My Murder by Katie Williams is a suspense thriller that had me hooked from the very beginning. The novel is set in the not so distant future and includes technology that we’re familiar and comfortable with- VR headsets and screens and uses them in fresh ways. Other scientific breakthroughs, like cloning, are used in speculative ways. Lou and other women are forever linked as a serial killer’s victims and recent projects of the Replication Commission. The Replication Commission replicates, or clones, murder victims and others. The replicated people slot into the role of their predecessor’s lives. You can imagine how this doesn’t always work out perfectly, like with Lou’s infant daughter who is hesitant to warm up to the “new Lou.” The replications’ lives get further complicated when a VR video game detailing the murders is released and gamers can be either the victims or the serial murderer. Lou begins to question everything she knew about the murders, especially hers.
This book hooked me from the beginning! I couldn’t put it down and had to finish it to see what would happen. This brand of sci-fi, speculative fiction, was really engaging. I grew up on sci-fi so aliens and time traveling seems overdone at this point. I enjoyed the close ties to reality that speculative fiction has while still being inventive. I highly recommend this book for true crime fans and those that like suspense novels. Public libraries serving adults should purchase the book for their collections!

Thank you to NetGalley and Headline, Wildfire for the complimentary digital copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions shared are my own. This book is available on June 6, 2023.

The premise of solving one's own murder compelled me enough to request this. It's pretty decent as a speculative crime drama, though it's not the thriller the marketing claims it to be. It's more of a meditation on identity and postpartum depression--who are these women now that they've come back? Who is Lou as a mother? What do the people in their lives think about them? I'm sure the length hinders the book from really exploring these issues, but also, the "twist" is mildly interesting but less compelling than I thought it would be.

Although I read this book very quickly, because the premise was so interesting, in the end I would not recommend it. The idea introduced by the author is fascinating, but the story descends into a kind of video game that is hard to follow and unrelated to the ultimate story. The ending was hard to follow. It seemed that the author just did not know where to take the story after a certain point. I give it three stars, because I did read it to the end which I usually do not do if a story becomes hard to follow and uninteresting.

This book was a lot of fun and compulsively readable. I’m not typically a fan of true crime, but you don’t need to be in order to enjoy this novel. Lots of surprises and twists that I won’t give away here. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

MY MURDER is a tricky book to review without giving away any of the fun -- it's best to go in armed solely with the knowledge that Lou is a happily married mother to a sweet baby girl and also the final victim of a local serial killer. She's been given a new chance by way of a government-funded cloning project, but she cannot help but to poke around at the days leading up to her first death...and frankly, things aren't adding up. Loved this fast-paced novel that marries sci-fi with domestic thriller! Lou's voice is charming, and I could not resist gobbling this story up in a few short sittings!

This book didn't grab me, which I think says more about me than the book. I just wasn't in the mood for this one! I am glad that I read enough / skimmed the entire book to able to reccommend it to library patrons, use it in RA posts, or include in booklists.

I'm not sharing my review on GoodReads because I think this was me, not the author. Wrong book at the wrong time!

Lou was a young mother, and one of five women killed by Edward Early, a serial killer. But she and the four women are cloned, and brought back to life. They attend a weekly support group, and are grateful to have been given a second chance at life.
But Lou starts to uncover inconsistencies in her backstory. And she discovers that Early did not kill her. So was it her apparently loving husband Silas? Who can she trust with her questions? And how much is she willing to risk to determine the truth?
I found it to be an innovative and riveting story, particularly the second half.

My Murder is a terrifying read that captivates the reader. No one knows how far the government will go to have their way. There is no way to give a review without giving away a twist. We do find out in the first couple chapters that Lou is a clone. She was murdered and a group of researchers have developed a program where murder victims, it’s in the infancy stage, can be cloned. Lou meets with other victims of a serial killer and they try to navigate the world around them. It’s a scary place and the the memories are give and take of their former life. It’s a story of how can you go on with a family you barely remember, and the knowledge that you were murdered. The story dives into Lou’s story and her trying find out why she was chosen to be killed.
Nice paced book, the characters are well developed and it’s a mystery that is put together piece by piece till you have your final answer.

I read an ARC. I enjoy stories that set mystery plots in a science fiction or fantasy setting, this book is a mash-up of science fiction and a psychological suspense or domestic thriller, and I enjoyed it. I'm less well-read in the psychological suspense/domestic thriller genre, so I can't say for certain how well this story will satisfy readers of the "Girl/Woman Missing/Murdered" type books, but it worked very well for me. I especially enjoyed the way the author examined the ways that society consumes stories of men who kill women. The near future setting was very well done with very plausible technology and societal changes and I think that any reader picking this up for a suspense plot who can accept the use of cloning, even if they aren't normally a sci fi reader, will enjoy this.

This was such a fun, smart, and thought-provoking read. I wasn't really sure what to expect coming into this book and I was really surprised by how engaging and propulsive it managed to be, while still being an exemplary character study and exploration of motherhood and mental health. I finished it in one day. This is up there as one of my favorite books of the year so far. I thought that the world-building was done very well, with a light touch but still different enough from our world to invite reflection. It was interesting to think about how many things were different but how many were the same, especially for women. I thought that the characters were all so engaging and unique. A very fun read that I'll definitely be recommending. A great, smart, beach read.

What a wild ride, unexpected, vulnerable, and thought provoking. This was such a fun read with twists and mystery.

My Murder is a very original and creative story. There’s just enough near-future technology to make this speculative book unique but not too much to scare off non-sci-fi readers. The slow burn mystery keeps the story going at a good pace. The characters’ relationships and real-world issues such as post-partem depression and post traumatic growth will draw in literary fiction readers. Highly recommend to someone looking for a not-too-gory thriller with a satisfying ending.

Lou is a young mother with an adoring husband. Not much different than all the others, except she's been brought back to life after her murder. In this part mystery, part science fiction tale, Lou grapples with her return to life thanks to the Replication Commission. With the help of her serial killer survivor support group, Lou learns that everything is not always what it seems, with the Replication Commission, the clones' role, and even her own murder.

My Murder is both intriguing and thrilling. The premise is promising, the characters are interesting enough to be invested in, and the twists and turns will keep you wanting to read more. This is a very bingeable book. This book will work well for readers of almost all types of fiction - particularly mysteries, thrillers, realistic fiction, and women's fiction.

I really enjoyed the futuristic aspects of the story but that about it. The story is super super slow and the resolution wasn't worth all the reading.

Lou is murdered by a serial killer, but then brought back to life as part of a government experiment. As she re-adjusts she realizes there are still unanswered questions about her death.

This relatively short, tight sci-fi novel reminded me a fair bit of Sarah Gailey's evocative novel The Echo Wife, while taking a very different approach to the idea of cloning, identity, and women's relationships. In this case, rather than a woman cloned by her husband to be the ideal wife, it's a woman cloned by a commission, along with four other women murdered by the same serial killer. Together, they form a therapy group (with just the slightest hint of echoes of The Final Girl Support Group) and try to parse through how they feel about being famous for being victims.

All of them are treated differently by friends, families, and loved ones when they return — one's estranged from a family that becomes controlling and paranoid, another's estranged from a father who won't explain his strange remoteness and suddenly disengaged behavior. There's a murder mystery of sorts here, though it blooms late in the story — this book is much more about living with death, navigating other people's expectations and demand, and how people deal with trauma radically differently.

The sci-fi elements here are very slight — this isn't quite our world, but there are only a few major tech differences, and they're well-integrated into the background. It's much more a character piece about the protagonist, Lou, trying to decide who she is after this odd, brief interruption in her life, which seems to have reset her post-partum depression and her need to escape the life she was in — at least until one of her fellow serial-killer victims starts pulling her toward acts of rebellion and acting out.

I wouldn't say that the thematic elements and throughline are as strong in this book as in The Echo Wife, which was much more about men, women, and failed relationships — My Murder jumps around a lot more in its topics and its focus, as new information keeps emerging. That leaves it not feeling as deep and emotional, but it certainly keeps it surprising, and I found it hard to put down as I tried to keep up with the book's sudden, startling shifts and many mysteries. Overall an entertaining and unique book that I had a good time with.

I started "My Murder" and found it intriguing with its most unusual first-person account, by a victim, of her murder. Bit by bit, revelations emerged of the murder and how she and others were brought back. But I'm afraid my interest petered out and I stopped reading after about a third of it. Others may find it more engaging than I did.

Lou, young mother and wife, is cloned following her murder. She's aware of what happened, big picture, and that she is not her "original" self. She wasn't the only one cloned at that time, and is in a support group with the others who were--all victims of the same murderer. But Lou needs answers, closure maybe, for her "first" self.

The premise drew me in. Interesting speculative fiction, searching for the answers to your own murder. It's, well...a weird twist of an existential crisis. The world-building was done well. It's not set too far into the future as to be unrecognizable, and playing out the possibilities inherent in technologies to put it just beyond our current reach. I liked this story, but I have mixed feelings about it.

I couldn't connect with Lou the way she was written. I do realize it may have been intentional that she was hard to connect with, because I think she was having a hard time connecting with herself. I may also be hoping that was the author's intent. I did, however, connect with her baby, who knew something wasn't exactly right with her momma.

The "thriller" aspect, per the publisher's blurb, isn't a thriller for me. It's a mystery, there's crime drama, but it doesn't "thrill" to me. A little more than halfway through the story, you discover that what Lou (and the reader) thought was the truth isn't quite that. It's not completely outside the realm of possibility from the get go. From that point, the story is rushed and comes together too quickly.

The whole book is part mystery drama, part deep character study. I needed it to lean one way or the other to be more than a 3 star read.

I have to admit that I wanted to read this book just from the title and the buzz I heard about it. Because of that, I had a completely different idea of what this book was going to be about. I was pleasantly surprised that it was more compelling and thought-provoking than I had imagined. This is an interesting genre-bending book with a mix of science fiction and mystery, I guess it would be classified as speculative crime drama. There aren't many books that fall into that category and, as a big fan of sci-fi and mystery, I was intrigued at the premise. The blend of genres is done very well here and makes for a contemplative, engrossing read. There are some dark themes and, as good speculative fiction should, really makes you think about our own world, lives and humanity, and it achieves this in a rather short book. I will definitely recommend this read. Thanks to Netgalley and Riverhead Books for an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A group of women were cloned after they were murdered by a serial killer. A plot twist reveals a disturbing truth about one of them.