Frances Adams has her fortune read at age 17 and that fortune (predicting her murder) haunts her for the rest of her life. YEARS later our protagonist, Annie Adams, learns that she has been named in her kooky great aunt Frances’s will. When Frances is found dead, it is uncovered that her sole beneficiary will be whoever is able to solve her murder within the week.

I really loved the dual timeline element of this story. Frances's journal entries were actually my favorite chapters. I changed my mind about who the killer was so many times, and I was still totally surprised by the ending. I also loved how quickly the ending wrapped up once the killer was revealed. This book was absolutely fantastic.

Naturally the subjects in this book are a little dark and existential. Be sure to check trigger warnings for good measure before reading.

I think this book would be great for fans of Knives Out

Kristen Perrin is a new author for me and this is the first of a new series. I am pleased to say that I loved the book! I found it to be much more similar to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series than to Knives Out or The Thursday Murder Club though.

Description:
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?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

My Thoughts:
I was caught up in the plot almost immediately upon starting the book and couldn't put it down until I was finished. I was totally engrossed. I loved the eccentricity of Frances as well as Annie's determination to find out what happened to Frances. The contest element of the will seemed daunting because the timeline forced such a fast pace. The prose was well written and the blending of what happened in the past and the present time was seamlessly done. There were many characters and quite a few suspects leaving a lot of avenues to investigate. I was not able to guess the murderer. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a good mystery. I'm eagerly anticipating the next book in this series.

Thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Dutton through Netgalley for an advance copy. Explected publication on March 26. 2024.

📱 How to Solve Your Own Murder 📱⁣
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⁣Genre- Cozy Mystery. ⁣
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⁣Length- 368 pages. ⁣
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⁣My thoughts- I’m not typically a big fan of cozy mysteries… I usually find them too slow, but this book was totally captivating. Annie Adams, a wannabe mystery writer, must figure out who murdered her great-aunt if she wants to win a large inheritance and save a picturesque small down from becoming a housing complex. ⁣
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⁣This book gave me all the Agatha Christie vibes! It’s complex and twisty with a lovely village atmosphere. While there is a ton of characters, I found them easy to follow. I liked how the story alternated between Annie and Frances’s diary entries. ⁣
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⁣I recommend this one to mystery lovers! Four stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
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⁣How to Solve Your Own Murder publishes tomorrow- March 26, 2024. Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for my honest review!

I really enjoyed this book and can't wait to see what comes next in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguins Group Dutton for the eARC & happy early pub day!

Cozy mystery is an accurate description of this book. The story alternates between Annie’s present day story and her Great Aunt Frances’s diary entries written when she was a young woman. Annie leaves London to visit a small town in England for Frances’s will reading, however Frances ends up dead before Annie is able to meet her and she extends her stay to try and solve her aunt’s possible murder. Since this is listed as a #1 in a series, I’m interested to see where this story goes. The first installment was a fun read and kept me guessing until the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguins Group Dutton for this eARC!

Thank you for the ARC and happy almost pub day! This was such a fun read. Unexpected, different than most books in this genre. Can a book about murder be funny? This one was. Loved the setting and look forward to reading more in this series.

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin has a unique premise that as a sixteen year old, Frances has her fortune read and part of that fortune is that she will be murdered. Throughout her life,
Frances tries to preemptively solve her murder. The story is told in alternating POV between the diary Frances kept as a teenager and the present day as her great niece is working to solve the actual murder of Frances.

I went into this book skeptical as I’m not a big fortune telling kind of person, but ended up very much enjoying it. While the fortune was a big part of the premise it didn’t take over the plot. I thought Perrin did a great job of keeping readers in suspense about “who dun it” and revealing clues slowly throughout the book. While the mystery was successfully wrapped up at the end, I would love to see another book with some of the same characters!

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.