Here is my review for how to solve your own murder by Kristen Perrin. Thank you for allowing me to read this book early in exchange for an honest review.

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a fun murder mystery with enjoyable characters and a fun twist on the usual murder in a quaint English village trope. Frances Adams spends her entire life trying to solve her own murder after a trip to see a fortune teller as a teenager with her two best friends. Spending her life compiling evidence against her neighbors, friends and family leads to Frances being rather isolated on her grand estate. When Frances fails to show up at a scheduled meeting with her lawyer and selected heirs one morning, the race is on to solve her murder. Frances has set a challenge for her heirs: be the first to solve it and be the sole heir or lose out on everything. Potential heirs include her nephew Saxon, great-niece Annie and property manager Oliver who each have their own reasons to earn sole possession of the estate. Frances has done most of the work for them by compiling evidence for her entire adult life but considerably widened the suspect pool by alienating everyone she has ever met with her spying. As everyone races to solve Frances's murder they discover it may be linked to the unsolved disappearance of one of Frances's best friends when they were teenagers.
Kristen Perrin has written a fantastic book that is very Agatha Christie-like with its intelligent plot, great cast of characters and clever twist. I was sucked in from the very beginning when we meet Frances and her friends on the night she hear of her murder from the fortune teller. While the protagonist of the story may be Annie in the present day, the flashbacks to the year of Frances's fortune and her friend Emily's disappearance were compelling and didn't feel like filler to draw out the mystery for Annie to solve. By fully developing Frances as a character in these flashbacks, she became more than just a murder victim and catalyst for Annie's story. This book was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to more from this author.

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒

Thank you to Kristen Perrin, Penguin Group Dutton, and NetGallery for the advanced copy of How to Solve Your Own Murder!

If you’re looking for a fully enveloping murder mystery, look no further than this book.

It was so much fun to read.

The amount of twists and turns made me get whiplash!

This book is described as being perfect for fans of Knives Out. And I wholeheartedly agree. Everything from the storyline to the atmosphere. But it doesn’t feel too similar to the movie.

This one is a book that I would recommend having a pen and paper handy for. There are a lot of characters and flashbacks to keep up with.

Honestly, I’m not sure how Annie figured out the mystery. I didn’t put the pieces together until she explained it at the end of the book.

Sometimes reading murder mysteries and thrillers can get stagnant when I’m able to predict the endings. And this one gave me a run for my money!

If you’ve read and enjoyed The Thursday Murder Club, this one is for you!!

What's better than a cozy murder mystery with a classic who done it plot? Two separate but related who done it mysteries! Add to that the drama of small town friends and family gossip and you've got a great read! This book kept me guessing the whole time!

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC!.

I really enjoyed this twist on the classic cozy mystery! We've got the aspiring murder mystery author turned sleuth. We've got a small town full of secrets. There's the local (hunky) detective trying (and failing) to convince her to stay out of trouble. And there's the classic twist at the end where the narrator proclaims "suddenly, I've figured it out!"...but you have to wait until the next scene for her to confront the killer - and it's not who you expect!

Here's a few things that made this story really fun. Frances receives a fortune as a teenager that tells her she's going to be murdered one day, and she ends up devoting her life to trying to solve her own murder before it happens. So when she does, eventually, get murdered, her Great Niece Annie has endless files on everyone in town and a pre-made murder board to aid in the investigation. Also, Annie finds her Great Aunt Frances' diary from her teenage years, and this dual-timeline setup gives us breadcrumb clues one by one. Also, did I mention that Great Aunt Frances decided that the division of her will depends on the solving of her murder? So now there's a little bit of competition, backstabbing, and a time crunch.

This book is a fun mystery story that is full of twists and turns but never gets too scary or intense. There's some humor mixed in to all the drama, and a unique cast of characters intertwined in all sorts of ways. This story is great for anyone who wants a bit of a lighter mystery that explores how things from our past follow us into our future.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin for sending me an eARC to review!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
This plot had potential but unfortunately the author made a disaster of the timelines (as well as ages/birthdates) to make it a very long and confusing book.
It starts out in August 1965 stating the girls are 17 and that one disappears a year later. Then one girl tells the story through her diary dated in 1966 but the entire story states everything happened in 1965.
One girl would be 15 or 16 when she gave birth (based on her birthday), never 17. She was 14 or 15 when impregnated by one of the several adult males (aged of 18-23). This was never considered an issue in the book.
This is just a sample of the multiple inconsistencies in this story.
A complete chaotic mess that gave me a migraine...would not recommend.

I loved the premise of this book, a death and a disappearance 60 years apart? A dramatic fortune that changes the lives and future of an entire friend group.

I was really excited to read this book, I loved the dual timeline and understanding what happened in both time periods. The characters were interesting and complex, and it was fun to go through the mystery with them.

It’s definitely more of a cozy mystery than anything else, but it keeps you engaged and is hard to put down. I would love to read a sequel and see what happens after the death of Frances is resolved.

Well, well, WELL! A perfectly delightful debut novel is to be found in "How to Solve Your Own Murder" by Kristen Perrin!

I, for one, am a fan of Kristen Perrin's first installment in a charmingly captivating new series! I'm hopeful that she will deliver many more installments in the Castle Knoll mystery series!

The characters to a one were engaging, but even more to the point, I, the reader, want to get to know them all better! There are many more stories and mysteries, I believe, waiting to be told about the connections and secrets in this bucolic but deadly little British country village!!

The comparison to "Knives Out" in the novel's promotional summary was spot on, in my opinion, as well as more than a little homage to Dame Agatha's way of plotting and character development!

I'd like to thank the author for her craft, encourage her publishers to promote a series, and for goodness sake, a film version would be fantastic! I offer these, my own words and opinion, in exchange for the advanced copy that I thoroughly enjoyed!

#howtosolveyourownmurder
#kristenperrin
#bucolicbritishmysteries
#netgalley

This was a fun Agatha Christi style who done it. Annie was a fun, intelligent character & I enjoyed being along for the ride as she unraveled both a decades old murder & a very recent murder. It was twisty & turny & it took quite a while for me to figure out who the killer (killers?) was. The only thing I would change if I could, is that I would have loved a bit deeper look in the psyche of Saxon & a more in depth look at Crane & Annie’s budding relationship. Overall, I would definitely suggest picking it up if you get the chance!

In 1965, Frances and her two best friends visit a county fair when a fortune teller predicts Frances will one day be murdered. She then spends her entire life obsessively solving her own murder before it ever occurs. Fast forward to present day, when she has summoned her niece Annie to her mansion because she has rewritten her will, but when Annie arrives, Frances is lying dead on the floor. Annie has one week to solve the case using Frances’ diary, files and the cast of characters from the small town Frances lived in her whole life. Through trying to solve the crime, Annie realizes that Frances’ case is tied to the murder of Frances’ best friend Emily, killed back in 1966; now Annie has two crimes to solve in one week or she loses her entire inheritance.

The book switches between Frances’ diary and Annie’s present day perspective and the dual timelines worked so well here and the characters and events intertwined wonderfully. With the small town setting, the characters in Frances’ diary all had remained in the town, so the reader got to know the younger counterparts from the past and then met their future selves in the present (plus their offspring). I enjoyed all the quirky characters and thought that the mystery wasn’t entirely predictable so there came the point where I couldn’t put the book down. I could actually see a sequel here and either way, and I can’t wait for the author’s next book.

4.25 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC to review

When teenagers Frances, Emily, and Rose get their future predicted at a fair one of the girls, Ruth gets the prediction of“ 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.”

Frances becomes obsessed with this prediction and tries to solve her own mysteries for the rest of her life. Fast forward to sixty years later present day to her great niece Annie who gets an invitation from Frances inviting her to solve her potential murder to win the estate. Through twists and turns and even some competition from side characters will Annie solve Aunt Frances murder? And other mysteries about her aunts life?

I enjoyed How to Solve Your Own Murder and was not expecting the ending at all. It was the perfect cozy mystery filled with thought out characters and I can't wait to read the next one if this were to become a series. Thanks so much Netgalley for the advanced copy!

This book was such an interesting twist on a mystery! We follow the story of Great Aunt Frances who has always been paranoid that she is going to be murdered ever since she had her fortune read as a teen. Her whole life is spent trying to piece together the riddle and figure out who is going to murder her before she is murdered. Her great niece Annie is tasked with figuring out who her murderer is and how it happened before anyone else can within the week.

I love the story telling that this mystery gave us! It wasn’t your typical who done it in the sense that we were following Aunt Frances clues to figure out what she already knew! I haven’t seen a concept like this yet and I loved it! The only thing that kept me from giving it 5 stars was I wasn’t hanging on every word to know what happened next. I was intrigued but I didn’t feel like I couldn’t put the book down, if you know what I mean.

Overall I think this is a cute mystery who done it and if you love these types of books I would definitely encourage you to read this one!

I was given an advanced readers copy of this book by NetGalley and Dutton publishing. This did not sway my review in any way and all my thoughts are my own. However I do want to thank both NetGalley and Dutton for giving me the chance to read this book before it is published.

I really enjoyed this one! I always love a cozy mystery, and this one feels a little like Downtown Abbey mixed with a bit of Clue. It has a great cast of characters, and the setting and atmosphere are spot on. The pace moved along nicely, and the mystery wasn’t too simple or overly complicated. I’m looking forward to more books in the series.

This was a really unique mystery, with lots of twists and turns! I would definitely recommend to those who think it sounds interesting!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

How to solve your own murder is a fun whodunit in the vein of clue, knives out, or Anthony Horowitz’s novels. Annie is called to her great-aunts country estate in a small town in the English country side. When she arrives, she finds that her great aunt has been murdered and makes it a mission to find her aunts killer-her inheritance depends on this. Jumping back to 1965, Frances kept a journal in which a fortune teller promised her she will be murdered and Frances spends the rest of how life trying to find out who will kill her. This leads her to make many enemies in the town as her quest uncovers many secrets from her townsfolk. With only the journal to guide her and clues left by her aunt, Annie becomes an amateur sleuth to uncover the truth.

This is a fun, fast, whodunit acutely aware of the conventions of the genre it is paying homage. The characters are aware they are in a mystery and know what it is expected of them to solve it. A funny, fresh entry into the genre and well-worth the read for anyone who loves a fun mystery!

Thanks to the publisher for providing the arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I received the ARC for this book from NetGalley.

Wow! This book had so many twists and turns - it had me on the edge of my seat. My partner, John, was trying to figure out who the killer was while I was reading - we were fully invested. Every time I thought I was close, something else was revealed that had me second guesing what I thought. This book was so much fun, so unique and a wild ride!

CAWPILE Breakdown:

Characters: 8 - The characters were written well. They were strong; they all had their own voice. There were a lot of characters and at times my brain did get some mixed up with each other, but it didn't last very long.

Atmosphere/Setting: 9.5 - I absolutely loved the atmosphere and setting in this book. The big old house/ "castle" was the perfect setting for a book like this. It was stationary - and gave us a "home base" but also provided ample room for our main character (and therefore the story) to roam and explore and wander. And the atmosphere - using a small town where everyone knew everyone and they all begruded (at the very least) the old paranoid lady was brillant because it made everyone a suspect at one point or another. You never knew who you could trust.

Writing Style: 9 - I was completely entranced in Perrin's writing style. It was engaging and engrossing. I kept turning the page to see what next would be revealed about the town. It was well balanced and addicting writing that I just had to keep reading.

Plot: 10 - Perrin is the Queen of plot twists! Just when I thought surely there couldn't be more, she brings out another twist. Without giving away spoilers, I thought maybe I knew part of it, but still always second guessed myself. "Nah. It couldn't be."

Intrigue: 9 - I was always intrigued, whether in our present day or past storylines. I'm still intrigued - even after I've finished the book. It felt like I was reading a spin on the classic board game of Clue. I'm looking forward to reading more in this series!

Logic/Relationships: 7.5 - Logic was there, 100%. Everything made sense even when they were surprises - maybe "Duh! I should have seen that" moments, that I didn't see. Relationships felt a bit weaker. Partly because of the characers themselves. They felt a bit shakey and lacking at times.

Enjoyment: 10 - I enjoyed everything about this book. From the title to the end. I told my partner about it and he tried to solve it. We were both off in the end. But what a fun book! I kind of want to reread it (already) to see all the clues that I'm sure I missed along the way.

CAWPILE total: 63/7 = 9 = 5/5 stars!

I was not sure what to expect from this book, but I was intrigued by the concept and the title. This turned out to be really well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Frances was told by a fortune teller in 1965 that she would be murdered and it became her obsession to solve her own murder before it happened. When her great niece, Annie, is told that she will be included in Frances’ will, she goes to meet Frances for the first time. When Annie arrives, Frances’ fortune has finally been fulfilled and Frances has been murdered.

This book did a great job of giving us Frances’ voice from the past through her journals, while also keeping us in the present and Annie worked to solve Frances’ murder. It had great cozy vibes, but didn’t sacrifice a good mystery to get those vibes.

I absolutely loved the second mystery of Frances’ friend who went missing in 1966 and how it tied into the present day mystery. At no point did I figure out the present day killer or what had happened to Emily. I was genuinely shocked by the ending of this book, which is exactly what I want in a mystery.

I did, at times, feel that Frances and Annie sounded very similar, and I wanted them to have more distinct voices. Other than that, this was great and I am so glad that this looks like it will be turning into a series because I can’t wait to read the next one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book. I leave this review voluntarily.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book.

It all began in 1965 when Frances Adams and her two best friends visit a country fair and Frances gets an unsettling prediction of her murder from a fortune teller. Sixty years later, Frances is found dead, murdered. When her heirs are summoned to meet her at her estate, they find her dead in the library. In Frances' will, her great niece, who never even met Frances, and her late husband's nephew are pitted against each other to find her murderer and inherit everything. If they fail, the estate will be sold and subdivided.

The niece, Annie Adams, is an aspiring murder mystery author, so she treats the case as a mystery in a book or on TV, finding clues all over the house. The nephew, Sexton, has spent most of his life living in the house and knew Frances most of his life. But is he guilty of her murder? Others who were around in the 60s and have followed Frances' quest to find her murderer and possibly foil it, are also part of that long-ago story.

There are a LOT of characters, both from the old story recounted in Frances' diary and their descendants in modern day and I had a problem keeping them all straight, but in the end the solution of not one but TWO murders was very satisfying.

How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin was a refreshingly different murder mystery. The woman who had died had been anticipating her own murder for fifty years and so had compiled information on nearly everyone in town, once of whom was surely the murderer. Plenty of secrets. Not the person even she though it would be. Frances Adams and her friend, teenagers, were at a festival when Frannie had her fortune told. It was here she first learned of her own murder. Annie Adams was her great niece and had must been informed that she must attend a meeting with her great aunt. As she and the woman’s lawyer arrived, they discovered her body, dead where it had fallen. Thus began an interesting week for Annie. She uncovered, not only her great-aunt’s history, but that of her close friends from back in the day, as well as of her mother and herself. It was stark to read Frannie’s journal and to meet these people as elderly. She also met Frannie’s step-nephew, Saxon Gravesdown, who had featured in Frannie’s teenage journals as a ten-year-old orphan being raised by his uncle, Frannie’s eventual husband.

Annie was a struggling mystery author. The fortune had mentioned the “right daughter.” Was she it? Was that why she was now Frannie’s heir, sort of. Frannie had set up a contest between she and Saxon to figure out who had killed her. The winner take all. Annie wanted to figure it out, partly because it was her nature, but partly to obtain the house her mother lived in and seemed happy in, a part of the estate. It was an interesting and readable story in which odd things happened, including a body in a trunk. The local policeman was a help, again descended from an old-time friend of Frannie’s, but he was not part of the contest. It was a terrific book clever and different. Thanks Kristen Perrin for having such an odd view of a situation.

I was invited to read How To Solve Your Own Murder by Penguin Group Dutton. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #PenguinGroupDutton #KristenPerrin #HoeToSolveYourOwnMurder

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a delightful mystery. Set in a small English village, with scenes set in the present and the 1960s, Kristen Perrin weaves the two pieces together into one satisfying puzzle.

4.5/5 stars

Annie is an aspiring London mystery writer. When her Great Aunt Frances summons her to the village of Castle Knoll to meet her, Annie is confused, since she’s never met Frances. Frances lives her life based on a 1960s fortune teller’s prediction that she will be murdered, and she sees threats everywhere. When Annie arrives, though, Frances is already dead and yes, it looks like murder. Can Annie solve the crime, while also putting together the missing pieces about Frances’s past?

This book neatly puts together two timelines: present day events are in Annie’s point of view, and 1960s flashbacks are in Frances’s. This technique works well, and makes Frances a three dimensional character, not just a murder victim. Annie is a likable protagonist, and it’s easy to see why she’s embroiled in the case. I had a blast with details that are a throwback to classic mysteries, like the dramatic reading of the will and the small English village where everyone knows everyone else.

I haven’t read as many mysteries in the last few years, and I’m glad I picked this one up. I find something satisfying about puzzling through the story’s clues and trying to figure out who done it before the amateur detective on the page. In this case, the author plays fair with the clues without making the culprit obvious.

How to Solve Your Own Murder is an enjoyable mystery in a classic English village setting. Kristen Perrin does a wonderful job moving between the past and the present, and both pieces of the story fit together to solve the case. If you are a fan of Agatha Christie stories, you’ll like this modern take.

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