This was such a fun and cozy murder mystery read. I have to say, I really had no clue who to suspect - there were lots of red herrings. But that made me enjoy it even more. I'm just seeing now that it's the first in a series and I can't wait for the next one.

What a fun ride! I love a cozy mystery and HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER was just what I needed. This book was fun, twisty, and lighthearted enough in the face of an intense murder plot. The dual timelines were reminiscent of my favorite thrillers and were a nice touch to keep the suspense going. Annie was an incredibly compelling main character. I loved to be inside of her mind as she solved the mystery, and I liked her quick wit and sensitivity. If you are a fan of cozy mystery a la FINLAY DONOVAN or something with a bit more sleuthing than your traditional thriller, I would highly recommend this one!

Thank you NetGalley and Dutton for an e-ARC in exchange for a review. Rating: 4/5 stars

Frances received a fortune when she was a teenager and it has consumed her life. From that moment forward, she became obsessed with discovering who is going to murder her. Sixty years later, Annie has the chance to receive her great aunt’s fortune but she needs to figure out who was responsible for her death.
This book was full of twists and turns! It was such a fun read and I could not put the book down!

3.5 stars

Mystery/Thrillers are not usually my genre but the premise of this one sounded interesting. When Frances was a teenager she visited a fortune teller that gave clues to her future and potential murder. Cut to Present day and Annie is summoned to Frances estate and when she gets there they find that Frances has died and in order for Annie to inherit the estate she has to solve the murder in 5 days. What I really liked about this book was the main characters in Frances’s generation. I think that Annie and some current day characters needed a little more fleshing out. That being said – I didn’t see who did it until the end when it was revealed. I liked the setting and will probably read the next book in the series. Thank you to Netgalley and Dutton for the advanced reader copy.

Great for fans of cozy mysteries and/or the movie Knives Out! I had a bit of difficulty getting into the beginning, I felt there was too much bickering between the ladies in the beginning. But once Annie was introduced I was hooked.

Lately, I find myself burnt out with romance and fantasy, so I am leaning heavily into mysteries, which led me to pick up How to Solve Your Own Murder.

After a haunting fortune, Francis spends her entire life trying to prevent her murder. Her friends and family find it obsessive. Yet, she is proven right when she is found dead on her estate. Now, it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer. 

How to Solve Your Own Murder was a lot of fun. I loved the main characters and was excited to learn this could be a series. The mystery was well-plotted, and I was second-guessing myself for most of the book. There are a lot of characters and thus a lot of red herrings, but that didn't hurt my enjoyment of the story.

If you like cozy mysteries with a bit of absurdity, you may enjoy this.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Thank you so much to Dutton Books and Netgalley for a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

This cozy mystery was not perfect, but I did enjoy reading it. I really liked Frances as a character and enjoyed her timeline more than Annie’s. Annie was a harder character to like. She was written to be this smart, bookish, independent girl but she was constantly doing dumb things and having to be rescued by handsome men 🙄.

Some of the plot twists were unexpected and well written, but the ending was rough. I guessed it early on and the motivations were even more ridiculous than I expected them to be.

I would definitely read more books by this author but I’m concerned about this being a series. This story was very much resolved and I don’t know where else it could go.

Frances saw a fortune teller as a teenager in the ‘60’s at a county fair, who told her that she would be murdered someday. Her friends don’t believe it and just think it was all in good fun, but Frances knew something didn’t feel right with it. From then on, she is consumed with trying to find her killer before she’s even dead. Fast-forward 60 years, Annie is summoned to attend a meeting at her great-aunt Frances’ estate in Castle Knoll. However, when she and the others arrive for the meeting, Frances is already dead. Annie becomes determined to find out what happened to Frances. As she gets closer to finding the truth, she’s met with wondering if she’ll have the same fate as great-aunt Frances.

As Annie dissects Frances’ journal entries from the ‘60’s and talks with the locals, we follow Annie as she tries to solve Frances’ murder. A classic who-done-it.

This was a fun read that kept me guessing then second, third, etc. guessing myself until I was so tangled up I just gave up and went along for the ride. It's a perfect summer read for those who grew up with Agatha Christie. The setting, mystery, characters, and twists are there to varying degrees. This is a must read!

3.5. This is a fun mystery that I wish had been fleshed out more, but I enjoyed the alternating POVs between Annie and Frances via excerpts from Frances' diary (though, truthfully, I preferred the diary entries to the present-day vignettes).

Frances Adams has known since she was a teenager that she would be murdered. This led to fraught relationships, constant watching, and a bit of paranoia throughout her life. So when her premonition finally came through, she left her years of research to members of her community and her great-niece, Annie. Those left living are set to figure out who actually murdered Frances, and why it took her full lifetime to do so.

I found myself picking up and putting down this book, but once I was committed I finished it quickly. It's a unique story that alternates between past and present, leaving clues to the ultimate demise of Frances. Overall, this was a cute read and would make for a great book club book.

This book was so much fun to read. I could not put it down once I started. I loved the dual mystery of not only who killed Frances but also who killed her friend Emily yeas earlier. The characters were very quirky and the book delivered on its Knives Out feel. I really enjoyed the back and forth of Frances’ diary and reading into that helping solve the murder. I was actually shocked and had many different ideas throughout my read. Can’t wait for more.of these characters and more mysteries from this fun little town.

If you love a good murder mystery, How to Solve Your Own Murder is for you! I read this book so fast. I simply could not put it down. Since Frances was told by a fortune teller when she was 17 that she would be murdered, she has been in a state of constant suspicion and vigilance, just knowing her murder could come at any moment. Now an old, eccentric woman, she calls her great niece, Annie, to come to her village and discuss a change in her future inheritance. When Annie arrives for their meeting, but instead finds Frances’s dead body. Always believing that she would meet a murderous end, Frances’s will stipulates that whoever solves her murder will inherit everything and they only have a week to do it.

This book was such a fun ride. It was structured beautifully, going back and forth between Annie in the present and Frances’s journal entries from the summer she was 17. The flow was perfect, and revealed the perfect amount of info to keep unraveling the mystery with a ton of good misdirection and red herrings. There were a ton of interesting characters and suspects, and I truly didn’t know where the story was going to end up. I am also a sucker for a small town scandal, and this one was GOOD. I highly recommend this quick and engaging read for any mystery lover. 4.5 stars.

I found great pleasure in this charming, traditional murder mystery. Annie Adams proved to be an engaging protagonist, and I relished her astute deductions and interactions with the ensemble cast, particularly her dynamic with her best friend and the detective.

Would recommend for fans of…
🔎 Knives Out
🔎 Grantchester
🔎 The Three Dahlias

I’m a huge mystery fan, but I don’t always gravitate towards cozy mysteries. While they’re fun, they can often be a little too cute and quaint for my liking. However, How To Solve Your Own Murder, a multi-generation mystery set in the English countryside, is the perfect combination of puzzles, tension, and twists, guaranteed to satisfy any mystery fan.

The story opens in 1965 at a county fair where a teenager named Frances receives a terrifying prediction about her future. Years later, her great-niece Annie finds herself caught up in the fortune when she’s forced to investigate Frances’ murder.

How To Solve Your Own Murder is perfect for readers who enjoy mysteries that are heavy puzzling and symbolism. Frances’ fortune is the central element to the story and as such, there’s a big emphasis on decoding it and figuring out how it relates to the secrets and scandals of the village. Annie, an aspiring mystery writer, is a great character to follow as she turns into an amateur detective and author Kristen Perrin avoids a lot of the cliches associated with those types of characters.

While I personally liked this book, I didn’t quite love it, partly because of the slower pacing. While the puzzle aspect will likely be a draw to readers who like classic, more relaxed mysteries, I found that it sometimes slowed down the action of the story in a detrimental way. There are also A LOT of characters to keep track of, so be prepared to spend some time flipping back and forth to keep them all straight.

While this might not be a book to bring to the beach this summer, I’d definitely recommend adding it to your TBR, as it will pair perfectly with a cup of tea later in the fall and winter.

How To Solve Your Own Murder is out now. Thanks to Dutton and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is easily my favorite book of 2024 thus far. I may have become a little obsessed and made some case notes in my journal for myself so my brain would relax and I could finish the story lol. But honestly I just feel like that attests to how good the mystery and writing is.

If you like mysteries of any kind I think you would like this but especially fans of Agatha Christie or Thursday murder club. It is a little more gruesome than say a cozy mystery but it’s not like True Detective level gritty. Like OG law and order. PG-13 at most I would say.

This is one of those books that makes you forget that you’re reading. It feels more like you’re watching a movie, or you’re solving the case yourself. The story is very unique, and the characters are wonderful. I cried at the end, thinking about the generations affected by these events. They felt so real. And in a way they are, because there are so many cold cases still out there waiting decades to be solved. And everywhere you look there are still women who were too smart for the times and the small communities they lived in. I was rooting for Frances all the way, and Annie felt plucky and resourceful without seeming campy or naieve.
I think we all knew a Frances and an Emily growing up, and we may even have been an Emily or a Frances or a Rose at some point. The author really takes these teenage girls and makes them relatable without talking down to them or pandering. So I have a lot of empathy for those characters. I’ve been thinking about Frances for a couple weeks, as if she’s a real person, and that’s how I know this book is going to be a favorite reread for me.

The mystery itself scratched all the corners of my ADHD brain, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good mystery.

Frances Adam's has been murdered just as she ALWAYS knew she would be and now it's up to her great-niece, Annie, to figure out what Frances has spent DECADES trying to: Who is Frances killer?

HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER is a cozy and fun mystery that weaves the past and present together seamlessly. From the beginning of the book I was hooked by how one moment in time, one terrifying fortune told at a country fair, sets in motion a chain of events that leads from 1965 to nearly 60 years later. With a brisk pace, a unique plot with plenty of twists, and several suspects harboring their own secrets, Kristen Perrin's debut murder mystery leaves me anxiously awaiting to see what is next from this author.

This was exactly my cup of tea - a cozy-ish but compelling mystery that isn't too cute, unbelievable, or OTT. It's not trying to be a thriller, it's a fun little mystery in a big house near a small village.

Annie suddenly finds herself named in her great aunt Frances's will. Frances - who has been trying to outrun or outsmart the ill fortune predicting her own murder since her adolescence - has summoned those who have a stake in her fortune to the Gravesdown Estate, but is murdered before the meeting can take place. Frances's death sets a contest in motion between those who would hope to inherit - who can take the pieces of Frances's lifelong investigation and solve her seemingly inevitable murder?

We follow two timelines - Annie's in the present day and Frances's journal entries from the 1960s detailing a traumatic summer that ended with the disappearance of her friend Emily. I felt the balance between the timelines was good and kept the tension up and cast suspicion across a wide range of characters. I solved the mystery, but it was still a satisfying conclusion and played out differently than I thought it would.

I was a little surprised to see it might be a series as it seems like a really great standalone, but I'd pick up the next one to find out what else they get up to in Castle Knoll.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for a digital arc. All opinions are my own.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be. In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer? One of the best books I have read this year! Definitely a fun ride and I highly recommend!