In 1965 a prediction from a fortune teller changes Frances Adam’s life forever. 60 years later her great-niece will be embroiled in the mystery revolving around Frances’s death.
In a race against the other beneficiaries of Frances’s will, Annie must use all her wits to crack the case.
Using Frances’s journal the story alternates between the past and the present, from one mystery, to another.
I had a hard time with this book. I wanted to love it but the action sequences kept pulling me out of the story. I feel like maybe it just needs another strong edit. To have one character fooling around laughing with her boyfriend and then on the next line they are giving serious dialogue, it just felt like the timing was off. There was a lot of telling, not showing. I’ll give this 2.75 stars, round up to 3.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

A perfectly fine book, but it just didn't work for me and I can't put my finger on why. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity.

I really enjoyed this classic-styled mystery, full of family and village secrets! The reveal was very well done, surprising without seeming to come from nowhere.

Frances received a fortune that she was going to be murdered, but the fortune teller had no important details, such as who? When? How? Why? So Frances' life revolves around stopping this event. It's a cozy story with shades of Agatha Christie, an old fashioned style of mystery, that is fun to read. Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

4/5 stars.

I greatly enjoyed this book. The characters were lovable and I wasn’t so anxious that I could still sleep at night.
It is a nice blend between traditional and cozy mystery. I imagine a tipsy agatha christie would have loved this. It’s a little more frothy and sugary while still feeling like an authentic and intelligent mystery.

There is only one reason this book is a 4 instead of 5 stars. I feel that there could have been a slightly stronger editorial hand. Especially in the middle, there were a few moments where I struggled to stay engaged. It felt that our girl was snuggled up reading the diary while all the other characters were taking action. I think with a little more editing, the book could have been condensed a bit more and been a 5/5 for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC!

Frances is given a fortune that one day she will be murdered. She loves her whole life keeping tabs on others in order to avoid her fortune. Then, one day her future comes true. Her great niece feels the clues left by the aunt to solve her murder.

This book switches from Frances’ journal back in the 1960s to present day with Annie putting the clues together. I had no clue who it was until it was laid out. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Loved it!

Thank you to Kristen Perrin, Penguin Random House and NetGalley for this ARC.

I love a good murder mystery and this book definitely checked the box. In the 1960s, Frances received an awful fortune from a fortune teller predicting her murder. She spends the rest of her life looking for clues as to who will betray her and who will be the reason for her demise. Switching to present day, Annie, who is Frances' great niece, has been asked to travel to Frances' estate for a meeting about her will. When the group arrives, they find Frances has been murdered. This plunges Annie into a real life murder mystery. Who did this to her Great Aunt? And what did it have to do with Frances' life in the 60s?

The first half of this book was a bit slow moving with many characters introduced but the second half really picked up steam.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

How to Solve Your Own Murder had a really fun premise, but it was hard for me to get into. I found the characters names, timeline and plot to be hard to follow, which usually isn't the case for me. I did however love the old timey feel and coziness and the murder mystery and the dual timeline.

We start the book out in the 1960's, where Frances goes to a fair where a fortune teller tells her that she will be murdered. Throughout her life, Frances was convinced the fortune teller is correct and keeps track of everyone and potential evidence ! Nobody believed that her fortune would come true, until she was found dead under mysterious circumstances.

Present day, Frances great niece, Annie, ends up trying to solve the case. And if she does, she could inherit Frances' massive fortune!

3.75 stars

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

In the small town of Castle Knoll, a fortune teller gives a grim peek into Frances Adams’ life – including an untimely death. She takes this prophecy very seriously and spends the rest of her life trying to track down her eventual killer.

The book is told in two voices, with Frances’s journal in the 60’s, and her great-niece, Annie, in the current time. Annie considers herself somewhat of a sleuth and is excited to engage in a contest that Frances sets up in her will. The other potential heir, Saxon, and Annie are given seven days to solve Frances’s murder with the winner getting the entire estate.

I liked the premise of the book, and the storytelling is good. It doesn’t have a tense feel, which I like from a who-done-it novel. It also suffers from way too many characters. There are so many past and present characters that it is really hard to keep track. I’m glad I read it on my Kindle so I could enter a name and figure out who this or that person was. While I enjoyed the book, the proliferation of characters was the problem for me because it could have been any of two dozen characters.

For me, most of the fun of reading a crime thriller is trying to guess who did it. In this book, there were way too many options and all of them seemed plausible. While I didn’t guess the ending, I’m not sure anyone could. That took a lot of the fun out of the book for me. It was a good book, but I didn’t love it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review.

This was a weird read for me. The first 50(ish)% of the book was a little slow and took me a decent bit of time to get through. Alas, I persevered and FLEW through the last half in less than a day. The author left just enough that you could solve along but not obvious enough that you lost interest. I thought the whodunit was very well executed and the reveal at the end an excellent finish. I do wish Annie and Crane got together or we had that closure at the end. I was really rooting for them!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin.

This was delightful, quirky, smart, and charming. A great cast of characters and a cozy mystery without being too cozy. Another good one to add to the growing number of fun and off-beat mysteries.

Great granddaughter is called to the estate of her great grandmother only to find she's been murdered. She has a week to solve the murder to inherit the estate. Book starts off extremely slowly but picks up once the investigation begins.

This was a decent murder mystery in British style (though you could occasionally tell that the author isn't British, some of the dialogue felt off). I did find it to be a bit slow in sections, and the characters slightly underdeveloped, but the plot was intriguing and the premise paid off with the big reveal at the end. I'd recommend this to cozy mystery fans!

Wow…what a terrific murder mystery! 1965 in rural Great Britain, a group of teenaged friends visit a “fortune teller” at a local carnival and one, Frances, receives an ominous message…”all signs point toward your murder.” This fortune directs the trajectory of the rest of Frances’ life, her friends’ lives and the small village where they live. Present day, Frances’ grandniece, Annie, receives a letter from a solicitor telling her to travel from her home in London to her Great Aunt’s estate because Annie is now her heir. But, when she arrives, her Great Aunt has been murdered and Annie and another potential heir are given a week to solve her murder so one of them will inherit all the wealth but if neither of them solves the murders the estate will become a golf course and shopping mall and they get nothing. Thus begins Annie’s journey into Frances’ past, the events of 1965-66 and the disappearance of one of the girls in their group of friends. Can Annie solve both mysteries or will she get herself killed when she may be getting close to identifying the killer(s)? Will she act on a spark of connection with a local detective? I hope there’s a sequel….

In 1965, Frances Adams goes with her friends to the English country fair expecting to have a normal night. While there a fortune teller tells Frances a fortune that one day she will be murdered. That night changes her until that fortune is her sole focus in life. Decades go by and no one ever believes her, until nearly sixty years later when Frances is murdered.

Annie Adams, Frances’s great niece, is summoned to her estate for a meeting the same weekend of the murder. Once she gets there Frances is dead and Annie is determined to solve her murder. Is Annie able to catch the killer? Or will she meet a similar fate as she gets closer to the answer of Frances’s murder?

This book has it all! Mystery, a cozy small town, eccentric characters, and it’s all set in the English countryside! I’m not normally a big fan of a cozy mystery but this one was perfect. The author made it easy to keep track of each character and the development they each undergo is amazing. As you read you get glimpses of the summer of 1965 alongside current day. The duel timelines were the perfect way to tell this story and added to the mystery of everything!

This book isn’t scary at all which made it so easy to read, and it had the perfect cozy vibes! If you like a good whodunnit this is definitely the book for you.

A charming mystery with lovely characters. I'm hoping that there will be another to follow.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC.

This was such a fun read. I’m going to recommend this book to quite a few people. I thought the plot and characters were pretty solid. I would read more from this author.

This book was fantastic! It was a double murder mystery from two different timeframes which I loved!
I enjoyed the story told through the diaries of Great Aunt Frances.
I enjoyed that there was some humor, especially in the relationship between Annie and Jenny.
I’m excited to recommend this book.

I was super into this book at first but it got slow after a while because there wasn’t really any true solving of the murder, it was just endless guessing of what could have happened.

How to Solve Your Own Murder has been on my tbr for months and I was so excited to get an Advanced Copy from Netgalley. I was not at all disappointed. It is nearly a perfect cozy mystery with several of my favorite story elements including dual timeline, alternating POV, and creepy old family mansions in the English countryside. As try as I might, I simply cannot inherit one – something to do with no relatives owning creepy old family mansions in the English countryside probably… no fair.
In the present day, Annie Adams, an aspiring writer, has been called to her great aunt Frances’ house on a matter of inheritance, but when she arrives she finds that Frances is dead of an apparent heart attack. But, as anyone who knew Frances knows, she has been obsessed with the idea that she will be murdered since a childhood fortune teller predicted this. Of course it is determined that in fact she has been murdered, and that the first person (Annie or a very suspicious distant cousin) to solve the murder will inherit everything.
This book was so much fun, I read it in less than two days and it had me fully engrossed. There are two central murder mysteries with such interesting back stories, and the extended cast of characters were wonderful. There were so many side stories and secret motives I got completely involved. I love mysteries that take place in small villages with old resentments and long buried secrets and this one is really great.
Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for the ARC of How to Solve Your Own Murder. I will definitely recommend this for any murder mystery lover, coming next spring.
4.5 STARS