EVERY TIME I GO ON VACATION SOMEONE DIES is about an author writing about being an author. Eleanor Dash is considering what’s next in her Vacation Mysteries series and she just really wants to get through this book tour and then kill off the (annoying) main character, Connor Smith, in the next book. The trouble is, Connor is also a real person, a gigantic pain, and on the book tour. When an actual murder attempt is made on Connor’s life, Eleanor’s fictional plans become blurred with the real mystery, and everyone’s a suspect.

This book is a ton of fun! It has a hilarious, snarky main character and a bunch of suspicious side characters that make solving the murder mystery entertaining. The fourth wall is broken wide open and there are tons of funny footnotes (which you can skip if they’re not your jam) that engage you as a reader and really bring you along for the ride.

I am so excited for the next in this series!

Thank you Catherine Mack and Minotaur Books for the advance copy! All thoughts are my own.

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies is book one in The Vacation Mysteries series by Catherine Mack.
This brand new series debut is so funny and engaging!
I had the absolute best time reading it.
I do believe that this is my most favorite murder mystery story ever!

Thank You NetGalley and Minotaur Books for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies is the first book in The Vacation Mysteries by Catherine Mack.

Eleanor Dash became a famous author after a whirlwind month trip to Italy and upon returning just had to write down everything that happened during her vacation .. meeting Connor Smith, their involvement in a series of robberies, murder and falling in love. When in Rome was that story and Eleanor even remembered to change all the names except Connor. Now nine books later Eleanor is still stuck with Connor, in book ten she is ready to kill Connor. .

Eleanor is on a ten day author tour in six Italian cities with five other mystery authors along with twenty fans and planning her tenth book in which she ready to kill Connor off, the only problem Connor believes someone is trying to murder him.

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies was an easy read and at times an amusing, simple whodunnit mystery. I felt it was rather clever of Catherine Mack to use Eleanor’s voice to talk to the reader. However, I did find that story did not hold my interest for long periods of time, I am going to blame that on the footnotes .. crafty writing style but as a someone reading on my kindle, I found it cumbersome to go back and forth to the end of the chapter – thus the 3 star rating. I am sure reading the physical book will make that a tad easier.

Thank you, Catherine Mack and Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This novel is due to be released on April 30, 2024.

A best selling author, 2 exes, an unhappy sister/assistant, a crazy fan, blackmail and murder go on vacation to beautiful Italy.

This had a great location, Italy was the perfect backdrop for this clever mystery filled with humor and great characters. Even breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the reader!! Lots of fun twists kept me guessing until the end.

4 ⭐️

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

(3.5 / 5 stars)

This is a fun, light mystery that you can easily pick up and put down - so great for a vacation! I do not consider myself an amateur detective or investigator by any means. When I'm reading a mystery, I am more interested in the characters and overall readability of the book, rather than attempting to keep track of all of the suspects, motives, means, and details needed to "solve the crime."

Every Time I Go on Vacation has a fun setting of a book tour in Italy. There are some family complications between the main character, Eleanor Dash, and her sister / personal assistant Harper. Eleanor is also dealing with two ex-boyfriends on the tour, and several other interrelated side characters.

Other observations:

- the book is self referential, which was occasionally confusing as I wasn't sure if there was actually an earlier book I should have read first
- there's lots of shout outs to other famous mystery writers and books (Agatha Christie in particular, which you don't need to have a background in to enjoy the book, but you'd certainly get more out of it if you did)
- Eleanor breaks the 4th wall several times to talk directly to the reader, which also adds to the casual feel
- all kinds of footnotes to add funny asides
- the writing is clever and fast paced, but fairly surface level

- unrelated to the content of the book, I would note that the formatting of this ARC made reading difficult. The footnotes did not translate well to a digital copy (you had to swipe forward or backward lots to find the actual footnote), and tons of random words were italicized. I tried not to let it affect my enjoyment of the book overall, but it was challenging.

This audiobook was delightful! I know it may not work for everyone but I love when an author or actor break the fourth wall and this happens often in this one. I found it super entertaining.
.
The tagline for this is perfect for a vacation mystery. “Ten days, eight suspects, six cities, five authors, three bodies ….one trip to die for.” This sums it perfectly!
.
Eleanor is the best selling author of the vacation mystery series but she’s looking to kill her main character, who happens to be based on her ex-boyfriend in real life. What if someone is trying to kill them in real life and the even bigger question is why? I would love to see this one as a summer tv series!

.
Huge thank you to #MacAudio2024 #minotaur and @netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
.

Such a fun cozy mystery! This had many laugh out loud moments and would make the perfect beach read book.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Scoville Spice Scale 🌶

Every time I Go On Vacation by Catherine Mack is a crazy, raucous tour of Italy that turns into a murder mystery. It's a funny book, cleverly written, breaking the fourth wall, and the Female Main Character even calls out the author!

"I shiver "Goodreads."
Emily takes a large gulp of her drink. "Goodreads is the worst." We start to laugh again."

Not only is this book a fun, suspenseful murder mystery, it also reads like a travel guide to Italy. From the Coliseum to Pompeii to a wine tasting at a little place called Wine and Drugs, the book immerses you in in Italy. You'll be craving an Aerpol Spritz by the end.

The cast of characters! We meet famous murder mystery author, Eleanor Dash and her sister, Harper, in Rome on a very hot day. This tour celebrates the 10th Anniversary of her first book When In Rome. On the tour are her BookFace FanClub Ladies who won their way into the tour and wear coordinating shirts with Eleanor's book covers on them each day. Somehow Cathy, her stalker, is amongst them. Also on the tour is Connor (aka SHUT UP, CONNOR), Allison (Connor's ex wife), Emily - an on the rise mystery writer, Shek - a seasoned mystery writer, Guy - a muscle fall guy of sorts who used to be in league with Connor, and Oliver - an author and Eleanor's Ex who she is still in love with.

As this book goes on there is a mystery unfolding within the group. Is someone trying to kill Connor? Is someone trying to kill Eleanor? This mystery takes us through Italy from Rome to the Med to Sorrento (big cliff!), Capri, the Amalfi Coast and more. With this backdrop, the mystery unfolds with suspense filled moments, pizza, and murder.

Eleanor is a delightful Female Main Character and the cast of characters around her play their parts wonderfully! I honestly suspected quite a few characters at one point or another. The twist did get me though. And it was good. So was the romance.

Read this book if you like:

🍷 Second Chance Romance
🔍Murder Mystery With Cosy Vibes
🍷MMC who is a touch her & die
🔍 Revenge
🍷Amazing descriptions of Italy

Thank you to @NetGalley and @stmartinspress for this gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

First, I’d just like to say, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS DIGITALLY. I did and I fully believe it ruined my experience. This book has footnotes which were impossible to follow digitally. I believe it does say the footnotes are optional but I feel like I didn’t get the full experience.

Second, this book is VERY meta. Extremely self aware, fourth wall breaking at times. It makes for an interesting narration style, one I’m not sure how to feel about.

Third, this book completely spoiled and ruined the two unread Agatha Christie books I have. So if you plan to read Murder on the Orient Express and the Murder or Roger Ackyard, read those first before reading this.

Overall, all of the above had me leaning towards just thinking this was OK but the ending saved it for me. I will be picking up book two whenever that comes out.

Eleanor wants to get through her Italian book tour so she can go home and write her next book where she plans to kill off her main character. What she doesn’t expect is to be in the middle of a real murder mystery. While on the trip, someone attempts to kill Connor, her ex that the main character of her series is based on and named after, Eleanor finds herself in the middle of trying to figure out who wants Connor dead and why.

With an unreliable narrator, twists and turns around every corner, and the most hilarious footnotes, this book was a blast! I love that it often broke down the fourth wall and with the footnotes often read as a stream of consciousness in a way that had me laughing out loud, but very unsure of what to believe. This book was so much fun to read and I think any fans of the Finlay Donovan series will love the humor and suspense this book brings!

I enjoyed the audiobook and the narration by Elizabeth Evans. While her narration was fantastic, I did find the physical book worked better for me. The footnotes were more clear in the physical, and although they flowed seamlessly into the story in the audio, my brain preferred the obvious difference on the page. I also preferred the physical copy when it came to the notes, lists, and brain dumps that occurred between chapters.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the advance copies.

What an interesting and fun book this was. This was a sort of whodunnit mystery that really focused on getting the reader to follow the clues and try and solve the mystery as well. This was done through the use of footnotes throughout the book, which at first was a bit tiresome and overdone but by the end I found that it flowed quite well. The fourth wall was broken several times with the narrator talking directly to the reader, which I feel is a trend but it is still fun for me. For a book about multiple murders, blackmailing, and generally bad topics, it was quite light and easy to read. Some of the choices of putting a supposed "cliffhanger" at the end of every chapter seemed a bit overzealous, but overall I found it a satisfying read. I enjoyed the main narrator, and I think that it was a good enough book that I would look to read more in the future. It appears this is going to be a series, and I hope to read the following books to come. I give this book 3.75/5 stars rounded up.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this book. All opinions within this review are my own.

Fun mystery about a mystery writer and her assorted colleagues, friends and fans - and, maybe enemies?

Eleanor is a best-selling writer on a book tour through Italy. She's decided that Connor, who has become one of her main characters in her books, should die in her next book. But when an attempt is made on Connor's life in reality, El finds herself in the middle of the mystery that is unfolding before their eyes! Somehow, everyone who is on the tour becomes a suspect - including Eleanor's sister, her ex, Oliver, and a few fellow authors, not to mention the book ladies on the tour, including one of El's stalkers! But is the killer after Connor, or maybe El, herself!

Special thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader Copy of this book! Pick it up this week, publishing date is April 30!

Oh my goodness, I LOVED this book!

Eleanor Dash is a best-selling author who didn't really mean to be a best-selling author and she loves footnotes.

Eleanor is on tour in Italy for her Vacation Mysteries Series, along with Connor Smith who happens to be the main character in her book. She and Connor met 10 years ago when she was basically sucked into his trap without even knowing it- now she has been stuck with him and is ready to kill him off in her next book so that they can be done with each other. What Eleanor doesn't expect is for Connor to die in real life, but it seems that someone else on the book tour trip has another plan. There are too many suspects and too much drama. We have blackmail, past hook-ups, past relationships, jealousy, lies and so many secrets.
It was so much fun reading this-- I didn't know what to expect next and even if I had an idea, it would have been wrong; and that's a good thing in a novel like this!

I VERY much would love to read more like this! Thank you for the opportunity to read this advanced digital reader copy in return for my honest review!

EVERY TIME I GO ON VACATION, SOMEONE DIES is the first book in a fun new cozy mystery series by Catherine Mack. The story is clever, funny and entertaining. The style is unlike anything I’ve read before. The main character, Eleanor Dash, speaks directly to the reader about being an author in the crazy world of present-day publishing. Eleanor is the best-selling author of nine murder mysteries and is in the process of plotting the tenth, and she hopes final, book in the series. She wants to kill off her wildly popular male character, Connor, so she can be done with both the fictional and the real-life Connor, who has been blackmailing her for ten years. Her publisher has sent her on ten-day book tour in Italy, with a crazy mix of attendees, including Connor, her sister and personal assistant, Harper, a couple of literary rivals, a group of ardent fans, a stalker and even her ex-boyfriend, Oliver. But when one of their tour group turns up dead, the entire cast of characters become suspects. Was someone actually trying to kill Connor or Eleanor? Who could want one or both of them dead and why? The footnotes included by Eleanor add to the quirky nature of the story. I enjoyed this well-plotted and engaging story and look forward to reading the next book in this series. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy.

Catherine Mack writes this hilarious book about a mystery writer writing a book about herself. She randomly talks to the audience telling them the back story of things going on in the book. At first it was hard to get use to it but it was so funny I couldn't stop reading. If you want a book that will keep a smile on your face or you need a good fun beach read grab this book.

Breaking the fourth wall - yes or no?

For me it’s very much on a book by book basis. I thought it worked wonderfully in Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies! It felt like I was sitting down with my buddy, Eleanor, being told all about this crazy trip she took to Italy and how she almost didn’t make it back home alive.

The frequent footnotes also made it feel like more of a chat, because that’s 100% how I talk when I’m talking to my friends - very scattered and with lots of verbal footnotes 😆 HOWEVER, reading it on my Kindle made it a huge pain in the butt to connect the footnote with where they were supposed to go.

Overall, this seems like a fun new series and I’m very excited for the next one!

Thanks @netgalley for this arc - out April 30 from @catherinemckenzieauthor and @minotaur_books

Synopsis:
All that bestselling author Eleanor Dash wants is to get through her book tour in Italy and kill off her main character, Connor Smith, in the next in her Vacation Mysteries series—is that too much to ask?

Clearly, because when an attempt is made on the real Connor’s life—the handsome but infuriating con man she got mixed up with ten years ago and now can’t get out of her life—Eleanor’s enlisted to help solve the case.

Contending with literary competitors, rabid fans, a stalker—and even her ex, Oliver, who turns up unexpectedly—theories are bandied about, and rivalries, rifts, and broken hearts are revealed. But who’s really trying to get away with murder?

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies is the irresistible and hilarious series debut from Catherine Mack, introducing bestselling fictional author Eleanor Dash on her Italian book tour that turns into a real-life murder mystery, as her life starts to imitate the world in her books.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It is well written and so much fun. Our main character, Eleanor Dash, is an author of cozy mysteries that take place in exotic locations where her main character solves murders with assistance from a good looking con man, Connor Smith.

In Italy, on her book tour Eleanor plans to write Connor out of the series. Connor is based on a real person, named Connor Smith, that Eleanor has a "past" with. Connor has been a thorn in Eleanor's side wanting compensation for her basing the character on him. Connor insists someone has tried to kill him, but it is not until someone from the book tour is killed that this becomes very real. Everyone on the tour is a potential suspect, and many have secrets, and some would want Connor dead, including an ex-wife and Eleanor.

The story is told in the first person and the author has footnotes making it all seem that Eleanor is talking to us. The characters are well drawn out and the story moves along at a brisk pace. This is the first in a new series and I eagerly await the next one. If you enjoy humor and a witty narrator this is a book for you. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Minotaur Books, for an ARC. The review is my own.

4 Stars
Romance and a murder mystery in Italy - Why wouldn't this be fun?
And for the most part, it was but the footnotes got slightly annoying with the

I did love the way it was written though - It was hilarious and I couldn't stop smiling

This was different for me! Author Eleanor Dash is on a tour of Italy for his first book’s 10th anniversary. With her is her sister, Harper, Connor Smith (one of the characters in her book), and a few other authors, including her ex, Oliver. Connor believers someone is trying to kill him and enlists Eleanor to help him figure it out. It seems that whoever it is doesn’t have their sights just set on Connor. Now everyone is a suspect. Secrets are revealed, fun is had, and everyone is suspicious of everyone.

This cozy mystery is hilarious and clever. It’s written very differently than anything that I have read and I loved it that way! The tone was very conversational, and that’s because literally Eleanor is having a conversation with you about what is happening thereby breaking the “fourth wall.” This made it very easy to read and very easy to be engaged in the book.

There is murder, mystery and romance in this book. So it was all my favorite things in one book, so that was great. It was easy to like Eleanor because she seemed to be very self aware. I liked most of the other characters too, except Connor, but I believe that was don’t purposefully.

For me, the setting in Italy helped make the book. I went to Italy on my honeymoon, and to the places that were talked about in the book: The Vatican, The Coliseum, Sorrento, Capri, Anacapri, and Ravello!

I will say this – there were almost 200 footnotes and after a while, it did get a bit annoying. Especially because the footnote would be a page or two later and then I would have to remember what line was footnoted. I did like the idea, but the amount of them was excessive.

Overall, a great read and I will read more in this series!

Everytime I Go On Vacation Someone Dies is a hilarious, witty, fun, addictive mystery that will keep you hooked and laughing your butt off. I loved the setting, the whole plot was so well thought out, executed perfectly.

The characters were so much fun, they were truly the highlight of this book for me. They were so eccentric, so out there. The narrator was sometimes over the top and obnoxious, but truly it made for the charm of this book. I did want to get to know the characters a little more since this is the first book in the series, but I will definitely be reading the upcoming ones.

I really enjoyed how the author constructed this book with all the footnotes, the new book outline, the way it was written as though she was speaking directly to you, I thought that was really fun. This one does end on a cliffhanger ! This was a fun cozy mystery that I will definitely recommend.

✨️ Thank you to @minotaurbooks, @netgalley, @macmillanaudio & @catherinemack for my gifted ARC & ALC in exchange for an honest review.