Read if you like:
🔎 Cozy Mysteries
#️⃣ lots of characters
🎱 Fortunes
⏳ Two Timelines

When Frances was a teenager, she receives a bone-chilling fortune that she'll be murdered one day. She then spends the rest of her life trying to prevent it. But lo and behold, 60 years later, murder comes for her. Now it's up to her great-niece Annie to find the killer and earn her inheritance.

I was hooked. Especially here because Annie is also looking into the disappearance of Frances' best friend Emily, so we're really getting a twofer for the price of one. The story's certainly not shy about casting suspicions this way, then that way. There's an interesting list of characters, all of whom could be friend or foe. It was a delightful start in the way that only cozy mysteries can be.

It feels like there were all these clues and then they just didn't really go anywhere leading to a lot of misdirection. However, while I love misdirection, the final solution didn't wow me and I'm still not sure I understood how it all went down.

If you love cozy mysteries, you will find this a fun addition to your tbr! Thank you to the publisher for my ARC in exchange for my feedback!

This book was brilliant! Like reading a game of clue as it evolved.

It was a classic whodunnit with a twist. Annabelle was quirky and endearing, with the right amount of anxiety and frealessness. She went full force with everything!

I hope there’s more coming in this series because I’m am completely enthralled with the dueling lives of Frances and Annie.

I would be happy to read entire books from the perspective of Frances, like the diary excerpts. Her story/storytelling were captivating.

This author has a great future ahead of her if she maintains this level of writing!

Alternating between Annie's narration and 1960s diary entries from Annie's recently murdered great aunt, Kristen Perrin's How to Solve Your Own Murder focuses on an eccentric family's tangled web.

Annie arrives in a small village to meet her great aunt for the first time, but before they can say hello, Frances is found dead. Annie and another relative, Saxon, face off to solve the murder; the winner will receive the substantial inheritance.

Perring creates a sharp plot, clearly pulling some inspiration from Christie or Knives Out. I was, however, a little annoyed at how obviously the closing of the novel attempted to set up sequels. It's okay to have a standalone novel and then follow up with a sequel, but there doesn't need to be a very deliberate set up in order for the next one to succeed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a cozy mystery set in a sweet little English village sporting one very peculiar denizen.

When seventeen-year-old Frances is told by the fortune teller:

Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the queen in the palm of one hand. Beware the bird, for it will betray you. And from that, there’s no coming back. But daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close. All signs point toward your murder.

Everyone but her thinks it is laughable. After all, the twentysomething who delivered the message was clearly just playing a part. But Frances believes it wholeheartedly, and her faith in the prophecy will guide the rest of her life.

Sixty years later, Annie Adams receives a letter advising her that she needs to meet with her wealthy eccentric great-aunt Frances and that lady’s lawyer. Annie and her mother have always assumed they were the heirs to all Frances owns, so Annie obligingly heads to the charmingly picturesque village of Castle Knoll for the appointment. When she arrives at the lawyer's office, Annie learns that in fact, there are several eligible heirs to Frances’ estate, and they will all be meeting at her sprawling country house for an update on the will. It’s a situation fraught with tension and frustration, made far worse when they arrive to find Frances dead. It is Annie who spots something strange about the arrangement of flowers that Frances was working on at the time of her demise and demands the police start an investigation. Which might or might not work in her favor. It turns out the will doesn’t actually list an heir. Instead, the terms dictate that whichever relative solves the murder (because Frances believed - due to the prophecy - that her death would be murder) within a week will inherit. If the police do, the money will be left to charity. The race is on to see just who can crack the case.

This is a dual-timeline novel, with part of the story taking place in the year or so immediately following Frances’ hearing her fortune and part of it taking place in the present day. The author does a lovely job with Frances, who comes alive in her detailed diary entries. She is vivacious, beautiful and kindhearted but also troubled and contemplative due to the prophecy. As the story unfolds, we learn Frances and her friends have deep, complex relationships, with lots of underlying tensions. Living in a small, English country village all of their lives, they are in many ways myopic, unable to see beyond their immediate reality and entanglements, and subsequently dysfunctional as a result. The author depicts realistically that sense of being trapped by your location/circumstanes, the intense desire to spread your wings and do something meaningful, and the fear of failure mixed with loyalty that keeps one attached to their community.

I really wish the story had focused almost exclusively on the past as the modern segment starring Annie is far less interesting. Annie spends most of her time racing about Castle Knoll meeting the quirky residents, all of whom are strangers to her. The text makes it clear she is the only decent heir available, as the others would either ruin the charming village through modernization, throw out estate dependents, or otherwise disrupt the lives of the locals. Aside from her being worthy of the inheritance, I had no real sense of Annie herself. Other than her love of mysteries, there is nothing that really stands out about her personality.

I struggled with the plot of this story from the beginning. The text tells us that Frances’ fortune came from her husband Rutherford, that the country estate, expensive house in the city, and money were all indirectly inherited by him. I say indirectly because his elder brother was the initial inheritor, and when he died, he left a son, so I couldn’t help wondering exactly why the inheritance did not pass directly to that young man, a boy named Saxon, but to Rutherford. Especially since there is, according to the text, a title involved. Saxon, btw, is one of the potential heirs.

I also struggled with the idea that Annie, who had never met Frances, understood her well enough via reading her diary to solve a murder that the police and those who actually knew Frances could not. And not just solve it but solve it within one week! Let’s not even get started on how much the author strains credulity with official procedures, from the autopsy to having people move into the crime scene to the detective finding Annie cute and sharing clues with her.

The tale itself deals with some dark subjects - emotional abuse, murder, teen pregnancy, cheating on one’s significant other, drug use - but maintains the comfort level of the genre by not delving into details on any of these issues.

Cozy mysteries often play fast and loose with reality, but the contemporary portion of How to Solve Your Own Murder strained my suspension of disbelief to the point that it almost broke it. If you love the genre and are looking for a fresh voice, this might be worth picking up. Otherwise, I would give it a miss.

Very similar vibe to Knives Out. Unfortunately, I never really caught on to the Knives Out train. I understand the concept. I genuinely wanted to like this. A little hard to follow at times with having the different time lines. A bit slow and characters didn’t peak my interest. Overall, I didn’t find myself clicking with this book.

I was really excited about this book after reading the description. However, this one fell short for me. Too slow and didn’t care for any of the characters. Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for this ARC, it just wasn’t for me.

A really cute mystery! Some good red herrings and I enjoyed the past/present storytelling device. I feel like this could have been edited a bit more (some repetitive adjectives, etc.) but overall a clean read.

This book has a fascinating concept and that alone will keep readers going. I was very invested in finding out who killed Frances and Emily. The book is a little difficult to follow with the alternating time lines and many characters in both. Cozy mystery readers will enjoy this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton books for this eARC!

When Frances Adams was a teenager 60 years ago, she received a fortune that predicted her murder. She spends the rest of her life obsessing over solving and preventing what hasn’t happened yet. Annie, Frances’ great niece receives a letter instructing her to come to Castle Knoll for a meeting about the will. When Annie does arrive, Frances is already dead. Now it’s up to Annie to solve this murder before time runs out.

Such a good cozy mystery! Very much for fans of Knives Out. Sometimes the past/present timelines got a little confusing with as many characters as there were, but overall I enjoyed how it was structured. Highly recommend if you enjoy Christie style mysteries.

I really enjoyed this book! It didn't quite reach the expectations I had conjured up based on the synopsis and the comparisons to some of my favourite mysteries, not to mention the snazzy cover and title (and maybe a smidge of bias because Kristen is an awesome name).

It did fall a wee bit short in some areas, though - there were just too many characters for my easily befuddled brain to keep track of, especially with the two timelines and all the twists and turns. Sometimes, the dialogue felt a bit forced, like the author was steering the story a certain way, but hey, I get that's part of the gig. I just wished I felt more involved, you know? But overall, I didn't dislike it at all. I think I just got a bit lost in the shuffle, especially at the end, but I'd definitely give another book by this author a shot.

“Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the Queen in the palm of your hand. Beware the bird, for it will betray you. And, from that, there is no coming back. But daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close. All signs point toward your murder.”

When teenaged Frances joins her friends at the fair, they each have their fortune told. It was just a lark. But she takes the prophesy to heart and spends the next sixty years trying to solve and thus prevent her murder. Justice is very important to her and she has also spent those years trying to solve the disappearance of a friend. The title of this fantastic novel is a bit misleading, for in the end, it is left up to someone else to solve the mysteries. Fearing the end is near, she has changed her will and left her fortune to the relative who solves her murder. We follow the protagonist, Annie in in the present day as she sets out to solve the murder, but we also hear from a teenaged Francis in the diary that Annie has located. This fantastic old fashioned mystery may take place in present day, but it has a very Agatha Christie feel. Set in a small English village with a large array of suspects, the reader is drawn immediately in to this compelling cozy mystery. The protagonist, Annie Adams is a well drawn, likable character. The suspects are plentiful and the plot is carefully crafted. The clues are subtle and nothing is as it seems. The story is told in a dual timeline with two points of view. I enjoyed reading a mystery that actually surprised me in the end. I read a review copy of this book from the publisher , but can honestly recommend this book for any cozy mystery fan.

How To Solve Your Own Murder (ARC)
Kristen Perrin
3.75⭐️

Pub Date: 3/26/2024

Small town, cozy mystery alert! It feels a lot like Knives Out- a deceased orchastrating a game for her family to figure out what happened. This plot is good, but I felt like it got stuck somewhere along the way. The premise was very interesting- Frances built her whole life based on a fortune telling of her murder- and it turned out to be true! Everybody surrounding her are all very suspicious. It started out really strong for me but as I read on, the excitement dies down a bit. The interaction between the characters were a little forced, not a lot of good, meaningful conversation. I really enjoyed this one but I felt a little cheated. The pacing of the mystery and small reveals are fantastic but the plot towards the middle to the end seems underdeveloped. The big reveal and how it came about all had to be explained verbally by the FMC at the end. I felt like it's a very basic and lazy-ish writing style, instead of the reveal being written into the plot itself. I wasn't a fan of that. It seems rushed and the end is not quite as satisfying as I anticipated. The "rush" of getting closer to solving the mystery was just not there because of it. For fans of cozy mystery, I do still feel like this is worth a read. I did go through it fast and again, I did enjoy it. The last part was just a little bothersome to me.

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Random House- Dutton for a gifted e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve always been amazed at the thought process it must take to write a mystery novel. Like as a reader I know that the person whom it seems like it is, normally isn’t the culprit, but of course that’s the only person I can guess. So it’s always a wild ride for me when the reveal happens.
This one was very much that, and I enjoyed getting to read flashes of what happened back in the 60s through the diary pages, that helped link to the current events. The great aunt knew she was going to get murdered because of a fortune told to her, and left enough info behind for her great niece to put things together. This is helpful considering an inheritance is on the line. I think the story also highlighted that the deepest betrayals sometimes come from those closest to you.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for the read.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book! What a nice debut from author Kristen Perrin. I am not a huge fan of the usually dark "thriller" mystery genre that is increasingly popular these days, but this one was a step beyond "cozy" mystery without going fully to the dark side. I was intrigued by both narratives - the journals of the recently murdered Great Aunt Frances as well as present day Annie who is trying to solve the mystery, protect the town of Castle Knoll and, most importantly, stay alive herself. I didn't predict the ending which was nice! There were a LOT of motivations and characters to keep track of and it was a small struggle for me to keep everything straight, so I could have done with one less side character. Overall, compelling story and a great debut! 4 Stars!

Thank you to Dutton Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had a good time reading this one. Having both Annie’s present perspective and Frances’s past perspectives (via diary) was a great way to keep me invested in the story. The few twists and turns that happened were interesting but not earth-shattering: I definitely think the story felt rushed in some areas making it difficult for me to connect certain characters with others. However, I did read it fairly quickly and it wasn’t difficult to read at all. I liked the conclusion and how everything was wrapped up and solved.

CW: murder, death, toxic friendships, infidelity, alcohol consumption

When Annie Adams suddenly becomes her great aunt's heir in place of her mother, her life turns upside down when Aunt Frances is murdered the same day that the meeting about the will change is supposed to occur. Suddenly, Annie must investigate Frances' murder or lose everything, including the home her mother depends upon. When she finds Frances' diary, she (and the reader) begins to meet the Frances of 1965 when all these events began.

I really enjoyed reading Frances' diary throughout the book and trying to solve the mystery along with Annie. The cast of characters is both amusing and varied, and the tension ramps up as Annie gets closer to the truth about her aunt and the past of this small village. I was glad to see that this is listed as first in a new series - I was not done spending time in this world. I also appreciated that although Annie is an amateur sleuth, there were also professionals involved in solving this mystery.

I do not recommend the audio. The cast is HUGE and keeping the past and present connections while walking a dog were very difficult for me

Unfortunately for me, this one was a DNF at about 30%. I really appreciate the review copy from Netgalley and the Publisher, but this was not for me.

This was just a straight cozy mystery with two timelines and nothing really feeling like it was happening. I didn’t care about the characters, what happened to Emily in the past, nor about the main character.

I guess when a book is compared to “Knives Out” I want more farce, comic, and over the top feels. This one just didn’t deliver those things for me, unfortunately.

But I think for the right person in the mood for a good cozy, this could be the book for them.

Not my favorite read but I did enjoy the characters in this book. The start was slow but the ending made it worth it!

How to Solve Your Own Murder is everything a cozy mystery should be. Quirky crazy aunt, handsome detective, weird side characters and a tenacious MC. We follow Annie as she tries to solve her aunts murder after she failed to do so in time. Her inheritance is on the line. Let the games begin!