4.5 ⭐️ (rounded up to 5)

Really enjoyed this book! The MC’s voice is witty, and she’s flawed but still likable and relatable. The authors footnotes are hilarious, and were often my favorite parts of reading the book. She foreshadows further books, and I’m excited to read those as well!


Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this book. This review reflects my honest thoughts on this book.

This book was a thrilling ride! Despite being a murder mystery, it was highly entertaining.

The story is told from the perspective of Eleanor, an author on a book tour in Italy with an intriguing cast of characters. Their interactions were engaging, particularly the witty banter between Eleanor and the others. Eleanor speaks directly to the reader, making it feel like you're part of the investigation to uncover the murderer. The footnotes were a nice touch, providing entertaining additional thoughts from Eleanor. And the ending delivers an unexpected twist that will leave you in awe.

If you're a fan of mystery, romance, and comedy, I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to the NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and the author for the gifted e-book.

Thank you net valley for this arc!

This cozy was fun! I like how the author breaks the fourth wall so to speak. The story moved around a nice pace, and the setting was great. I listened to this on audiobook and the reader did an excellent job!

This is a light and fluffy mystery. I enjoyed it as a pallete cleanser from my more serious thrillers. I think many people will enjoy. I loved the humor mixed in.

A fun read! Eleanor is a well-known author on an Italian tour with other authors, the man who inspired her lead character, and a group of reader influencers. Of course, there’s death but also attempts on several attendees’ lives. Lots of humor, sarcasm, death, and love.

Eleanor Dash is a bestselling author ready to kill off the leading man in her books. While on a promotional book tour in Italy with her sister, several authors, and the man that inspired this character, someone is literally trying to kill him. Eleanor narrates the book and hilariously fills the reader in on her thinking through footnotes. With Italy as the backdrop, the cast of characters that will at times make you laugh out loud.

Catherine Mack’s Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies is a cozy, who-dunit type mystery. I alternated between the audio version & book version. I loved the narrator, as well as the author’s writing style. The story was great, the narrator held my attention- all in all a super fun read (listen). I can usually tell within the first few minutes if I will like an audiobook & this narrator hooked me from the beginning. Fast paced & Very entertaining - just what I needed!

Thank you NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for an ARC copy. .

3.5 stars, rounded up
Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies, is a fun, light mystery. It breaks the fourth wall with Eleanor Dash, the main character, speaking directly to the reader. Eleanor is the author of 9 successful murder mysteries. She’s currently plotting out the tenth and what she intends to be the final book in the series. Her publisher has sent her, her “consultant”, her sister/assistant, 20 of her ardent fans (including one stalker) and several other successful authors on a ten day tour of Italy. Put aside your qualms that no publisher would send rival authors on a fan fest for another’s work. The implausible reason serves to get enough possible murder suspects in one place. And there will be a murder, even if it takes ages before it occurs. Connor, the “consultant”/inspiration/blackmailer/prior love interest of Eleanor’s, is convinced someone is trying to kill him. And he doesn’t mean Eleanor’s plan to kill off his character in the upcoming book.
There’s lots of humor in this book. I appreciated Eleanor’s snarky sense of humor. For example, she has a blast pointing out how many violent expressions there are in the English language.
The book moves at a brisk pace. I did find that several key scenes never seemed to play out so that I could envision them. Also, a few plot points were implausible. But it was entertaining, nonetheless. And I only partially guessed how this would play out and who was behind things.
Be aware, this is a novel that contains footnotes.
My thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley, Minotaur Books, and Catherine Mack for an advance copy of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies in exchange for an honest review. This is a debut novel for this author in what we can hope is the beginning of a vacation mystery series. We find ourselves in Italy with bestselling author, Eleanor, as her life turns into a real life murder mystery like something straight out of her books. The story flows nicely and we meet some fun characters (Id love to see some sort of spinoff where Harper is in the center of the story) that really help build up the plot. I love the different love connection aspects of the storyline and it added a little fun spice to the plot. I was happy with the ending and I thought I had everything figured out and I absolutely did not (so thats always fun!). This would be the perfect cozy to cozy up with on the beach or on your next vacation- you can grab a copy on April 30th, 2024!

DNF at 50% because there isn't enough plot to keep me invested, just the same loop of things and hinted at "secrets to be revealed later". Also I'm sorry I cannot stand the footnotes. I've read books with footnotes that have worked seamlessly and this book they are just intrusive and kept taking me out of the narrative (and were pointless and mostly sassy/whining).

I love the idea of a mystery writing being involved in solving a mystery, but have we even gotten to the mystery part? Also I get it's the POV of an author/authors but they dismissive and slightly haughty tone used whenever talking about (AND TO) readers really put me off. The MC is such a pick me girl that I could not connect with her.

Catherine Mack's writing style was unlike anything I've ever encountered before; in a good way! I laughed, and laughed throughout this entire book. While I was only semi-surprised at the ending it was such a fun read that I can't wait to read the next installment. This is a fun vacation read that I would definitely recommend to my book club. I did receive this as a free ARC, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was looking forward to reading this novel. Awesome locations in Italy, a story with a whodunnit twist and strong female characters.

The narrative, however, feels like someone is treading in staccato through my mind whilst creating a havoc.

It could be just me, but I‘m really struggling to understand the context of a chapter with this narration style.

The jokes in the footnotes are nicely written, but they’re not relatable to me. I don’t find them funny 😳.

Overall 2.5 start rounded up.

I will read more of this author to develop a wholistic opinion about her narration style. After all, the idea of this novel is generally quite appealing.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Slow, slow burn until a little past halfway. I liked the different style of this writing, including the hilarious foot notes. Interesting take on a story, having the main character crafting the story as if she’s actually the author. This one didn’t really do it for me, but I wanted to see it thru. Thanks Net Galley for the ARC.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.5/5)

𝑴𝒚 𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔:
This book was the perfect escape novel for me right now. Not only did I find the authors writing style super easy to read and follow, but I found her sense of humor hillarious!

Our main character (and POV narrator) Eleanor was perfect for this story in my opinion. Since the character is an author, it makes perfect sense that her ability to narrate the story was very easy going, and done in almost a story-telling tone. Some people may not be a fan of this, but the addition of her footnotes throughout the chapters was perfect! It really gave more backstory or details about certain things, without having to veer away from the storyline (it was made clear that the footnotes were optional, but you should definitely read them!).

As for the plot, I found it pretty fascinating! The concept was great, and it was fun to be able to play detective to this quirky cast of characters. I’m excited that this is the first book in a series, because I will definitely be picking up the next one once it’s released.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good cozy mystery with multiple character storylines, and who also loves just reading books taking place in beautiful Italian cities annd towns.

𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒇 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆:
- 😹 A narrator with a sense of humor
- 🇮🇹 Picturesque Italian scenes
- 🧐 An entertaining ‘Who dunnit’

𝑾𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑷𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈: The only correct answer for this is an Aperol Spritz (iykyk)🍹

This is a very smart mystery, but told in an odd way. Eleanor is a mystery writer who is on tour for her first book's tenth anniversary. There are a number of other writers as well as people with connections to her series on the trip as well: such as her sister who is her assistant and Conner Smith, who is a former love interest and actual a real life character in her books. Conner is a dog, who has actually been blackmailing Eleanor for percentage of her book sales for years. Now Conner is convinced that someone is trying to kill him. Eleanor is actually planning to kill him! Well the fictional version of him from her books anyway. At first she doesn't believe someone is trying to kill him, but it's not long before she begins to suspect he may be right. Then she thinks she might actually be a target as well. But why? Sure plenty of people have reason to want Conner dead, but she can't understand why anyone would want her dead as well. I really liked these characters and the story is excellent. My only real issue is in how author Catherine Mack decided to write the story. She includes many many many footnotes, which honestly is just Eleanor's inner thoughts/4th wall breaking. I didn't get why she chose to not to just weave this into the regular narrative and instead went with footnotes. As such you either had to flip to the footnote as they appeared to get the context or read them all at once at the end of the chapter at which point the comment might not make any sense without flipping back to find was happening when the footnote occured. That being said I enjoyed the story and will definitely be reading the next book in this series...and from how this books ends we already have an idea of what that story is going to be about. Thanks so much to St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an ARC of Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies.

3.5 Light and fun! Fans of the Finlay Donovan series will feel right at home! This has much of the same fun banter and shenanigans yet does its own unique thing. The fourth wall is repeatedly smashed down as we circle through suspects of a murder and lots of almost murders.

Love that this took place in Italy! And the setting was very much incorporated into the story. Our characters are funny and relatable. There’s romance and ex-lovers and blackmail galore.

I am being a bit picky here but I just didn’t enjoy the footnotes. They would have been fun if there were less but I didn’t love having to click every few paragraphs for a pithy one-liner and my brain just wouldn’t let me skip them.

This mystery is an easy read. It’s entertaining, and the plot moves quickly. We get an Italian locale, some vapid beautiful people, and a sarcastic narrator. But it’s mostly frivolous and tries too hard to be quirky and funny. Every chapter has a large quantity of footnotes in which the narrator gets even more quirky and “funny.” I don’t mind footnotes, but there were too many to keep up with, and the device interrupted the action. It may have been easier if I weren’t reading the story via ebook. I read this in a day and forgot the plot in about an hour. Oh, I had pretty much figured out who did it about 50% in.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an advance copy of this book. My review is voluntary and reflects my honest opinion.

My summary: Ten years ago Eleanor met Connor, a dashing private investigator who turned out to be a con man, in Rome. They had a whirlwind romance and solved a high profile bank robbery case and a murder. Eleanor went on to write a novel based on the events and changed everyone’s name except for Connor’s—which led to Connor demanding (blackmailing? extorting?) a percentage of her advances and royalties. Now ten years later and writing her tenth book, Eleanor decides she’s going to kill off Connor—figuratively, of course—and finally be free of him. She just has to survive one last book tour trip with Connor in Italy. The only problem? It seems that someone else is already after him.

My thoughts: This is likely the most lighthearted murder mystery you will ever read. I 100% picked it based on the title and cover and I was not disappointed at all.

Written as first person narration, it feels like the author is telling you this story over a spritz. It is overall really fun and entertaining. It’s a fast read and the pages flew right by. I literally laughed out loud at times. It is the quintessential vacation read.

I was super amused by all of the writer and book industry jokes. I have no idea how accurate it all is, but I’m going to say it is all completely true and there’s nothing you can say to convince me otherwise at this point.

These footnotes. Absolutely hilarious and completely made the book for me. They are quirky and endearing and funny—but also made me want to chuck my e-reader across the room at first. (My copy was an unformatted ARC edition, so never fear, I’m sure they’ll be perfect once published.) But the footnotes grew on me quickly and soon became my favorite part. Dear Editor—please let her keep them! (If they’re really on the chopping block, I have no idea what is real or not real here.) (See, all of these parentheses could have been footnotes.)

Buckle up, fellow readers, because this book is about to become the star of your summer book club! It’s a rollercoaster of laughs, thrills, and unexpected twists that'll have you flipping pages faster than you can say "whodunit." With footnotes that are pure perfection and a blend of murder and romance that's downright addictive, it’s like Agatha Christie met her hilarious alter ego. Trust me, you won't want to put it down! Mark your calendars for the end of the month because this book is a must-have addition to your summer reading list. Highly, HIGHLY recommend!

This was so much fun!! I loved how self aware the book was. The footnotes were my favorite (which is impressive cause I usually hate footnotes in books). All the characters were great, the plot was just so entertaining. The audiobook was great! loved the narrator!! A great, fun, silly cozy mystery!

Now for the very very long wait till book #2!