In 1965, a Frances Adams receives a haunting fortune while attending a country fair with her friends. It predicts one day that Frances will be murdered. As a result of this fortune Frances spends the rest of her life trying to prevent her murder, or at the very least leave enough evidence for it to be solved. As she aged and her trust in other dwindled, many felt she was mentally unwell. On the day her great niece Annie Adams was supposed to meet with her for the first time, Francis is found murdered. As part of her will Francis leaves her estate to the one who can solve her murder. Annie is put up against a detective and Francis’ step-nephew. Solving the crime becomes priority number one for Annie and everyone in town seems suspect.
Thank you Netgalley for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. What a premise! Lacking execution. Don’t need a romance involved. Many unbelievable parts. This ended up being just okay for me, but I may pick up the second book in the series just to see for sure. Be prepared to suspend belief and be slightly confused with some of the timeline as it goes back and forth.

<i> How to Solve Your Own Murder</i> ended up being a suprisingly delightful little mystery. I am not a overwhelmingly big fan of cozy mysteries. Although this started off as what I thought was one, quickly turned into something that felt a bit more.
Annie found herself as the sole heir to her great aunt's fortune one day and then the next she was solving her murder in order to earn that fortune. Annie is not the typical, quirky self-proclaimed detective. Even though she does investigate on her own, she still isn't sneaky about it and includes law enforcement as much as she can. The cast of characters is an interesting bunch and they make for a good whodunit.
I enjoyed this mystery. I like that it is the first part of a series. I can only imagine where the next book will take us, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

This was very Agatha Christie meets Knives Out and I LOVED IT!!!

Thank you Net Galley for my free copy in exchange for an honest review!


I do love a cozy, English mystery. This was entertaining, twisty and had an ending I didn't see coming.
Four Stars!

An unique tale as written in the title of the book. Great Aunt Frances is murdered just before Annie is to meet her at the offices of Gordon,l Owen, and Martlod LLC to discuss the responsibilities of being the sole benefactor. Not everything is straight forward for Annie after Frances' death. Annie has one week to discover who killed her aunt. There are many potential murderers. And how does this relate to a murder that occurred sixty years earlier?
Read to learn who, why this happens in Castle Knoll. Well-written.
Also, is there another story coming about Annie and Castle Knoll?

Good clear writing. Interesting characters. Nice pace. The conclusion of the mystery was a little wanting. It didn't seem to match the rest of the story or plot. Pay attention to small details.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for an arc of this novel. I was sent this book in exchange for my honest review. My thoughts are entirely my own.

In this book we are following Annie who is summoned to her Great Aunt Frances's house. Annie and her mother have been told from their Great Aunt that they will inherit her home because of a prophecy she was given when she was sixteen years old. Great Aunt Frances was obsessed with that prophecy which shaped the rest of her live and made her write everything down so that Annie could figure out her murder. Annie discovers that her mother is actually the biological daughter of her best friend Emily who went missing when they were seventeen. Rose is the only friend out of the trio that is still alive and is devastated by Frances death. Frances put's a speculation in her will that states that whoever solves her murder gets the house. Annie starts to investigate and starts to read Frances's diary during the year of Emily's disappearance. After some ups and downs Annie discovers that Joe killed Frances because his mother Rose killed Emily to set both herself and Frances free. Frances finds out the truth after Annie sends back a trunk with Emily's body in it which Annie discovers after discovering it in Great Aunt Frances's library. There are quite a few comparisons to Agatha Christie and I found this story very interesting . I'm glad that Frances finally figured out what happened to her friend Emily.

This book was good but didn’t have much of an impact on me. It was a lot to process. Frances’ fortune about being murdered (not a spoiler) was intriguing the first few times I heard it. But the book is muddled with all the side stories of characters that left me asking who is it talking about now?

With all the characters it was hard to get to know any of them more in depth.

I am a big fan of alternating storylines so I did enjoy that aspect of the book. Piecing the puzzle together was not as big of a mystery as I would have liked but it did keep me entertained.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced ebook

As other reader's have said, the premise of this novel is great. A fortune predicts Frances's death, and 60 years later, the prediction seems to have come true. Having been given plenty of warning about her own murder, Frances has set it up to have her grand-niece Annie Adams investigate her murder.

I found the characters somewhat stilted, and kept losing track of the thread of the story. There are plenty of positive reviews of this book available, so maybe its just that I was easily distracted while I was listening to the audio!

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

QUICK TAKE: I am a sucker for any book that features a poisonous garden or poisonous plants…don’t ask me why. There’s something so dark and f*cked up about seemingly beautiful, innocuous flowers and plants being used in service of…murder. I love it. So no surprise, I instantly prioritized HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER after reading a review of it in last week’s NYT and seeing that the murder weapon used in the death that kicks off the novel is…a bouquet of flowers full of freakin’ needles!! yes yes yes. gimme gimme. And good news for all of us: the book is a VERY solid whodunnit. I struggled a bit to keep track of all the characters (many who are family members sharing the same last name who are woven into both the flashbacks and present day storylines), and the ultimate reveal of the killer is…fine. But the story moves at a brisk pace, the twists feel earned, and the mystery is engaging. It’s not my favorite murder mystery of the year (still EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT), but it’s worth recommending if you’re looking for something in the genre.

While I did enjoy this book because there is nothing more than a good whodunnit involving a murder that was 40 years ago as well as a current murder, I just felt that this book felt a bit flat. I like that the reader got to be involved in both the murder of Emily Sparrow as well as Frances. With that being said, did I find that all the characters to be a bit overwhelming at first which made it difficult to keep it all straight. Then, by the end of the book I felt like the momentum was almost completely gone. I wished that there was just a bit more build up in tension in the book to make it more believable. I think that the author did a good job wrapping up the mystery and I enjoyed reading the diary entries from Frances, but it felt just a bit disjointed at times. No matter, I did like it but just wished that it gave me a bit more in the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this book. All opinions within this review are my own.

This was such a fun read! It gave me a lot of Murder She Wrote vibes, and was very cozy - with a satisfying mystery and interesting cast of characters. I would definitely recommend to mystery lovers who are looking for something more cozy, but not too sweet.

I think this was really fun! I’m a sucker for a dual timeline so I really enjoyed reading for Frances’ perspective and Annie’s. And to be honestly I really never figured out this mystery. It was a lot of turns where I never knew who exactly to trust! Lots of fun, wasn’t perfect though because I think it takes a bit to jump into the scene and understand what you are getting into. But overall I would recommend to anyone that’s looking for a new who done it! Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC and for letting preview this twisty story!

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a fun read, with a unique plot device. Kristen Perrin creates a plot that uses two time periods, 60 years apart, to create a murder, which the victim spends those 60 years trying to solve. The earlier time period, in the mid 1960s, is Frances' story, which focuses on a fortune teller who predicts Frances will be murdered. This earlier time is retold in journal entries, which are in italics, and so switching back and forth between time periods was easy. Sixty years later, Annie arrives for a meeting with her Great Aunt Frances, only to discover that Frances has been murdered. As could be predicted, there are many suspects and many clues to be examined and rejected. Solving Great Aunt Frances' murder is devised as a competition between two possible heirs, but readers will definitely choose Annie as our hopeful would-be-winner.

There are a great many characters, and I suspect many readers will be hoping for a cast of characters in the front of the novel. How to Solve Your Own Murder is book 1 in a new series, which apparently will also soon appear on British TV. I did enjoy this novel, although I felt a bit of a drag in the middle. I would have liked more background information, since I found myself feeling like I had jumped into the novel in the midst of a few chapters. Perhaps more background will be supplied in subsequent novels. Many of the expected elements of a British murder mystery were included, although I did expect this large British home to have more bedrooms? In the end, chaos is replaced by order and the small English village is once again a place of peace.

I do recommend How to Solve Your Own Murder. The mystery was good and most of the loose ends were tied up at the end. Thank you to the author, Perrin, and publisher, Penguin Group Dutton, and Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was so much fun! Recommended by a co-worker, it was full of twists, turns and what a cast of characters!

This had so much potential! I loved the idea of the premise, but the volume of characters was overwhelming and made it hard to follow. Some of the dialogue also seemed unnatural, making it less engaging to keep reading. The main character was hard to get to know, and the title is a bit misleading, as it's really her family solving the murder. Overall, it was solid, but not quite what I'd expected given the hype..

What a wild premise! Hearing a fortune as a young woman, and then living your life with it always in mind- affecting every decision and judgment you make as you go along! Incredible fun.

One of the best mysteries of the year! I absolutely loved How to Solve Your Own Murder. Perrin’s writing is so, so good. I felt like they accomplished what most mystery writers aspire to in that they created a cast of characters that you equally loved and hated and felt like you knew. I had inklings of the ending but wasn’t able to figure it out completely which is rare for me and very exciting! I’m not sure with how the book ended if there is room for more story, but I would love to see this become a series!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The characters, the twists! The way this was written I went back and forth the entire time not being sure who really did it! She made it plausible that ANY of them could have!! SO GOOD! I ate this up! I can't wait for more!!!

🕵️‍♀️ I quite enjoyed this cozy little mystery!

🕵️‍♀️ I’m a big fan of the amateur sleuth trope and when you throw in a perplexing prediction, erratic clues, cryptic notes, red herrings, small town dynamics, terrible relatives, a potential fortune within grasp, a smidge of romance, and a murder or two… well, I am fully on board!

🕵️‍♀️ This book is told in two narratives/timelines. The past narrative is told via diary entries written by a woman named Frances when she was a teenager, and the future narrative is from the perspective of Frances’ estranged great niece Annie. Annie is trying to solve her aunt’s recent murder.

🕵️‍♀️ I thought the plot was well-developed and reasonably complex, with a large cast of characters. I quite liked the characterizations. Everyone, even the “bad guys”, seemed like normal everyday people who were simply caught up in situations that spiraled out of their control.

🕵️‍♀️ I did feel like the middle plodded along just a bit too much for my personal preference, but I still flew through the book. I also wanted a little more back story information about some of the side characters in the story. I did notice that Goodreads has this book noted as Castle Knoll Files #1, which indicates to me that this is the first book in a planned series, so maybe I’ll get some of that backstory I wanted in the future books.

🕵️‍♀️ If you like cozy murder mysteries I think you’ll enjoy this one.

Thank you @netgalley and @DuttonBooks for a copy of this book, which I have read and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

This was so fun! I kept thinking about The Westing Game and I think if you like a somewhat meta but not meta thriller, you’ll enjoy this! The twist was good but I felt like I would have enjoyed more foreshadowing for it.