Thank you so much for NetGalley for allowing me a copy of this book. I enjoyed it way more then I thought I would and I would recommend this!

I loved everything about this book. The premise. The characters. Such a cozy mystery. I absolutely loved Katie, I felt like she was such a strong female protagonist. I really enjoyed the tarot readings. I felt like it added a lot of interesting information to the story.

Play the Fool was a really entertaining read! It has to be one of my favorite mysteries of the year so far. It’s also listed as a thriller and I don’t know if I would necessarily consider it a thriller, but it was still an excellent read!

Play the Fool deals pretty heavily with tarot cards and Chern does a great job explaining everything while also not behind too wordy— she keeps it interesting. I’m pretty familiar with tarot cards but I wouldn’t consider myself an expert, so I’m glad Chern laid everything out!

I can’t recommend this book enough! It’s a really quick and fun read!

Lina Chern's novel is fun and quick to read. The reader tries to solve the case of the possibly murdered friend along with Katie. Tarot cards are used throughout to help describe or identify character traits and situations; however, one doesn't need a huge knowledge of tarot to understand. The characters are funny and engaging, and Katie's growth throughout the novel is relatable.

Review of uncorrected eBook file

Katie True, working in a Russian knickknack shop in the Deerpath Shopping Center in Lake Terrace, Chicago, has a friend in Marley Callaghan, who works across the way at the Goth boutique. When an obviously-distraught Nico stumbles into the one evening, conversing, Katie offers to read the tarot cards for him.

Taking a surreptitious glance at Nico’s phone, Katie sees a picture of Marley . . . dead.

Determined to find out what happened to her friend, Katie sets out to investigate. Will she find the murderer? Will she learn why her friend was murdered?

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Despite some vulgar language, “Play the Fool” is an interesting tale that, although it is indeed a murder mystery, is more cozy than thriller. Impulsive Katie, who is good at reading people, is a delightful protagonist; her tarot card reading is a clever and unique addition to the telling of the tale.

Plot twists, secrets, and surprises are all part of the telling of this tale; with well-developed, believable characters and a strong female protagonist, readers will find this quick-read tale both enjoyable and entertaining.

Recommended.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Bantam and NetGalley
#PlaytheFool #NetGalley

Marley and Katie are work lunch buddies. Katie normally doesn't friend with people(relatable) and the same with Marley. Marley is just jumping from job to job and Katie is a tarot card reader stuck at a lowly job that she is sure to lose. Things get intense when a strange man shows up in the Russian souvenir store and Katie reads his fortune. While he's away from the table, Katie swipes through his phone and sees her friend Marly shot in the head dead. Katie is on mission to find out what happened with what happened to her friend.

First off, thank you netgalley and bantam for this gift 🎁

I did enjoy this book, but I think it was a little draggy through the middle. I loved learning about Marley and Katie.

My favorite part was the twist! I can't say anymore than that. My favorite character is Marley. What a badass.

I love tarot cards. The cover immediately sucked me in. I really enjoyed this book. An air of insecurity gets consumed with new confidence from a best friend who ends up possibly dead? I liked the mystery and thrill of this book. It was an easy read for sure.

Katie True is an unmotivated fuck up whose best skill is reading people through tarot. I didn't find her a particularly likable main character and have no idea why a cop would find her perpetual chaos appealing. This book was only "OK" in my opinion.

I was delightfully surprised by Chern's ability to hook me from Page One of Play the Fool. Katie, a tarot card reader slash cashier at the local crumbling mall, is on the hunt for her work best friend, Marley, after she seemingly disappears. While the book followed a light-hearted,, yet slightly terrifying mystery, Chern managed to weave an exciting story, that I wish I could see played out on my TV. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and highly recommend it for a quick and fun Halloween read.

Katie is a tarot card reader who befriends Marley while both work at the mall. When Marley is murdered, Katie realizes she didn't really know her friend at all. Her persistence and tarot cards allow her to help the detective figure out who murdered Marley while also discovering who she really was. This was a fun and quick read.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This was a really fun read. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it, but I was intrigued. The best I can describe it as is a cozy mystery with a bit of an edge. I really enjoyed it and if you enjoy cozies, I think you will too!

I want to thank Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of Play the Fool in exchange for an honest review.

I love a good murder mystery, and the addition of a tarot reader who is kind of messy makes the story more fun. Katie is a hard character to like, and I think that was why I was surprised that by the end of the book I was rooting for her to succeed. Nico is an interesting character, and some of the other side characters (like Jamie) should have had more screen time IMO. Overall, Play the Fool was a fun, whimsical read for people who like mysteries.

My only real criticism is that the use of the tarot cards seems a little gimmicky and could have been handled with a bit more respect ( I get that Katie is supposed to be kind of a mess, and how she uses the cards on a whole is still pretty cool) and the pacing is a little off at the start of the novel. Katie also makes a lot of frustrating decisions, which gave me a lot of anxiety about where the story was going. Although, I guess that might be a good thing.

This is a fun murder mystery with a likable protagonist.

Katie True can't seem to live up to her family's expectations--from dropping out of college to spending her time reading taro cards to working a dead-end job at an equally dying mall in her middle-of-nowhere hometown, her life is full of things for her family to criticize. But when she meets Marley, she's convinced she's found a friend who doesn't judge her and truly supports her.

Too bad someone's shot Marley in the head and sent a photo of her dead body to her ex-boyfriend Nico.

After spying the photo on Nico's phone and finding Marley's necklace--but not her body--outside the mall, Katie impulsively jumps headfirst into the investigation of Marley's disappearance. Katie's always aware of what she *should* do but also very good at rationalizing the sometimes self-destructive choices she actually makes. As she gets in over her head, she gets tech support from her autistic brother Owen and also gets emotionally involved with the only cop who's willing to take Marley's disappearance seriously--Jamie, a former big city detective with secrets of his own. The plot takes some great twists and turns as Katie unravels Marley's mysteries before coming to a thoroughly satisfying ending.

Katie has a history of disappointing her family and not living up to her potential. As she works yet another dead end retail job, she meets a mysterious and captivating friend who encourages her to practice her passion- tarot card reading. One day she offers a reading to a disheveled customer and discovers that her new friend is dead, and she fears this man might be her killer.

With a plot like that, this could have easily been a dark and disturbing thriller. But instead it was a cozy, character driven mystery with a strong female lead who grows to realize her full potential. The author also did a great job representing a neurodivergent character, we love to see it! There is just a hint of a romance and I wish there would have been more development of it.

This is an intriguing mystery- the story of Katie True, a down on her luck young woman trying to find her way in the world. She is stuck in a dead end job and her one new friend has just disappeared. She learns she has been murdered and decides to try to find out what happened. Along the way we meet a whole group of quirky characters - Katie's family, the people who work in the mall where the 2 friends met and of course law enforcement in the form of Jamie a police detective new to the area. I enjoyed the characters but found it annoying how often Katie's personal ineptitudes were reiterated.
The story started off with a bang, then slowed to a crawl and pace picked about 2/3 into the book. The plot of the story is interesting with lots of twists. I was definitely caught up in the WHODUNIT and could not wait to finish the story.
I do wish there had been more information/discussion of Katie's tarot reading/study. I thought it would be a more prominent facet of the book.
Overall this is a strong debut novel and entry into the genre of mystery for the author. I would classify it more as a cozy mystery due to the unrealistic portrayal of how law enforcement works. but it certainly does have much more punch and interest than many in that genre .
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for a review.

In this cozy mystery, Katie works in a Russian trinket shop at a dying mall. She befriends Marley, who works in a nearby store. This was a fun and fast read. And a beautiful cover! Recommended!

I loved this! The story had me hooked right from the start and I was more and more desperate to know what was going to happen with each turn of the page. Kate was an excellent MC and I feel she really made the story. I will 100% recommend this!!

We follow Katie True as she navigates through her dead-end job at her local mall and the possible murder of her new friend Marley.

This book was pleasantly surprising. With Chern’s magical prose and the witty dialogue throughout, I would have to say this was one of my easier and more fun reads. There was never a dull moment, and the characters were enthralling from the first page.

So many seamless twists and turns made this a super fun read. The addition of the mystical world of tarot cards and psychics added a different element to the typical murder mystery genre.

Overall, enjoyable and well-written.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It's my least favorite thing in the world to DNF books that have been provided to me on Netgalley, but I think that this will have to be one. I stopped ready at about 25%- The first chapter started off really intriguing and strong, but I just felt like it immediately fizzled out and I lost interest. It's difficult for me to figure out why. I was really looking forward to this one- I have recently learned more about tarot and I thought this would be a fun fiction book with a great premise at just the right time. I think I was disappointed when I realized that the tarot in the novel was less of a integral plot/narrative device, but more a character device (during certain moments of the book, the mc remembers a tarot card that reminds her of the situation or the person she's talking to)- and that just felt a little flat and exposition-y to me. I think that I've just got a handful of other things to read, and found myself avoiding picking this one back up, which is usually a clue for me. I don't think that this is overall terrible - the writing itself was great and I think this will find the right audience and others will really enjoy.

Cute & cozy mystery read. Perfect for me at the perfect time! I wouldn’t call this a “thriller” or expect any magic, but the tarot card/psychic aspect made the story unique and fun. The way it was incorporated didn’t feel forced either. I enjoyed how the different meanings of the tarot cards were translated into the story, especially how Marley interpreted them. The language didn’t bother me at all; it felt natural for the characters who spoke them and I genuinely liked the characters. My favorite is the MC’s brother, Owen, who would buy boba tea everyday if he had $200,000. Same. ‘Cuz we’re friends.

I’m going to go out on a limb, but I’m thinking the relationship with our love interest went the way it did ‘in case’ there’s going to be a sequel. After all, the actual timeline in the book is only about a week, I think? Anyway, Jamie and Katie’s connection was adorable. The tension is there and we all know something’s bound to happen. Overall, I loved the whole thing, and yes; I’d read a sequel if there’s going to be one.

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group & NetGalley for sending a such a perfect match at the right time. It was def. in my cards. ;)