A super fun murder mystery set in multiple cities in Italy. I love the lighthearted writing and found it similar to the Finlay Donovan book series. The perspective constantly breaks the fourth wall and uses (often cheeky!) footnotes. The story follows Eleanor Dash, who is a mystery series writer while she's on tour in Europe. She soon realizes that she is being targeted by someone trying to kill her!

The story evolves like one of her murder mystery travel novels. I really enjoyed how meta this story was. The cast of characters was vibrant and well-written. I really liked learning about Elle's backstory and tidbits about the publishing world. There's a rekindled romance and a widening mystery. I listened to the audiobook, which is perfectly narrated by Elizabeth Evans. She captures Eleanor's snark perfectly. It's quick moving and super fun. Definitely a perfect beach read!

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for providing this ebook / audiobook ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies is the cozy mystery series debut of Catherine Mack. Focusing on a mystery writer and her friends and colleagues, this was a pretty quick read with numerous suspects.

Author Eleanor Dash is on a book tour with her sister/assistant Harper, ex-boyfriend/novel's hero Connor, and several other writers when Connor asks for Eleanor's help because he thinks someone has been trying to kill him. Filled with humor (a lot in the footnotes) and too many suspects to keep straight, El has her work cut out for her. When she's pushed and almost falls down a steep flight of stairs, they start to wonder who has it in for BOTH of them. Taking place over several days in different Italian cities, the perpetrator has to be someone in their group...Is it Harper, who hates that Eleanor got the writing life she wanted? Connor's ex-wife, who divorced him after finding out about Eleanor? Shek, because his marketing budget is being "diverted" to Eleanor's next book? It could be anyone!

The writing is casual, a lot of the time it's as if she's talking directly to you, the reader (which seems to be popular right now). There are several people, and at some point I gave up trying to remember who they all were. I thought I knew the whodunit early on, just not the why, but I was so far off!

All in all, a great start to the Vacation Mysteries series. For anyone who loves books about books, or books about authors, this is a contemporary cozy mystery that hits all the right places for cozy lovers.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @Minotaur_Books for a digital copy for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.

Reading Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies made me crave pasta. It takes place in Italy and they are constantly eating yummy sounding food. Setting that aside, I LOVED THIS BOOK. It is the story of an author with a successful crime series based on vacations who is on a book tour in Italy when things run amok. A bunch of authors, rabid fans, possibly a stalker, all thrown together trying to figure out a crime. It was absolutely hilarious. I guffawed and snorted. The footnotes added were absolutely genius. There was so much snark and sarcasm with pop culture references peppered throughout and the quirkiest and funniest group of characters thrown together. And for us book nerds, some inside jokes. This is a must read this summer.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies by Catherine Mack
⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 344 / Genre: Cozy Mystery

Eleanor Dash is an author on a book tour in Italy for the tenth book in her wildly successful book series, The Vacation Mysteries. The main character is the dashing Connor Smith, who’s based on her real-life ex with the same name. But in real-life, he’s just as handsome but also a jerk who’s been black-mailing her for 20% of her royalties on every books she writes. And she’s had it. She’s ready to kill him off in the series to be done with him once and for all. Unfortunately, someone is actually trying to kill him in real life on this book tour, putting her in danger.

Overall, this was a fun cozy mystery. And I loved the Italian setting. But it was ruined by all the too cutesy and numerous footnotes throughout the entire book. Trying to keep up with all the footnotes was annoying and they were totally unnecessary. They were mostly the author trying too hard to be cute and funny, but instead were just irritating. So, 4 stars for the book without the footnotes and 3 stars with them.

Thank you, @netgalley and @minotaur_books for my gifted copy.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book! A fun and cozy beach read to spice up a more relaxing (but perhaps sometimes a little too boring!) getaway, this book has fun characters, good twists, and an enticing narrative. I enjoy vacation mysteries that take place in settings where I will vacation so it feels like I'm getting drawn into the drama of a vacation spot without all the real-life consequences!

Audio read. This was a fun mystery. The reader was so good at bouncing back and forth between the characters. No spoilers but just when I thought I knew….I didn’t!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a straight up mystery. This book was a fun trip through Italy, following a famous novelist and her “friends” on a book tour while trying to figure out who is attempting to kill one of their group. The narrator broke the fourth wall frequently, often through footnotes, which made the book unique and engaging. It had that tongue-in-cheek feeling, like the book was in on some joke about itself. I found myself smiling at some of the conversation between the narrator and the reader, and what I found most interesting was that it seemed like the conversational writing was a chance for the author, Catherine Mack, to express her opinions and observations without writing it directly into the story. Like I kind of feel like I know her, and she seems fun! The pop culture references were well done, and I agree that The Princess Bride is genius and you should both read the book and watch the movie.

That being said, I’m just not in a mystery phase right now, and I found myself putting the book down at multiple points despite the plot moving relatively quickly. The footnotes were also somewhat distracting after a while, and I think they did interrupt the flow of the story (maybe why I kept getting distracted?). They are totally optional, but I didn’t want to miss anything so of course I read all of them. If you need something relatively benign to read (no smut or nightmare inducing thrills), this would be perfect. Or if you’re trying to get into the “vacation in Italy” mode (I did check flight prices after reading this).

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!

Thank you netgalley and publisher for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies follows Eleanor Dash, an author, on her Italian book tour. People start dying off and this book becomes a fun, faced paced mystery novel. We follow the main character through her book tour and murder attempts. There are funny foot notes included, which were enjoyable but the formatting was a little distracting. Overall, an easy and fun read for anyone who likes low-stakes mystery.

I had so much fun with this book. I quickly read it and then got an audio copy and LOVED the audio version so much, if not more. Eleanor is an author and while on vacation with the book ladies they are joined by other authors represented by the publisher. When people start dying there is definitely something going on. I love that it is sort of narrated by the main character and she is talking to us through the entire story and walking us through the mystery and helping us figure it out. Will you figure it out before it is too late?

Congrats to Catherine Mack on her 4/30 pub day!! I just finished this NetGalley 'cozy mystery' / romance novel. I liked the mystery component and was actually totally in the dark as to who did it! Kudos to the author! But that may have been due to me being massively distracted by the footnote-heavy writing style of the book. Not only could I only see the whole page if I read it on my laptop (formatting on my kindle was a big mess, and my iPhone was readable only in landscape mode, a few lines at a time), I found it so hard to see the footnotes in the text, then my eye had to jump (and my fingers scroll) to the footnote at the bottom to read it, then go back to what I was reading in the body of the text. There are hundreds of footnotes, so this was annoying and exhausting by the end. And then there are a few chapters where the author speaks to the reader directly. What I STRONGLY SUGGEST to Catherine Mack's editors is that they indent and italicize all the footnote comments within the body of the novel so the reader can just read right on through like normal, but still get the vibe of the footnotes. And I respectfully request that publishers make kindle editions readable before release to ARC programs like NetGalley! I would read another Vacation Mystery by Mack, but only if the footnotes go away in future books. I also found the number of characters to be quite high, more than were needed for plot purposes. 3-stars because of footnotes. 4-stars for plot and writing.

Take this book on vacation! Eleanor Dash (our protagonist) writes a series of mysteries where she runs into murders when she's on vacation. The series begins when Eleanor encounters a murder on vacation and she has to write out the situation to make sense of it. To celebrate her 10th book, her publisher sends her on a tour of Italy with a cohort of seemingly random other writers and a group of her fans called the Book Facers. Eleanor narrates what happens on the tour. This requires frequent asides to her reader so she includes (mostly humorous) footnotes at the bottom on the pages. She lets the reader in on the investigation by pointing out clues and brings us along for the ride. I think this would fall into the 'cozy' category, not usually my thing, but I really enjoyed this book. Many thanks to Net Galley for this advance copy in exchange for a review on its site.

This was a cute cozy mystery with footnotes that I found incredibly distracting. It was hard to switch back and forth between the chapter and footnotes on the Kindle. The story was nothing new, but might have been funny if the footnotes were actually part of the reading. I had to make myself finish it. It just would not hold my interest.

This is a fun read with lots going on - an author, Eleanor, on a book tour in Italy with her main character, and past- boyfriend who has blackmailed Eleanor for years, so that she wants to kill him off (in her book) to be free of him, only to find out that someone is trying to kill him. Add to the mix, that Eleanor’s fan club, including a stalker, is on the book tour and the fact that someone is also trying to kill Eleanor! Wheew!

This was a fun and snarky cozy mystery. Eleanor is an author on a book tour celebrating the tenth anniversary of her first book. She is with a tour group of so-called friends and other authors and when someone dies- they are all suspects.

The setting along the coast of Italy makes this a perfect beach read! Make sure to have an Aperol or Lemon spritz to drink while you read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoy this book. I honestly did not how the suspect would be revealed but I was surprised. I’m wondering if it’s going to be a series. The characters were and the banter was realistic. It was light and cozy mystery

A fun read! Loved all of the footnotes - such a different writing style that really worked for this novel!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press & Netgalley for the chance to read and rate this ARC!

"Every Time I Go on Vacation, Somebody Dies" is an absolute gem in the world of mystery novels! Catherine Mack's storytelling prowess shines brightly in this witty, suspenseful, and utterly enjoyable read. From the charming backdrop of Italy to the quirky characters and the intricate plot, Mack keeps readers hooked from the first page to the last. The way she seamlessly blends humor with suspense is nothing short of brilliant, making this book a delightful rollercoaster of emotions. With each page turn, you'll find yourself drawn deeper into Eleanor Dash's world, rooting for her as she navigates through literary rivalries, unexpected twists, and heartwarming moments. Mack has crafted a masterpiece that will leave readers eagerly anticipating the next installment in this captivating series. If you're looking for a mystery novel that will keep you guessing while also leaving you in stitches, "Every Time I Go on Vacation, Somebody Dies" is the perfect choice!

I listened to and read an ARC via NetGalley

Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies was a book that I kept coming back to as I was contemplating my yearly pick for my book club. I kept reading about how fun it was, and while it wasn’t my pick, I couldn’t wait to read it.

I read this book as an arc on my kindle, so please take my review with a grain of salt - it was messy. Quite literally, the formatting of the book was a mess. The narrator, an author on a book tour in Italy with several other authors and fans, uses footnotes to interject pithiness into the story. Reading on my kindle, the footnotes were all over the place and tremendously distracting. So much so that I set this book aside several times to come back to later when I could focus more on reading it. I might have liked that format better if I had a physical copy of a book with the footnotes at the bottom of each page or consistently at the end of a chapter with the easy ability to flip back and forth to see the text.

The story begins in Rome, where we are introduced to Eleanor Dash, an author, her sister/assistant, and the other authors and associated entourage on the book tour of Italy. Learning the background of the characters and their connections is somewhat disjointed, but as the book progressed, it flowed better and became easier to read.

Overall, I thought this was a fun story that reminded me of Everybody in my Family has Killed Somebody. This will be a series and I will probably read the next book.

We are big fans of Catherine McKenzie’s books, so when I learned she was writing under a new pen name and that she was writing a fun, cozy murder mystery, I knew I needed to get my hands on it. I’ve been having trouble getting into thriller suspense novels lately. I’m a mood reader, and I just haven’t been loving the darker novels, not because they are poorly written, but because I haven’t been in the mood to read them. I absolutely adored this book. It’s the mystery novel I’ve been craving. It’s fun, quirky, and has characters that have larger-than-life personalities. Yes, people die in this story, and yes, there is a murderer on the loose, but the overall story isn’t dark. It reminds me of the movie Glass Onion (the second Knives Out movie with Daniel Craig). This book is really well written. The plot moves along steadily, and Catherine has time for those dramatic twists perfectly. It’s an easy and enjoyable book to read. An added bonus is Catherine has included other fun tidbits in this book. There are footnotes and excerpts from various documents discussed in this book. It’s made the reading experience more immersive.
The characters in this book are unforgettable. They all have these very loud and strong personalities, and when they are forced to spend time together on Eleanor’s book tour, shit hits the fan on multiple occasions. The character interactions in this book are fabulous. They are all divas in their own way, and I just ate up all that delicious drama.
Eleanor is an interesting main character. She is far from perfect and would be the first to admit she has made big mistakes. Personally, I really enjoyed her character and loved spending time with her. Even though she writes murder mysteries, she is not a very savvy detective (something she admits), which I liked. She makes mistakes and makes wrong guesses along the way, but heck, so did I when I was trying to figure out who the murderer was. The fact that her character was flawed made it easier to connect with her.
I loved the mystery in this book. It was so much fun figuring out which character the murderer is. Catherine kept me guessing right until the very end. You know someone is out to kill Conner and possibly Eleanor, but you have no idea who. Every character has the motivation to want both Conner and Elanor dead; the question is who has the means and opportunity to do so.
Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies is a fabulous start to a new murder mystery series.

A fun, fresh approach to the cozy mystery! I loved the first person narrative that seemingly broke the 4th wall before an announced and more deliberate crashing through that wall. I loved the footnotes as they provided quirky insights into the mind of the author-protagonist. What a fun technique Mack used! Many chapters ended like a 21st century British cop show - with a shocking turn of events that made it impossible to return to my own life at that moment. Every character provided something to love and something to hate. The casual tone and modern slang hit the mark (unlike other novels I’ve read recently that made me cringe at such attempts). I think when I realized the genius of Mack was when she had the author-protagonist telling us about the literary techniques she might be using “if” she were writing about her experience in a novel as opposed to describing her current reality. I can’t help but think Agatha Christie herself would have found this as entertaining a read as I did.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, Netgalley, and the author for early access to this fascinating novel.