I read the premise of this novel and was excited to delve into the story. Alas, this was a disappointing book. I barely made it to the end, and by then I didn't really care about the outcome.

The murder mystery weekend was a great getaway for Becca and her husband, Blake, his way of apologizing for his affair. Unfortunately, one of the cast members, Bethany, disappears. Becca begins to investigate.

I did not like Becca, oh the on going thoughts in her head about her marriage, her husband's cheating, is he cheating again, the whole marriage thing. All of this distracted me from the mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley and Yewon Son, Random House for an ARC. The review is my own.

In this wonderfully twisted mystery, get ready to play along with a group of guests who are staying at a grand hotel preparing to participate in a delightful murder mystery game. But one murder may unfortunately be real!

Becca and her husband Blake have been having serious marital problems. Blake has decided to take Becca away on a surprise 1920’s themed weekend. But unfortunately for Becca, Blake has neglected to tell her it’s a murder/mystery game. And thus lies a part of the reason they are having issues!

To make this adventure even worse for Becca, her husband’s business partner and wife are there playing the game as well! Just what Becca needs! Trying to pretend their marriage is as perfect as theirs. But Becca knows this weekend is important to Blake so she must just play along with it all for the sake of saving her marriage.

As the game begins, they are given their identities and their history of their characters and soon someone is found “dead”. As Becca begins to look for clues as to which guest could be the “murderer”, she accidentally stumbles on the fact that one of the actresses portraying a character has gone missing. She finds this mystery even more interesting than the actual game itself. So, she begins to look for clues as to why this girl could have disappeared.

Unfortunately for Becca someone might be on to her interest in the disappearance and exactly what she knows. Becoming a bit paranoid, she tries to decipher the clues of the game versus the clues of the disappearance without getting her facts mixed up.

On top of all this, she and Blake cannot get past their troubled relationship and Becca hesitates to explain what else is going on figuring he will just think she is jumping to crazy conclusions. And maybe she is?

But when she stumbles upon a scene which is not from the game being played, she becomes the target of a true killer. A killer nobody even knows exists! Can Becca survive this murder mystery weekend without getting herself actually killed?

All Dressed Up is an amazingly executed mystery within a mystery with many clues and suspects and characters. But the ending is totally worth the wait!

Thank you #NetGalley #RandomHouse/Bantam #JillyGagnon #AllDressedUp for the advanced copy.

Oh man, this book had me intrigued! Time piece setting (staged or not) and murder mystery...sign me up! I have been enjoying mysteries a lot lately and couldn't wait to get at this one. I'm going to keep it short and sweet. I did not love it. It had makings for a great book but the main character ruined it for me. Trust me, I get being hurt and betrayed. She had every right to be upset given her circumstance.

Our main character, Becca, has recently found out her husband has been cheating on her with his secretary. Yeah, that happens. From the get go there is much tension between the couple (for obvious reasons). His way of trying to fix things is to surprise her with this great 1920's themed get away. Unfortunately, he doesn't explain the entirety of the getaway and the betrayal and embarrassment continues to stack on. I don't blame Becca for being hurt, wary and upset. What I couldn't stand is that this is really all we hear about. There is no move for character development. For a good 25% of the book I feel like we got no where.

This is where I gave up on the book. I get that this betrayal is what leads to this mystery vacay. However, there should have been more to the table than the infidelity. It is quite literally all Becca talks or thinks about. Again, I get it. However, she is on a vacation in which she can delve into the mystery a bit more and find ways in which to find peace with the situation. Either by completely ditching her man, by finding someone to make him jealous with, or by getting completely consumed with the theme and mystery. I felt that there was no hope for character progression. No hope for any progression at all in the story. I gave up. I honestly did. There just needed to be more than the infidelity pushing our main character on. Of course, this is my opinion. If you were hoping for more murder mystery adventure, you just might not find it here. Wanted to love it. Couldn't bring myself to finish.

Here we have a mystery within a mystery. Becca finds herself in the midst of a 1920s themed murder mystery weekend, but she also suspects that there is a real disappearance being covered up behind the scenes. Unable to leave it alone, Becca attempts to solve the fake case, all while investigating the real one.

This is a book with a lot of layers. Besides the mystery within a mystery, we've also got Becca's tension with her husband, who has planned the trip after a massive betrayal on his part. The other couples there for the weekend may have secrets they are hiding. On top of this, the staff are also actors playing their roles, but who may just be out of character during some especially mysterious moments.

The last few pages were good instead of great, at least for me personally. But the wrap up of the true disappearance was brilliant, and I really loved this read.

All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon is an entertaining mystery within a mystery. Styled a la Agatha Christie, the novel focuses on four couples attending a murder mystery weekend at a mansion in upstate New York. Becca and Blake are trying to save their marriage after Blake cheated on Becca. Blake planned this special weekend as a surprise for Becca who loves to watch a good British mystery on TV. The plot revolves around Becca and the discoveries she makes over the weekend. When a worker that Becca befriends disappears she wonders if an actual murder has occurred. The two mysteries converge in an entertaining and suspenseful way that make reading this mystery a fun frolic.

This book has a great setting--a Roaring Twenties Murder mystery weekend that (of course) turns out to have a real murder. Becca and her husband Blake go on this weekend retreat in order to patch up their broken marriage, but Becca's stress and grief causes her to see clues everywhere, and soon she can't pick apart what's part of the game and what is all too real. The solution to this mystery felt a bit over the top, but I enjoyed it well enough anyway.

I was SUPER excited about this. I was frantically checking the library to place a hold. I was elated to revive an ARC. The premise was amazing, a 1920’s murder mystery party with a potential real murder subplot. As many have said, the main character was a little frustrating to read and it sort of took you out of the story. The murder mystery party walked you through the set up of the party Vs the actual party. Overall great idea just wasn’t as enjoyable as I was hoping.

I enjoyed the murder mystery aspect of this book. I’ve seen the comps to Knives Out and Clue and totally get that. I think it was a little predictable (I guessed the killer pretty early in). The cheating storylines made things kind of uncomfortable and I didn’t really like Becca. I get that she was the “woman scorned” and I like the parallels of that theme in this book, but I just didn’t feel like rooting for her. The “swinging” storyline was also a little awkward. Other than those issues, I found the book to be a page-turner. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless someone was a big mystery fan.

3.5 stars, actually.

How do you spoil an otherwise clever, creative plot? Make a main character so insufferable that it's hard to focus on anything else.

At issue is Rebecca, who is beside herself because her husband Blake cheated on her a while back (they've been in therapy, but that seems only to have turned Becca in even more of a hot mess). So as a surprise intended to bring them closer together, Blake arranged for a role-playing mystery theater weekend at Millingham House, a posh hotel. That, too, arouses Becca's suspicions, especially when a couple of the other women in the mystery party are a little too beautiful to suit her and he dares not only to look, but (gasp!) speak to them.

It's the mystery theater angle that makes up the clever and creative part of the equation; dressed for the 1920s and assigned character roles and funky names like "Miss Ann Thrope" to stick with throughout the weekend, the plan is for the guests to figure out who the murderer is at the conclusion of their stay. Chapters that outline what each is to reveal (or not) to the others and provide background for their fake identities are interspersed with real-time situations - many of which are hard to separate from the role-play scenarios the guests are expected to follow.

At the outset, a "murder" happens right before their eyes - a fun part of the experience, until Becca freaks out because her clueless, cheating husband didn't tell her what the weekend entailed before they arrived and she thought it was real - a horror she just can't get past that, she insists, made her look foolish in the eyes of the other guests. Then when one of the staff members - all of whom are role-playing as well - turns up missing, Becca doesn't believe the explanation the guests are given. Instead, she chooses to concoct her own morbid version (and, predictably, takes it as a personal affront when Blake and some of the others don't readily buy into her theory).

I did have one thing in common with Becca, though; it was a little hard for me to separate pretend from reality most of the way through (giving me insight as to how she must have felt while building momentum for the ending). But although I've attended a couple of real-life events similar to this, I failed miserably both times when it came time to picking the whodunit - giving Becca a decided edge over me in that department. The ending brought some closure to the marriage travails, although the advice I had for Becca early on stands: Yep, Blake done you wrong; now either kick him to the curb or stand by your man and get on with it.

Overall, though, the entire adventure made for a fun and unique reading experience - one I'm sure many others will enjoy. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for providing me with a pre-release copy to read and review.

This book had so much potential. The premise of a murder mystery weekend at a remote hotel is so interesting. Unfortunately, for me anyway, what could have been a fun dual murder investigation (the 1920s role playing weekend murder mystery and the modern day disappearance and potential murder), was marred by too much angst and internal dialogue by the main character, Becca. It was clear from the blurb that the weekend getaway was part of her husband’s apology for cheating and a chance for them to reconnect as a couple, but, in many respects, the marital issues story arc overshadowed the murder mysteries. This isn’t a bad book by any means, and I’m sure that many people will really enjoy it, but for me, it would have been a much more enjoyable read with less focus on Becca’s rumination on her marriage.

A fantastic premise really did carry this book- a woman who loves mysteries is surprised by her husband with a murder mystery weekend at a remote estate and it seems that maybe REAL murder is afoot- but the story did get bogged down with some of the details of the infidelity the couple has been dealing with, though perhaps this was necessary for the story to have enough tension. This is just a step past a cozy thanks to the last chapters, but I think it is still one that will hold a lot of appeal for that audience.

I really wanted to like the book, but it fell flat for me. Becca and her husband travel to the Catskills for a murder mystery weekend. They’re having marital problems and this is an opportunity to get their marriage back on track. The event is going well until someone actually disappears. Becca was a little too whiny for me and not a likeable character. The story had great potential but the mystery fizzled out for me. Many thanks to the author, Bantam Books and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Full disclosure. I am a total Clue fan. Loved this story with its murder mystery weekend with a mixture of relationship issues. So much fun.

Murder mystery weekends are always an interesting prospect. Becca doesn’t really want to be there, but she’s trying to make her marriage work after her husband cheated on her.
The action was good. I thought some of the interaction between the characters was a bit contrived and clunky.
I thought Becca was trying to convince herself that her marriage was worth saving.
A pretend murder turns out to be real. Who is,the murderer?

A great premise let down by the execution. I came for the murder mystery but found myself exhausted by Becca and her constant thoughts about her husband's infidelity. She also brought up the fact that she watches/reads a lot of mysteries and other characters praise her insights, but I found her to be unobservant and not at all good at investigating, not even for an amateur.

On this all-important day of reading, All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon is officially hitting shelves in bookstores across the U.S. The concept was fun and engaging. I love the idea of a 20s murder mystery-themed weekend getaway! Does anyone know if this is a real thing? Please let me know in the comments if so!

Blake surprises his wife Becca with a themed getaway based on her obsession with murder mysteries as a way to try to atone for the affair she recently discovered him having with his coworker. I enjoyed Becca’s constant back-and-forth (at first) because it felt real that she would bounce between emotions so quickly, wanting to forgive Blake, but also still being angry and hurt. It got annoying when she kept blaming herself for her anger as if it was her anger and annoyance that made him cheat.

Also, if Blake really wanted to atone for his sins, I thought it was really inappropriate to schedule the getaway with a colleague. Although Phil and his wife Heather were friends of theirs and Becca liked them, I doubt I would want to deal with having to put up a front for mutual friends in the middle of such a sensitive situation that was supposed to be about focusing on their relationship. It’s also highly unlikely that Blake didn’t know about Phil’s extramarital activities which made the choice even worse.

Overall, the novel was just okay for me. It was an easy book to read with an interesting premise, but I found it a bit boring, cliched and obvious. It was frustrating that Becca took so long to put together the pieces connecting Phil and Bethany that I thought were so obvious from the first interaction. Moreover, as a woman who had just been cheated on by her own husband, I just felt like it was completely unrealistic that Becca wouldn’t jump to conclusions and wonder if everyone was having an affair. She was too quick to see the good and “innocence” in everyone, even forgiving/apologizing to Blake for getting upset when she saw him talking to Bethany. Considering the circumstances, I think most wives would’ve been upset and jumped to conclusions whether or not it was warranted.

While this book didn’t wow me by any means, it wasn’t terrible and I could see others enjoying it, particularly when dipping a toe into murder mysteries without wanting to get too gruesome.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam/Random House for providing me with an ARC of this story to read and review.

This story was fun and different to read!

Becca and her husband, Blake, visit a beautiful estate for a 1920’s themed murder mystery weekend. As the game unfolds, the fictional mystery becomes intertwined in what could prove to be a real mystery—the disappearance of one of the cast members.

I have participated in several murder mysteries like this over the years, and I found the fictional mystery part of this book to be very enjoyable to read. Trying to figure out the characters, their roles, and solve the mystery was fun! That part of the story felt very light-hearted. While the disappearance of Bethany was a little more serious tone, this is definitely more of a cozy mystery—it is not overly graphic or dark in nature.

The only thing I didn’t really like was the infidelity part of the storyline. All of Becca’s mood swings and insecurities made her less likable and it felt very whiny at times. I don’t think it added a lot of value to the plot, though it did seem like Becca grew a little by the end.

In all, this was an amusing and fairly quick read for me!

A mystery murder weekend at a country manor/hotel runs along side a possible real murder mystery. This is a bit of a muddled up game of Clue, but not funny like the movie. The main character, for me, was weak and unlikable; because the guests were role-playing they all had two names that were not used consistently, there were little side stories going on that had nothing to do with either the mystery weekend or the actual murder, but -worst of all for me - there was no dead body or indication that there really would be one until the very last pages of the book. The character development was lacking and the story itself could have used better editing. The last few pages made me change from two ⭐️s to three.

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House, and the author for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. An honest review was requested but not required.

All Dressed Up features Becca and Blake, who have embarked on an in-character murder mystery weekend in an effort for Blake to atone for an infidelity and for Becca as a step towards forgiveness. Understandably, Becca, whose self-confidence and self-esteem are at an all-time low, is ultra-sensitive to secrets and pays as much attention to their fellow guests and the household “servants” (paid actors) as she does to the murder mystery she’s supposed to be solving.

In addition to the “death” of Ms. Crooner – the mystery of which the guests are attempting to solve – there is also the all-too-real disappearance of one of the “maids.” Did she leave on her own? Was she blackmailed? Kidnapped? Or worse, murdered? Becca feels impelled to try and figure it out.

Despite the improbability of Becca always being in the right place at the right time to overhear any number of clues, it was a serviceable mystery. I made a guess and was a little disappointed to be correct. The theatrical murder-mystery is pretty much forgotten in the wake of the actual crime and I had to backtrack pages to find out which character offed Ms. Crooner in the end. Both murder plots are heavily overshadowed by Becca’s constant ruminations about her marriage, Blake’s infidelity, or some variation of those. I can see that some reviewers found that off-putting but I found it very realistic. I know if I was in that situation it would be hard not to dwell on it. I found Becca’s description of the hurt she wanted to cause Blake, to balance the hurt he’d caused her, to be very poignant. I’m glad she was able to make some realizations about herself that might enable her to move forward (with or without Blake).

Not anything earth-shattering but it was fun.

*Thank you to Random House Ballantine, Jilly Gagnon, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Previously published at https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/all-dressed-up/

“Ah, but my dear sir, the why must never be obvious. That is the whole point.”

― Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs

Jilly Gagnon is a new author for me, and All Dressed Up is definitely an interesting mystery. After a tough year in their marriage, Blake hopes to surprise Becca with a murder mystery weekend at a remote mansion in the Catskills. He hopes that this will help repair their marriage after his infidelity. Given Becca’s love for reading mysteries, he knows she will love this “roaring twenties” weekend, though he has given her very little information. Unfortunately, this results in an embarrassing moment for Becca, setting the precedent for the rest of the weekend.

There are four couples attending the murder mystery weekend; Jessica and Josh, a posh couple from Brooklyn, ultra-hip and outgoing, Phil, Blake’s coworker and his wife, Heather, and finally Gabby and Drew, a middle-aged couple who are almost always in character, both wealthy and very standoffish. For this murder mystery weekend, there is a full cast of staff dressed for the occasion, notes exclusive to each person and schedules and funny names and roles assigned to each of the participants. When Bethany, one of the junior staff at the Inn, disappears, Becca suspects her disappearance is not a planned part of the weekend. Then, the other fellow participants start acting strange she wonders whether the murder mystery is actually a game or are the participants in real danger. She also notes the suspicious behavior of a few of her fellow participants. When she gets a stern warning from one of the fellow participants, she realizes she might be in real jeopardy.

All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon immediately reminded me of the game of Clue. The unique setting with a staged mystery but an actual murder, and so many red herrings should be a spectacular read. Unfortunately, this book is a commentary on the downfall of a marriage combined with an excellent mystery, and the reader may feel like they are reading two separate books. While the two themes are split evenly, the infidelity of Becca and Blake’s marriage is such a heavy theme that it overshadows everything else. I understand why the author did this; a murder mystery weekend to save a marriage but the theme of the mystery weekend would have carried the book. The reader will go in expecting a mystery but also experience a couple trying to salvage their relationship after infidelity, which is a heavy theme for any novel.

In short, All Dressed Up is a novel with an identity crisis. Is it a narrative on infidelity and marriage, as we spend so much time in the thoughts of Becca questioning whether or not to stay in her marriage, or is it a fabulous murder mystery with a 1920s theme? I enjoyed reading this book, but I wanted to “love” it and I couldn’t. These could be two amazing books as I loved Ms. Gagnon’s writing, but put together, they didn’t intertwine as much as I hoped they would.