What a special book! If you’re a fan of a cozy mystery, you’ll fall in love with How to Solve Your Own Murder. This book is the launching of a new series, and I for one am all in after reading this book. Told from dual timelines, this book about family secrets had me guessing until the very end on who murdered Great Aunt Frances. I do have to agree that if you like the Thursday Murder Club books, you’ll probably like this book.

As with most dual timeline stories, I have a tendency to lean into the older timeline and enjoyed that part of the story much more than the modern story. I loved the fact that the setting was a large country manor in a small town. There are a lot of characters introduced in this book in both timelines, so you’ve really got to pay attention and stay sharp to catch all the clues.

I just can’t wait to find out what Kristin Perrin comes up with next! Highly recommend.

Thanks so much to Dutton Books and NetGalley for the digital ARC of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a fairly basic whodunit. The reason I didn’t find it particularly enjoyable is that the characters aren’t entertaining or dynamic. I prefer a good amount of humor in this type of novel, but I didn’t even crack a smile during this one. The premise and framework were clever but, in my opinion, good detective crime novels are character driven.

I’ve noticed that this is supposed to be book #1 of a series. I will likely check out the sequel in hopes of character development.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an Advanded Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

A right proper English murder mystery. Small rural village, amateur sleuth and all. Well written and plotted.

This was a book… that I read. It’s one of those books that left me shrugging my shoulders and forgetting all the details by the next morning. I hate to say it, but while I didn’t dislike this book, it was utterly forgettable, which definitely makes writing a review difficult!

The story is told in two different timelines from two different POVs, which I really enjoyed. Where I started to get tripped up was that I had a hard time connecting all the names from the earlier timeline to the later one. Everyone’s name (except Rowan) was very old fashioned, and they started to all blur together. Other than the main character, who I really enjoyed, I just had a hard time keeping track of all of the other characters, as they all seemed to blur together in my mind.

Now, here are the positive qualities, because there were many. The premise of this mystery is really unique and definitely grabbed my attention from the start. I really loved the quaint English village that served as the picturesque setting, and I also really did grow attached to both female leads, the one from the past and the one from the present. The dual timelines complemented each other very well, and I did NOT see the ending coming, which is always nice!

Ultimately I enjoyed this cozy mystery and definitely wished that I could live in a small English village rife with murders myself. I think the genre itself is a double-edged sword; a cozy mystery is, by definition, not going to stir up major emotions for the reader, and in order to make it a real mystery, there needs to be an abundance of characters with a motive for murder. I can definitely see the signs of this being set up as a series, and I will probably read the sequel if/when the mood strikes!

This was cute, but I found certain parts dragged. Overall, a good mystery read!!! I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being a series!

A fun, multi-generational murder mystery that you'll want to consume in one sitting. Who knew small towns and cottages could be so full of gossip and intrigue (everyone, and there's a reason for that)? Enjoy the adventure in Castle Knoll as Annie pursues the unsolved case that her great aunt was fascinated with for a lifetime.

Frances spent her life worried about her death, and murder, as foretold by a fortune teller. As a young woman, she spent her time with her best friend, Rose, and her friend, Emily. Emily is an instigator, and after causing issues amongst Frances’ group, she disappears. Annie, Frances’ great niece, is summoned to Castle Knoll to meet with Frances, only to find she has been murdered. Annie knows there is some connection between Emily’s disappearance and Frances’ death. With a cast of characters and an incentive to solve the murder, Annie becomes involved. I liked the mystery, and the characters. Recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Shout out to @duttonbooks for an ARC of How to Solve Your Own Murder via @NetGalley! This was suchhhh a fun cozy mystery and felt like a BBC/Masterpiece/Grantchester situation.

In 1965, Frances Adams and her friends attend a country fair and get their fortunes told. Frances is given a foreboding warning about her future: betrayal, justice, and murder. And then she spends the rest of her life trying to avoid her fate, eventually failing. Annie, Frances’s great-niece and potential heiress, will have to solve the murder as an outsider in a small town in which *everyone* has secrets.

@kristenperrinwrites did a phenomenal job with this story; I literally couldn’t put it down for the last half of the book. The pacing worked really well for me between the diary entries and the present day action — I certainly never got bored!

Pros:
- We LOVE a spooky manor and a Westing Game-style contest for inheritance.
- Small town characters with secrets!
- The ending felt EARNED. The resolution made total sense and the motives felt real.

Cons:
- 🤷🏼‍♀️

3.5/5 rounding up to 4 Stars! Thank you, NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton / Dutton for this eARC of How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin.

Very clever! This is my first book by this author and she's got a new fan for sure! I enjoyed the mystery and suspense that each interesting character brought. The setting was perfect for this story and the story was easy to follow - this is a different writing style than I'm used to and I like it!

It’s one thing to try to solve someone else’s murder, but do you think you could solve your own murder before it even happens? In Kristen Perrin’s latest mystery, How to Solve Your Own Murder, a woman spends a good portion of her life trying to solve her own inevitable murder before it happens, only for her great-niece to pick up the trail. Fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club will love this debut adult mystery.

Review | How to Solve Your Own Murder

This is the perfect type of cozy mystery for my tastes. It is a clever, complex, and engaging without being fluffy or kitschy. The story moves back and forth between two timelines and two narrators (one in the past timeline that is told through journal entries, and one in the present). I loved that the mystery was being tackled in both timelines, and clues dropped in one linked to clues in the other.

The story begins with Frances Adams who was a teenager in 1965 living in England. She journals the events of her life, particularly as they relate to the disappearance of a local girl and one of her best friends, Emily Sparrow. Frances, Emily, and their other best friend Rose are at the county fair when they go to see a psychic. “Your future contains dry bones […] all signs point towards your murder” she is told somberly—a phrase that dictates the rest of her life. The psychic isn’t the first sign that death is chasing Frances—she also received a threatening note before even going to the fair.

Meanwhile sixty years later, a twenty-something mystery writer named Annie Adams is working on her book while “in between jobs” when she is summoned to visit her eccentric and estranged great-aunt Frances. Frances is extremely wealthy, but her life has been consumed with an attempt to solve her own murder before she’s even met her demise. Annie heads to Frances’s estate, Castle Knoll, to discuss changes to her will that will make Annie the beneficiary of her estate after the psychic’s prediction that “daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close.”

Not long after arriving at Castle Knoll, Annie is able to see the dysfunctional web of relationships surrounding her great-aunt. Her dear friend and attorney, Walter Gordon, is present—as is his son Oliver. And it isn’t long before Frances is found dead on the floor of unknown causes—was this a natural death, or did Frances finally predict her own murder?

Interspersed between Annie’s story are entries from Frances’s journal going all the way back to the day of the psychic reading. Her story chronicles the disappearance of her dear friend Emily Sparrow. The reading of the will reveals that Frances wants to leave her entire estate to whoever uncovers the truth behind her murder. Frances isn’t the only one who may be looking to solve it—also present are Frances’s nephew Saxon (and his wife Elva) are present, as are Walter, Oliver, and the charismatic Detective Crane.

The others underestimate Annie, who appears the youngest and weakest person looking to solve the murder. However, her connection to Frances through her diary is not to be overlooked. The diary reveals the complicated friendship between Frances, Rose, and Emily, as well as Emily’s disappearance. Frances becomes even more convinced to solve the murder and get justice for Frances. Tension mounts as the investigation goes on, and Annie becomes in tangled in a game that may have deadly consequences.

The mystery is clever and the investigation follows logic and skills of deduction from start to finish. I was hooked the full way through, especially having the diary entries from Frances to read. Annie may be the main character and narrator, but Frances is the one who steals the show. She has a spicy personality that I really enjoyed from the very beginning of her chapters all the way to the end. Annie is actually a character that is likable and sympathetic, but is less present emotionally in the story. Her role is the detective and the person we are rooting for to solve the mystery, but Frances is the one with the emotional relationships to other characters. Annie is a lens that provides us more insight into the people surrounding Frances who may have led to her death.

The story carried more weight than the average cozy mystery, which for my reading enhances the experience. Annie uncovers several troubling details about Frances’s life and eventual murder that bring depth to the story. It was fascinating, though at times heartbreaking, to see the Frances from the diary entries knowing that she has finally met her murderer in the present timeline. I was captivated start to finish and found the mystery to have plenty of twists and turns along the way to keep my mind engaged. The door also seems to be left open for another mystery set around Castle Knoll. I suspect that we may continue to learn more about Annie in the future, if she returns to our bookshelves with a new mystery to solve.

Thank you to Dutton and Penguin Random House for my copy. Opinions are my own.

This was an enjoyable mystery with interesting characters and multiple suspects. I loved the setting (small English village) and found myself drawn to the writing style. Perrin does a fantastic job molding both timelines together and slowly connecting the dots. Frances was definitely my kind of girl - I mean, a murder board to solve your own murder? That’s my brand of nonsense lol.

This is super cozy with the perfect setting, but the characters do struggle with individuality at times.

This was such a clever, intriguing, and refreshing book to read! I couldn't put it down! I had to know what happened next and who would solve the murder first to become the inheritor of the Estate. I thought it was creative how Annie used clues from Great Aunt Frances’ murder board and her diary from 1965 to figure out who murdered Frances and her friend Emily. This is a must-read for mystery fans!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

How to Solve Your Own Murder
Author: Kristen Perrin
Source: NetGalley
Pub Date: March 26, 2024

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a wonderfully whimsical and fun murder mystery. Yep, you read that right…it is like Only Murders in the Building in some ways. What do we have here? We have a dead Great Aunt Frances who was convinced she was going to die by murder (as foretold by a fortune teller), and 60+ years later, she finally does just that. Her heirs are staying in her countryside manor outside of London, and it involves a yummy cast of characters, with the two most important being Saxon (an adopted child of her late hubs) and Annie, the grandniece who has never actually met Frances but is an actual blood relative who stand to inherit everything. When the heirs arrive for the reading of her will (they thought she was still alive), they find Great Aunt Frances dead in her library. She had been murdered. From there, we have a LARGE cast of characters: the village Vicar, Rose (best friend), super cute detective Crane, and a large host of people who make this story a little piece of magic. It reminded me of the board game Clue, where you have riddles, mysteries, rhymes, and clues, lots of clues. I enjoyed this story and found the guilty party one of my suspected options. In death, Frances finally had the last laugh on everyone who thought her murder conspiracy was a hoax and realized she knew her fortune all along. The book was a lot of fun and full of mischief. #murder #chess #riddles #friends #family #police #whodunit #mystery #fiction #greed #admiration #England @netgalley @kristenperrinwrites @duttonbooks
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I received a complimentary copy of this ARC. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own. Thank you to the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the opportunity to read this novel. Pub. Date: March 26, 2024.
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#book #books #bookAddict #BooksOfInstagram #bookstagram #bookstagramer #bookshelf #reader #booklove #bookreader reader #reviewer

How To Solve Your Own Murder was a fun, engaging read. I was immediately taken in by the main characters and the two timelines seamlessly came together. Thank you to @duttonbooks for my copy!

A lovely, unique mystery! I loved the premise and thought the book was set up well. Unfortunately, for me personally, I just didn't connect with a couple of the plot points and characters' actions. If you are a fan of small-town mysteries, I would still absolutely recommend this!

This book is an enjoyable "who done it" that keeps the reader guessing. The reader gets to follow along with Annie, an extremely likable protagonist, as she tries to solve not one, but two, murders that all start with a fortune. Set in a small town with a cast of quirky characters who all have a long history with one another, Annie is left to figure out how their stories are all connected. The writer weaves together Annie's story with diary entries from many years ago to tell a story that is not predictable as many murder mysteries are.

Annie Adams finds out she's now part of her great-aunt Frances's inheritance and travels to Castle Knoll to learn more. However upon her arrival, she discovers Frances has been murdered. The reading of Frances's will leads to a murder investigation competition and Annie was already determined to find out what happened to not only Frances, but to Emily who disappeared as a teenager and was connected to Frances. She starts to receive threatening messages, but that doesn't stop her from investigating. Overall, a suspenseful mystery with two timelines that work together to solve both Frances's murder and Emily's disappearance. While the characters aren't the most developed, they do well to help move the story along.

3.5 stars. A very interesting premise: Annie Adams has been summoned by her wealthy and eccentric great-aunt Frances, whom she has never met, to discuss change Frances has made to her will; but shortly after Annie arrives, Frances is found murdered. Now, Annie is thrust into trying to solve Frances’ murder, one that a fortune-teller had foretold when Frances was a teenager.

The story is told from both Annie’s point of view in the present and from Frances’ diary entries decades earlier. There is a great deal going on in this novel, making the plot to be somewhat overcrowded, as well as numerous characters (so many that it is difficult to keep track). Despite these shortcomings, this was an interesting read. It is billed as the first in a series, so I look forward to seeing what the next in this series is like.

The mystery, pacing, and setting of this story were great. I am also a huge fan of multiple perspectives, so the inclusion of the journals was an excellent break up in the suspense of the main storyline. The side characters were likeable but there were almost too many of them for better development, leaving most of them rather flat. Though I solved the main mystery early on, the side mystery was a fun surprise and tied very well to the main storyline. If this continues into a series, I hope to see more connection between our narrator and some of the supporting cast. Overall: enjoyable plot but mostly flat characters.