Thank you to netgalley and Katy Brent for sending me a free arc of The murder after the night before un exchange for an honest review.

This is a modem day whodunnit which offers many twists and turns throughout, keeping the reader on their toes. Characters are introduced purely to act as red herrings yet hose of them feel unnecessary and the inclusion of the tweets at the start of each chapter are an interesting theme throughout.

Though the title deals with some heavy themes - grief, sexual assault and victim blaming, among others - it manages to maintain an engaging tone, atmosphere and ability to keep the reader wanting to read without needing a break to digest the topics.

The plot is fairly fast paced and the plot twists and final reveals are especially well done. Some of the language used does, at times, feel shoehorned in, in order to remind readers that the author does not agree with a certain thought or plot point but other than this, it was an excellent novel.

I loved HOW TO KILL MEN AND GET AWAY WITH IT so I was really looking forward to reading this one.

And what a fantastic book it was!

It's so twisted - I felt so sorry for Molly! I liked that there were multiple storylines to follow and the way they connected was very clever.

I had an idea of who the killer was but I couldn't have been more wrong. It's kind of obvious when you think about it but I liked that there was a legit motive for the murder.

I'm so looking forward to reading more books by this author!

This was a good read. I thought the idea was interesting and it certainly kept me intrigued. It was an easy and engaging read which kept me up late on one occasion because I wanted to know how it would end. The plot went in a direction that I wasn't expecting at all, and had a few twists which kept me reading. It also seemed to have several threads which were all brought together nicely and finished off so there were no loose ends. I did think that the majority of the last two chapters was unnecessary.

Having the main character go viral from something that wasn't her choice was an unusual angle, and I think it was important to show how that affected her and her life. At first, I wasn't sure it was entirely necessary to the plot but it did seem to have some relevance towards the end. I also found it interesting for there to be a detailed description of the dark web and VPNs. I'm not sure how many of the general readers would be aware of either of those things.

The characters were quite good, Molly certainly seemed to be realistic and flawed. Posey was too perfect but that was part of the character anyway. The revelation about Jack and his connection to Molly and Posey was just a bit too pat though.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy to read and review.

I absolutely loved ‘How to Kill Men and Get Away with It’, so I was a bit worried going into this one, but I didn’t need to be! Although different this thriller had the same thrills and wit the other book did, but I found Molly a much more sympathetic character. I will now be reading all books by this author in the future.
Thanks to net galley and HQ (Harper Collins publishers) for my arc copy of this book.

As per her first book, this one is quite a gripping read. Funny while still being a good thriller, which is not small feat. I read it in 2 sittings as i genuinely needed to know what was going to happen next. Katy Brent is definitely one to watch (and read!).

Thanks to Netgalley and HQ for this book. What a great way to start 2024. This book is dark but not without humour and it is so superbly paced. I couldn’t put it down. We wake up with Molly, who’s the worse for the wear after her work Christmas party and her life continues to spiral out of control.

Molly is a rare heroine in that she’s really quite flawed but intensely easy to root for. She says inadvisable things, she drinks too much and she’s perhaps not entirely happy in her job as a journalist for a girls’ magazine. Her best friend is dead, and there is a mystery involving a missing teenager, and that’s on top of the reason Molly is trending on social media. The plot unravels in such a satisfying way and it is an easy read; it’s the sort of novel so well written that just it flowed into my brain with minimal effort on my part which is honestly how I like to spend my New Year’s Day. As Molly uncovers a very dark truth, we learn more about her and, eventually, we even learn why her relationship with her father is strained (now that was a twist).

This is an incredibly modern mystery; social media is lurking around the edges of the entire story in a quietly intrusive way and we certainly have cause to doubt Molly’s reasoning, and whether we really should trust Jack, the handsome stranger who woke up in her bed the morning after the night before…

Now that I’ve read this book, I am absolutely going to read Katy Brent’s first book, intriguingly titled How to Kill Men and Get Away With It) which, by description, sounds like it will be every bit as clever and dark as The Murder After The Night Before.

I very much recommend this book, especially if you like slightly dark murder mysteries with real character.

Rating: 4 stars
TL;DR: Molly Monroe wakes up with a stranger in her bed, and she is going viral on social media for the worst reason. Her day will get magnitudes worse when she discovers the body of her best friend, and finds herself immersed in another mystery.
Content warning for sexual assault, domestic violence.

I loved Katy’s last book, and was excited for this one but also a bit worried - after all, I had high hopes. No need to worry though- this is brilliant!

I’ve gone through a lot of emotions with this one, originally mortification and cringe, upset, terrror, shouting at Molly, and a bit of humour too. Oh Molly….but also Molly!!!

An absolute rollercoaster- I blumming love it!

My thanks to Netgalley and HQ for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a DNF for me. I really enjoyed the authors previous book, How to lol men and get away with it, and thought this book would be on a similar dark humour line, but sadly there are no similarities. There are quite a number of vulgarities within just the first few chapters, and the main character didn’t come across as someone I wanted to get invested in. I gave up after the HR meeting, as I wasn’t liking this book, and didn’t see it improving

I liked the overall writing style and how fast paced this book was, and I'm totally here for any book that wants to send a good message about sexual assault and slut and victim shaming. Oh, and I love the cover! Unfortunately, the things I like stopped there. Here's what I wasn't the biggest fan of:

It was SO predictable. Any plot twist that was meant to be a huge shock was something I had figured out a long time before it happened.

The final chapter was too abrupt and really deserved more. I feel cheated after reading an entire book and having that be the end.

Why is Molly's backstory not revealed until the end? She drove me insane for so much of the book, but had I known what the end revealed, I would have understood her as a person so much more! It made so many things about her make sense and there was no reason at all for it to be held back for the entire story.

There were more things I didn't like about this book than things I did like, which obviously isn't ideal.

I absolutely loved Katy Brent's first book How To kill Men and Get Away With It #KittyCollins so I couldn't wait to read this when I seen it.

What a read! Twist after twist the suspense kept me gripped all the way through. Katy Brent is definitely an auto buy author for me!

#IsMollyMonroeAwakeYet

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for the digital copy

Huge thanks to Katy Brent and HQ for the chance to read this ARC, n exchange for an honest review. I love The Murder After the Night Before, the mystery is dark and realistic to the pressures of blackmail and unwanted attention. I also, loved Katy Brent’s first book but, this kept me gripped until the last page. It was haunting.

I love the dark humour that Katy brings to her stories. A dead friend, a strange man in her bed and the hangover from hell. What's not to like!

A real page turner! This was a bit of a mystery that had me guessing all the way through. I enjoyed the main character and the twists throughout. There’s some great humour in this and I am definitely looking forward to the author’s next book. I have already read (and enjoyed) her first. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers.

Brent’s second novel is much more of a mystery than her first, where the protagonist was the murderer from the outset, but it has very much the same vibe. I raced through The Murder After the Night Before to find out what really happened to Molly’s investigative journalist flatmate, but I found some of the coincidences I had to accept to be too much. Posey, the maybe murdered flatmate, apparently says there’s no such thing as a coincidence and yet Brent’s readers have to believe that she happened to live next door to and be having an affair with a man involved in the case she’s investigating, and her boss is curiously part of it too.

Such an intriguing mystery which alternates dark humor with realism. The plot is unique and well-built, the characters are multi-faceted, I adored the protagonist: she is strong but vulnerable, imperfect but witty and very determinate.
The style is fluid, satisfying and brilliant. Would definitely recommend it to chic-lit readers who adore sarcasm, plot twists and believable characters in a story filled with every possible emotion.

Thanks so much NetGalley and HQ.

Katy Brent is becoming one of my favorite authors. How to Kill Men and Get Away with It is one of my favorites for this year!

Molly wakes up and there's a stranger in her bed. She can't remember anything about the night before. Suddenly, she's gone viral on Twitter (or X?) and her best friend is dead. The police rule it an accident, but she is not convinced. She's determined to solve it even if her life is in danger as she unlocks secrets.

This was such a fun read! I really love how Katy Brent writes her characters. They are bold, brave, and sometimes ridiculous. I liked how there were several elements to the plot. I was laughing while on the edge of my seat. What a great read!

Wow, surprisingly a good time of year to read this book considering it opens the day after the company’s Christmas party. What a journey we go on in this book. It starts off humorous and then takes a turn. It reminds me of 13 Going on 30. It’s cute until it’s not. The reveal at the end really had me pondering the book as a whole for a while. It really makes you sit and reflect.

Well! this was certainly a page turner with some relatable characters facing very human and often contemporary issues (and less common things like murder!) often with a dash of black humour.
Whilst I did find some of the plot twists a bit too contrived and complicated, overall I thought it was a very good read
Thank you to netgalley and HQ for an advance copy of this book.

I have heard good things about Kathy Brent’s previous novel How to get away with murder. That I must confess I am yet to read. I was intrigued by this novel.
Molly Monroe wakes up with a severe hangover after a Christmas works party and finds a handsome stranger in her bed. She I still fully clothed and the stranger says that she was wondering all around Vauxhall and he wanted to get her home safely.
When she gets into work, she works for as a journalist for a pre-teen magazine. As it is too obvious to take a sickie. She is called in by her boss, who tells her she is in trouble and shows her a video of her drunk and in a sexual position. She is horrified and is set on disgracefully.
When she gets home, she contacts her friend Posey who is an investigative journalist to tell her about her day but when she tries to ring her at work. Someone else picks up her phone at work and said she didn’t come in today. That’s odd Molly thinks as she heard her go out this morning. So, she knocks on her door to see if she is in. When she goes into her room, she finds her life long best friend dead in the bath.
The Police arrive and claim it is an accidental death. But Molly knows that Posey was happy not suicidal. There is something not quite right about this.
Thank you, HQ, for a copy of ‘The murder after the night before’. This is highly entertaining read. At first thought I was feeling a bit confused as I thought this was going to be a comedy, strange due to the title. But as we learned the fate of Posey it took a different turn. But both sides of the story fitted perfectly. This is a gripping thriller and also relatable to sadly what happens on Social media. 5 stars from me.

"The Murder After the Night Before" is a gripping and enthralling tale that captured my attention right from the start. The story revolves around our protagonist, Molly, whose life takes a sudden twist as she wakes up to the aftermath of a wild and unforgettable night with no memory of its events. However, an excruciating hangover and a stranger by her side foreshadow that this day will not be pleasant for Molly. As the plot unfolds, Molly discovers a viral video circulating online, revealing her outrageous antics from the previous night. This unexpected revelation only adds to her woes. But there's more to come – she soon learns the devastating news of her best friend Posey's untimely demise, which the police believe to be an accident. However, fuelled by her unwavering conviction, Molly refuses to accept the accident theory and becomes determined to uncover the truth behind Posey's death. The path she embarks on is fraught with danger and uncertainty, but she is resolute in her pursuit of justice.
The book stands out because it cleverly blends different genres, giving it a unique flavour. It incorporates elements of murder mystery, psychological thriller, rom-com, comedy, and social commentary, which may seem like an unconventional mix, but Katy Brent has managed to make it work. The writer has struck a perfect balance between heavy drama and light-hearted moments of humour, which provides a refreshing break from the tension.
The story's main characters are highly relatable and possess realistic qualities, including well-crafted backstories and imperfect yet charming personalities. Moreover, the supporting characters are thoughtfully written with distinctive quirks and motivations that add depth to the narrative. The story's character development is exceptional, creating an immersive reading experience that captivates its audience.
The story is highly captivating, with numerous unforeseen events and revelations that maintain the reader's interest throughout. Even though some twists and turns are hinted at, most come as a complete shock, keeping the reader on edge and always anticipating what will come next. Katy Brent has exceptionally crafted a narrative that keeps the reader engrossed, making it challenging to stop reading the book.
"The Murder After the Night Before" is a book that I find pretty intriguing. It's a murder mystery that keeps the reader engaged throughout, but what sets it apart is the underlying themes it explores. The book delves into some of the most significant social issues of our time, including online shaming, consent, and the impact of viral videos on one's life. I found the commentary on the complexities of modern society thought-provoking and insightful, adding depth and nuance to the story. Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in exploring the darker side of our interconnected world.
If you're into books that give you goosebumps, I highly recommend "The Murder After the Night Before" by Katy Brent. Her writing is so engaging that it keeps readers hooked and at the edge of their seats from start to finish. Brent's exceptional talent for creating an unpredictably exciting storyline with many twists and turns is genuinely remarkable. I eagerly anticipate her next release and can't wait to discover what other surprises she has in store for us readers.