A murder mystery weekend, where everyone dresses in 1920s attire, at a remote hotel. Only 8 people and the staff. Becca has come with her husband to try to repair their marriage. Everyone has reasons for attending. When one of the staff/actors seems to leave suddenly, where have they gone. Is the disappearance part of the mystery they are trying to solve or is it something very real. Becca tries to find out.

This story will keep the pages turning. Is the disappearance real or part of the game? Will Becca solve the case or will she become another victim of it? You will be guessing what is real and what is part of a game. It will grab your attention and you will be following the clues. This book is an enjoyable read.

Thank you to #netgalley, @PenguinRandomHouse, and @JillyGagnon for a copy of this book.
#AllDressedUp

If you enjoy a mystery within a mystery, you may enjoy this book.

An attempt at marital reconciliation is the trigger for the main character, Becca's involvement in a murder mystery weekend. The multi layered plotline of the book maybe confusing to follow - many names to keep track of, two mysteries to solve and many revisits to broken trust and wedding vows.

I would have preferred less emphasis on the affair and more emphasis on the workings of a murder mystery weekend, the 'real' murder.

All Dressed Up has places to go. In its mind, anyway. It’s got a clever idea, an idea bound to set it apart from the countless similar thrillers out there. A murder mystery weekend, stylized like a golden age era mystery from 1920s, flappers, gangsters and all.
The merry event is sprung on the book’s protagonist by her loving but cheating husband as a sort of I’m-sorry-I-slept-around-on-you-for-six-months-but-I’m-back-now-and-see-I-notied-you-like-tv mysteries-so-yeah-let’s-do-this-together-and-get-back-on-track.
Funsies, right? Well, kinda, until art begins to imitate life too closely or no, actually, life begins to imitate art too closely. And a pretend murder might just be a real one.
Lots of potential here but ultimately the book gets dragged down by all its freaking estrogen. It’s like yeah, we get it, Blake cheated, boo-hoo, but can we get back to murder, please? This is a mystery thriller not a marriage counseling session. Can we talk less about marriage in general, maybe? Sheesh.
They can’t, though. It’s a ladies for ladies and about ladies affair through and through. And as such, it ends up way slower and less exciting that it ought to be. With a predictable killer to boot.
Decent enough, overall, but nothing special. At all. When it might have been, easily. The book just never quite lives up to the cleverness of its concept. Something like a beach read, maybe. Thanks Netgalley.

Four couples are spending the weekend at a large, old estate home to play a game of "whodunit." The servants are all actors with various roles to play and once guests have entered the grounds, they too must remain in their 1920's assigned character while they are in the common areas of the estate. Blake has surprised his wife with this weekend away as a peace offering as she has recently found out that he'd had a six month long affair with a coworker and their marriage is on the rocks. Since Becca is a fan of murder mysteries, Blake believes this weekend may be able to jumpstart their reconciliation. But when Becca discovers not only the staged "body" for the event, but a real body as well, things turn up a notch. Who can she trust with the information she's gathered? More importantly, who will believe her as everyone on the estate is playing the game and gathering clues so no one will take her suspicions about a real murder seriously. If readers can keep the characters straight, as each one has a real name and backstory as well as an assigned 1920s persona, they will be in for a fun read.

I really, really enjoyed this book! I loved the storyline, once it picked up, and the characters! Look forward to adding this to my physical collection!

Thank you Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for this eARC!

The cover and description pulled me in to request this copy and I was pleasantly surprised how quickly it pulled me in once I started reading. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the murder mystery theater taking place at an old house deep in the Catskills. I know some readers found Becca's focus on Blake's infidelity too much, but I found there to be a good balance of the mystery for both the game and the real life mystery and her personal problems. I also really enjoyed the ways in which her perspective shifted regarding the future of her marriage. It felt realistic and humanizing. Definitely didn't guess the killer which was a fun twist! Overall found this one to be a delightful dabble into locked room mystery.


Posted to Goodreads 5/7/22.

I love a good mystery, and although this is very cleverly written, I didn’t love this book as much as expected. There is a large cast of characters, however, occasionally it was difficult to keep them all straight.

Blake knew how much his wife, Becca loved mysteries, so he planned an entire weekend at the “Roaring Twenties” getaway. Becca felt he was trying to atone for his recent betrayal of their marriage. Everyone dressed as instructed and had assigned parts to play. As the story unfolded, it became obvious there was two sets of characters as well as two stories to follow. The actual people who were the participants, and their make-believe, play-acting characters, which created the two stories. Entwined in those stories, was the obsession Becca had with Blake’s affair with a work colleague. Because of the large amount of dialogue between the cast of characters, both real and pretend, it did get somewhat confusing, and I often had to go back and read a paragraph again for clarification.

The actual mystery was intriguing, and the ending was unexpected.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the complimentary copy of this book. All opinions and comments are my own.

I thought the premise of this book was great and the author did a great job creating the atmosphere of the locale, but I was a little disappointed in the execution. For me, the double names of the characters bogged down the story and I would have liked a different mix of the attention spent on the real and pretend crimes as well as the personal lives of the characters. There were references made to the characters' backstories which never got clarified, like Rebecca's pregnancy history and her sister Amy. They didn't add to the story and probably should have been edited out to improve the pace of the story. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

#AllDressedUp #NetGalley
Cunning writing.
Becca is freshly smarting from her husband Blake’s betrayal and knows this is just an expensive attempt at an apology. She may not be ready to forgive him, but the drinks are strong, the estate is stunning, and the weekend has an elaborate 1920s murder mystery theme. She decides to get into the spirit of things and enjoy their stay. What could go wrong?
Before long, the game is afoot: famed speakeasy songstress Ida Crooner is found “murdered,” and it’s up to the guests to sniff out which of them might be the culprit. Playing the role of Miss Debbie Taunte, an ingenue with a dark past, Becca dives into the world of pun-heavy clues, hammy acting, and secret passages, hoping to at least take her mind off her marital troubles. Then, the morning after they arrive, the actress playing Ida’s maid fails to reappear for her role. The game’s organizer—that’s Miss Ann Thrope to you—assumes the young woman’s flakiness is to blame, but when snooping for clues as “Debbie,” Becca finds evidence she may not have left of her own free will.
I enjoyed it's concept so so much. Although it started off a little slow but if you kept reading then it's the most interesting mystery to you.
I'll definitely highly recommended this.
Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for giving me an advanced copy.

This was a fun book to read. I really liked the murder mystery within the murder mystery, with two sets of characters. (Although there was at least once where I stopped and said "who's Debbie?") I'd give it 5 stars, but the third story, of Blake's cheating, and the excessive time Becca spent agonizing over their relationship was a little tedious for me. I wanted less time in her head and more action. But overall I really liked this book.

The excitement was real when I read the synopsis for All Dressed Up! A weekend getaway at a remote hotel, a murder mystery game that has the guests role-playing as characters from the 1920s. I immediately thought of Clue and every classic, locked-in murder mystery by Agatha Christie. SIGN ME UP, PLEASE!!! Unfortunately, it was not as exciting as I had hoped, but it was a fast, interesting read.

I am going to apologize now because I know that my review is going to sound very nitpicky, but these are the reasons for my 3 stars: I really enjoyed the premise of having a real-life mystery taking place alongside the game, but it did get a little confusing trying to keep track of the real and fake as well as all of the characters' real names and alter names. The 1920s role-playing theme, while a great idea, was so farcical that it was irrelevant. And that's when they were even playing the game. I felt like the majority of this book was Becca inside her head contemplating her husband's betrayal and their marriage. I would have rather had more game play and hunting for clues. The writing was very wordy with sentences that seemed to never end. I found myself reading the same sentence (paragraph size) over and over again just to fully comprehend. I did like Becca though. In fact, she is the only one that I liked. Her character was down to earth, and I loved her sense of humor and sarcasm. OMG!! That diarrhea part had me in tears!! The actual mystery was interesting, and I did enjoy the ending, but was disappointed that the "game" mystery was left unsolved. Despite my mostly negative review, I would still recommend this book to all the mystery fans out there.

Thank you to the author, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam and NetGalley for allowing me to preview this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.


Love a murder mystery theme, this was one for the books. Fun, light and enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for inviting me to reading this ARC. I loved the premise of this book, but the execution was not as good as its potential. I found all the double names to be a bit confusing and hard to follow. A fun idea, though!

All right, firstly I’m focusing on the reasons that make me get my hands into this book asap!

- A marvelous estate with 1920’s murder theme that gives you opportunity to dress and act like characters from Great Gatsby for three days!
- The murder game idea and detailed instructions that left on guests’ rooms are fun! A famous speakeasy songstress Ida Crooner throws a party at her estate and she’s found death now 8 guests whose characters are written on the texts they’ve given have to sniff around the clues and solve the mystery.
- But when a real murder occurs those guests will have hard time to differentiate which is part of the game and what is real!

One location, 48 hours to solve the mystery, game into game plot were the reasons I wanted to read this book!
But…
Here comes what made me so exhausted, confused and frustrated;

All these characters have their own names and game names. Even the main character Rebecca plays a character called Debbie Taunte. And of course the characters in the game created a little different from their main characteristics. I honestly took notes and wrote who was who and turned back several times and read again to remember the names! It distracted me a lot.

And let’s not forget Rebecca and Blake’s marriage and cheating drama. We learn so much of their history and their families which provide us enough material as if we’re reading a second chance love story which also distracted me because I only wanted to focus the main murder mystery!

Some descriptions in the book had too long and too elaborated which also bored me a little.

And the conclusion was a little dramatic for me. I’m not sure I’d like it!

The plot and Christie- esque presentation were promising! But I didn’t enjoy the execution a lot. So I’m giving my three solid, it’s okay but not addictive reading stars!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon was a fun, exciting new novel.
A classic whodunit story.
The writing was interesting and had me flipping the screen on my Kindle continuously.
The pacing was quick and the characters likable enough.
Our characters were very interesting, Becca I enjoyed following her story as she tries to uncover this mystery. I truly enjoyed the 1920s murder mystery theme.
Overall, A great story, amazing writing and good characterization.
I can't wait to read more of her work.in the future.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Random House|Ballantine & Bantam,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to my platforms, blog, B&N and Waterstone closer to pub date.

Overall, this was a really fun read. I appreciate how the author layered two different mysteries with two different casts of characters. I especially loved how she wrote the dossier — the campy take on 1920s slang was great.

This was almost a five-star review for me. However, I found that having so many characters (who each had two names) made it difficult to follow who was doing what. And when the final twist was revealed, I felt pretty underwhelmed. With as clever as the author was to weave together two mysteries, I wish the ending would have been more impactful.

“All Dressed Up” is a mystery novel by Lilly Gagnon. This book takes place over 48 hours at a hotel with a “1920s murder mystery theme” weekend. I must admit that the idea of a pretend murder happening inside a real murder I found an interesting set-up. While I wouldn't say "sign me up for participating," I would say "sign me up to read this!"

Where this book caused me some issues were all the “double” names people had - our heroine, Becca, plays the part of “Miss Debbie Taunte.” (yes, the name puns are groaners, but Ms. Gagnon had fun with the names, so kudos to her choices) Some times she’s referred to as Debbie and other times Becca - depending upon if the game was currently being played or not. The majority of the cast has double names and I’ll admit to getting lost a bit at times. I really would’ve liked a “who is who” cast listing at the beginning of the book to help keep people straight. While I understood that this book needed to have more than “just” a faux mystery and a real mystery, Becca’s introspection into her behavior, recollections of her family and past, and talk about her attractions I found, at times, a bit too much. While the reader reads a lot about Becca, her husband, and their mutual friends, a number of other characters are there to add color but because they’re not as fleshed out for me often they were rather flat. I also had an issue over a few minor things some of the characters did (they didn’t affect the story but I found them odd), but they didn’t take away from the main story.

While I enjoyed this story, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I hoped I would. I'd overall rate this book about 3.25 stars, which I was disappointed by as I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I'd probably read another book by this author.

All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon is delicious. " . . . a campy flapper-filled mystery nested inside a modern one, All Dressed Up is a loving tribute to classic whodunits and a riveting exploration of the secrets we keep in order to sustain the act."