I was intrigued by the premise of this mystery: a group of friends who lost touch after a friend went missing on their Spring Break trip decided to go back to the winery for closure. However, this one missed the mark for me.

I originally liked the concept of the screenplay layered in with the story, but as the book went on it was hard to follow and left the reader wondering how much to believe. I would have maybe kept the screenplay to the helpful backstory and flashbacks, but I wasn't a fan of when it took over and advanced the more "present-day" plot, with edits/notes. I found the ending especially frustrating and unresolved.

The plot relies on each of these "frenemies" hating each other enough that you suspect everyone, but in execution, it just makes for really terrible characters. I didn't understand how these girls were ever friends enough to take the original Spring Break trip, let alone come together 15 years later. There was just a lot of repetitive hostility that made me not want to keep picking this one up.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and Bantam for the advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of SCENES OF THE CRIME by Jilly Gagnon. While every character in this story was unlikable and even a bit evil, I'd consider that par for the course when it comes to thrillers, so it didn't bother me. I still enjoyed all the mystery and the twists and turns and schemes along the way. Some of the action scenes started to get repetitive—like very similar events happening to the same person over and over—but I'm willing to overlook it. I also enjoyed the scenes—mostly flashbacks but not always—written out like scripts. I thought that was different and fun. Sometimes the timeline jumps got confusing, especially with the whole concept of some scenes being true to what really happened and some not, and sometimes they contradicted each other—that got hard to parse on occasion. Still, overall I had fun reading it, and that's what counts.

This locked room mystery had so much potential but it was kinda meh.

Taking place at a winery 15 years after their mutual friend disappeared, a group of friends get together for closure, and to make sure nobody discovers their secrets about that night.

This story is told in dual timelines. The past timeline is set through a movie script - which was such a fun addition! However as much as I love mixed media, this confused me and took away from the reliability of the narrator. The mystery itself was engaging but honestly I’m still confused about the ending.

I think this was a good book and I had a great time with it, but it was a little too much going on for me.

This is a novel about female friendships and secrets that need to be uncovered before any of the friends can progress in their lives. Fifteen years before the current story starts, all four friends were at the winery for a girlfriends’ weekend when Vanessa disappears. Emily, a close friend, has a vague memory of meeting Vee on the beach, but nothing that really helps her give closure to her friend’s disappearance. The book has almost a dual timeline as it swings back and forth from the present to a screen play that Emily is writing that is set in the past when Vanessa disappeared. The friends who show up at the winery for a final farewell to Vanessa are Brittany, Lydia and Emily. Emily is a screenwriter but not very happy with her job. Brittany is an heiress and a stay-at-home mom with a lot of extra time on her hands. Paige is an anomaly and Lydia is the misfit of the group. I liked the back and forth between the novel and the screen play, but I did find the novel part tedious at times as there were a lot of extra details that did not add a great deal to the story. The setting is atmospheric, so I liked that gothic-type of mysterious setting. I also liked the characters but did not find them particularly relatable or even believable. Emily was the most realistic and was the narrator, but she is not a reliable storyteller, so even she did not meet my expectations of weaving the story clearly. I got lost at times in the past as more and more details about Vanessa’s disappearance were added and more than once had to look back a few pages to get clues that I had missed during the wordy descriptions that were constantly included. All in all, this is a good read and reminded me a great deal of the Victoria Holt novels that I read many years ago.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16th CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

I'm not sure what I just read. The story is presented to us by an unreliable narrator, with flashbacks that are her proposed screenplay version of events. Five unlikeable women try to sort out events from their past in which one of them died, or disappeared, or conspired with one, or more, of the others. I can see what the author was trying to do by having the narrator see things as a potential screenplay, but the execution wasn't there.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The atmospheric setting of this one was the star, with the coastal caves adding drama to a story that didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped. I liked the "scripted" interludes quite a bit as well. However, character didn't get developed as well as I'd have liked, and the mystery/plot of this one feels solidly "done."

Five friends go to a remote Oregon winery for spring break, which seemed perfect until Vanessa disappeared. Years later, Emily spots Vanessa’s doppelganger at a local café. This inspires her to figure out what happened that fateful day, so she invites everyone back to the scene of the crime. Each woman has a story, but how will Emily learn the truth?

We open with Emily, who works in Hollywood and off and on for years has toyed with a screenplay based on Vanessa's disappearance. All of the women get together when she suggests it to queen bee Brittany, who cares more about appearances and her pampered life. Brittany is still close to Paige, who follows her cues. Lydia had some contact with Emily, but otherwise, the four women have gone their separate ways. When they do get together, it's a biting and awful scene that's awkward and uncomfortable to read. They don't like each other, and Vanessa had been the glue in their college friendships. All have secrets, and none of them want those secrets to be exposed.

I enjoyed seeing portions of the screenplay that Emily was putting together, and the occasional commentary or notes in a different script. It highlights the new information we get as the weekend progresses, the secrets revealed and the oddities in the vineyard because of the cavern system beneath it. These aren't really pleasant people, but Emily is by far the least terrible of them all. She's at least the one I can see myself spending any time with, and the others not at all. The end was a surprise, and it was a gripping tale until the end.

Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon
Release Date: 9/5/23
Format: audio/ebook hybrid
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

There are few thriller tropes I enjoy more than the unsolved mystery resulting in a sloppy reunion between college friends! That is exactly what Scenes of the Crime is…four college friends getting back together at a beautiful winery on the Oregon coast where their friend went missing years ago!

Y’all…these friends are SLOPPY. It was fun to watch everything (and everyone) unravel but I did have a hard time connecting with these unlikable characters! The pacing is quick, but I found the plot a little confusing at places.

Our main character is a screenwriter and Gagnon does some creative writing by throwing in actual screenwriting scenes throughout the book. I thought this was a really neat way to get our flashbacks! I also felt like the narrator was picked very well for the audiobook.

All in all, a solid thriller! I’d check it out if you enjoyed The Hunting Wives by May Cobb!

Five friends have a girls’ weekend at a remote vineyard, which results in a missing woman. Did she have an accident or were more sinister forces at work? One of the women decides to have a reunion at the Scenes of the Crime while working on a script about what happened all those years ago. Nothing could possibly go wrong, right?

The book starts well but then quickly gets both confusing and repetitive. There are too many versions of the same events. The script formatted scenes show a modified version of the original girls’ trip. The flashbacks show another version. The present-day scenes vary depending on whose point of view is shown. By the reveal during the book’s conclusion, I really didn’t care which version was correct. Overall, Scenes of the Crime is a confusing mess that I don’t recommend at all. I’m not even sure how it got published. 2 stars.

Thanks to Bantam Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

Gagnon’s All Dressed Up was a fun read but this one fell flat. I absolutely adored the winery setting but I had a hard time really rooting for any of the character, each with their own motives for attending the trip. I rotated between reading and listening this one and it was much easier to read with the breaks where you had a screenplay going.

Scenes of the Crime is a unique take on the typical locked room mystery. Five college friends, one of whom died during a group getaway weekend at a vineyard, reunite 15 years later with the intent of resolving the mystery of what happened to Vanessa. One of the friends, Emily, is writing a screenplay based on the incident, and scenes from this writing are interspersed within the novel.

Contrary to many of the reviews I have seen, I thought that the scenes from Emily's writing brought clarity to some of the events referred to by the other characters. I did have some difficulty keeping fictional and real events separate, but it added some suspense to what was really a pretty basic plot and filled in some of the gaps in the story. Overall, I found the characters to be a bit cliche, not very nice people, and even in college they had not been what I would consider loyal or trustworthy as friends. Therein lies my struggle with the book: not much really happened, and I did not much care what happened to Vanessa, anyway. The actual conclusion of the mystery was, for me, a bit ho-hum and somewhat cliche.

Overall, Scenes of the Crime would be a good choice for a vacation read, where you don't want to think very hard about the story or get too emotionally involved.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House-Ballantine for the digital ARC of Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon. The opinions in this review are my own.

Vanessa disappeared on a girls’ trip years ago. Emily has wanted to write that story for the big screen for years. Finally seizing on her chance, Emily gets the remaining women together back at the original location to finally figure out the truth about that long ago night-or at least she hopes so.

This is a meditation on female friendship wrapped up in a suspenseful psychological thriller. Gagnon expertly explores what it truly means to be both a woman and a friend, and what happens if delusions around a supposed friendship do not hold true. The effects of a false friendship can cause harm long after the person is gone.

By including scenes from Emily’s script, Gagnon also plays with the idea of the unreliable female narrator, and what “based on a true story” really means. Readers get fictionalized versions of moments of the story, including things Emily wasn’t present for.

This is a clever book that I would recommend.

Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon is my first book by this author and definitely not the last. This is a suspenseful story with many twist and turns. It is told in dual timelines with a twist, it has screenplay written into it. I really enjoyed this writing style. It is filled with friendships, secrets, lies, jealousy, mystery and murder. The characters are well developed, some likable and some not, with toxic tendencies. The story is fast paced and totally enthralling. It is unpredictable with a jaw dropping ending that will leave you speechless!! I highly recommend this one and look forward to reading more from Ms. Gagnon.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House, Bantam and Jilly Gagnon for this compelling story to read and review. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
#netgalley. #randomhouse. #bantam. #jillygagnon. #scenesofthecrime. #arc

It was suppose to be the perfect spring break. A remote Oregon Coast winery, an endless supply of wine and 5 college friends. During the trip something horrible happens and one of the five, Vanessa, vanishes without a trace and is presumed dead. Years later, the four left return to the winery to find out what really happened during that trip. Emily, now a writer for a television show just knows she can get the truth out of them and write the ultimate script for a new show.

This is the second book I have read by Jilly Gagnon and I just love her locked room mysteries. She uses a lot of descriptive words and phrases to describe the beauty of this remote Oregon Winery. The way the book bounces from the past and present with script writing was really interesting. The ending was not what I thought which I really appreciated.

Scenes of a Crime followed a script of basic book writing and it fell a little flat for me. Five 20 somethings, on a remote winery that is owned by one of the ladies' families. This has been overplayed at old hotels, ski lodges, hospitals, islands, etc. Then the book threw in a character that is actually trying to write a screen play 15 years after the initial trip and excerpts are stuck into the book. I did not feel the screen play aspects added to the overall story and hurt the flow.

This book is fine if you are looking for a beach read that is predictable and takes little concentration to figure out what is coming next. For some reason this book was memorable, so I believe there is a pretty good bones that make up this story.

I would like to thank NetGalley for an advanced copy of Scenes of a Crime in exchange for an honest review. #NetGalley #ScenesoftheCrime #Jilly Gagnon

I didn't know what to expect with this one. To be honest, I'm a little burnt out on thrillers at the moment but the premise of this one really interested me. I'm so glad I picked it up. There was no guessing game on who did what and where and when. The author throws curve balls left and right, which made for a very entertaining read. Right off the bat, we learn through scripts in between chapters, the narrator is unreliable. And that premise is true until the final page of the book. I am here for it. Emily was such an interesting character, and I wasn't sure if she was the good guy or the bad guy (I'm still not). The story keeps you hooked, and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to read it.

Unfortunately, I was underwhelmed by this story and had such a hard time getting through it. 

I truly feel that what the author was trying to do was unique, which I appreciate. The mystery and thriller genre can be formulaic in nature, so mixing it up and attempting something new is admirable. It was great in theory to try it out. Mixing in the flashbacks through screenwriting was kinda cool and I loved that the author tried to be different. 

But in practice, I think it hurt the pacing. I know what the author was trying to do. She was trying to blend fact and fiction so that we, as an audience, were not only more invested, but less likely to pick out the twists and turns because we ourselves were twisted and turned. But to me, it was too slow for a build up that had very little pay off. For 50% of the book, it felt like nothing happened. And even when it did, I found that being so confused about what was fact and what was fiction actually hurt my understanding of the plot.

I also had large problems with the characters. The author tried to create toxic female friendships in their various forms. Many of the other reviewers stated that the women were unlikable. To me, an unlikable female character, when done well, really propels a novel forward. A woman doesn't HAVE to be likeable to be worthy. But, in this case, the characters were not done well. They were caricatures of what toxic female relationships looked like. Their motivations were confusing and very one dimensional. And because their motivations were the foundation of the novel, it created a novel that was limited and perplexing.

Overall, this was not the book for me. While I appreciate the author's attempts to try something new for the genre, I feel as if nothing happened for a majority of the book, the characters were too simplistic and reductive, and the plot just didn't add up.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a bit of a predictable story. It does have a Ya feel to it and may be more suitable for that audience.
I struggled to get through it. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

I struggled a little bit with the formatting of this, but that is on me. I thought it was a unique writing style.

When Emily sees a woman who looks exactly like her old friend Vanessa, who went missing years ago, she must go back to where it all happened to put the pieces together. With her screenwriter background, she has a unique way of fitting the puzzle pieces together.

She invites three girls to the place it all went down to uncover the truth. And of course, we learn they all had motive for wanting Vanessa gone.

This just wasn’t riveting enough to keep me fully invested. I found the characters a little dull, though ultimately, this was an enjoyable mystery.

4.25 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.


Emily is a screenwriter. She’s had a story in her head for years, but hasn’t been able to get it on paper. So when she thinks she sees her long dead friend in a coffee shop, Emily decides it’s time to solve the mystery of her friend’s disappearance years ago and get that story finished.

The four remaining women involved in the original mystery meet back up at the house where Vanessa went missing, but supposedly died, on the Oregon coastline. Emily knows that one of them has the true story locked deep away, but which one. After all these years can Emily’s sleuthing reveal the truth and help her complete the story that has no ending?

Great novel. I read Jilly Gagnon’s previous mystery - All Dressed Up - but this one was ten times better. I loved how the actual story was interspersed with flashbacks and pieces of the screenplay that Emily is working on. While I had my suspicions of how it would end, I truly never expected the ending that happened.

Really fun read, especially for a cold, foggy night along the coast with a glass of good Oregonian wine.