulge their secrets to her because she wants to know but she’s completely disregarding their rights to privacy and gets upset if they ask her questions about her life. I was enthralled by the two mysteries, past and present, and wanted Cecilia to expose the twisted actions of the townspeople.
Ethnicity: white, brown, Filipino, Black

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children's for the e-ARC. This book just didn't do it for ME. I felt that I could just not get into it and the ending felt just abrupt and then just stopped. The story overall was good I just wished it was handled a little differently